Where The Jews At

I love maps. I also love seeing maps with various colors representing, well, anything. In this case, Joshua Comenetz created this map of the U.S. Jewish population by the 113th Congressional districts.



This is fascinating. Here are some notes on the project:

- The estimate of the Jewish population in all Congressional Districts is 6,735,830, approximately 2.18% of the total U.S. population.

- Not surprisingly, there are more Jews in New York City and the greater NYC area than anywhere else. Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, Baltimore, Washington, and San Francisco/San Jose also have Congressional districts with at least 50,000 Jews.

- Conversely, there are virtually no Jews anywhere in North Dakota or South Dakota. The least Jewish district is Oklahoma's 2nd district with 0.004% of the population or 30 people. That's less than the number of people in the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout during a regular season game!

- There are over 10,000 Jews in the southeastern Arizona Congressional district? Even if Tucson is part of this district, that number seems high.

- Want more? The Berman Jewish Databank at the Jewish Federations of North America has a summary of the results including multiple downloads. My favorite is the Excel chart showing the estimated Jewish population of every Congressional district. Apparently, the district where I live has 22,000 Jews or 3.02% of the population

- Comenetz's 10-page PDF summary is available here.

- The Yeshiva World News has information too.