The 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study
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THE 2017 GREATER PITTSBURGH JEWISH COMMUNITY STUDY Matthew Boxer Matthew A. Brookner Janet Krasner Aronson Leonard Saxe 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study Version 1.1 Revised March 20, 2018 © 2018 Brandeis University Steinhardt Social Research Institute www.brandeis.edu/ssri Established in 2005 and housed at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, the Steinhardt Social Research Institute (SSRI) uses innovative research methods to collect and analyze sociodemographic data on the Jewish community. The Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies (CMJS), founded in 1980, is dedicated to providing independent, high-quality research on issues related to contemporary Jewish life. 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study Jewish Federation Acknowledgments The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has taken the lead for the past decade on measuring our community’s progress by developing the Community Scorecard. This 2017 Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study is the next step in a continuous process to provide real facts for the Jewish Federation, Jewish organizations, synagogues, and interested individuals to make informed decisions based on data. But now the real work begins: to leverage the strengths that make our community top-notch and to seize opportunities that address areas for improvement. We are grateful to many people who helped bring this study to fruition. Our thanks to the Jewish Community Foundation of the Jewish Federation, that funded this project in its entirety, the first of its kind in more than 15 years. Our thanks as well go to the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University for shepherding the research, patiently answering our questions and bringing their expertise to our work. Most of all, thanks to our volunteers and to you, the Jewish community, for participating and for supporting this project. There are many questions that come from what we learn in these pages. For example, how will we continue to foster Jewish education with a changed population of school-age Jewish children? How will we welcome interfaith families and those who identify as “just Jewish”? What will be our approach to synagogues as the number of Jews belonging to synagogues has declined? Where, throughout the greater Jewish Pittsburgh community, are the gaps in services? Take your time to familiarize yourself with these numbers. Ask questions. Start conversations. The full report can be found at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh's website, www.jfedpgh.org. Bring your own experience and understanding to the study. But be open to new and surprising facts. Please join us as we strive to become the BEST Jewish community of 49,200 possible. To do so, your participation is invaluable. Evan Indianer, Chair, Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study Meryl K. Ainsman, Chair of the Board, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Joshua Donner Rafael Engel, Ph.D, MSW Jordan Golin, Psy.D Susan Berman Kress, Ph.D Eileen Lane Bruce L. Rollman, MD, MPH Jane M. Rollman Brian Schreiber Jeffrey H. Finkelstein, President and CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Deborah A. Baron, Chief Operating Officer, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Raimy Rubin, Manager, Pittsburgh Jewish Community Scorecard 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study CMJS/SSRI Acknowledgments The Brandeis research team is grateful to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh for the opportunity to collaborate to develop and conduct the 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study. The study was proposed and sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, whose staff, Board of Directors, and community study committee provided valuable input on the study design, questionnaire, and report. We are particularly grateful to Community Scorecard Director Raimy Rubin, Committee Chair Evan Indianer, and Cindy Shapira, Chair of the Federation Board of Directors when the study began, who helped us learn about the community and ensured that our work would be of the highest quality and utility for the Pittsburgh Jewish community. We appreciate the generosity of the organizations that shared contact information with us for the purposes of this study. Finally, we thank the 2,111 respondents who completed the survey. Without their willingness to spend time answering numerous questions about their lives, there could be no study. We appreciate the efforts of the staff of Abt Associates, who served as the call center for this study. We were pleased to work with Benjamin Phillips, our former colleague at CMJS/SSRI, who directed the project at Abt Associates, assisted by Valrie Horton. Dennis Daly oversaw administration of the data collection operation. This project could not have been conducted without the assistance of a large group of our colleagues and students at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and Steinhardt Social Research Institute. We deeply appreciate their efforts. Elizabeth Tighe, Daniel Parmer, and Raquel Magidin led the efforts of the American Jewish Population Project team to develop the population estimates for this study. Matthew Feinberg ably managed the process of combining lists and deduplicating them. Camille Evans, Lev Paasche-Orlow, and Tamar Shachaf Schneider helped prepare mailings for the primary sample and cleaned data. Camille Evans, Yaoyao Gao, Jeff Hart, Leora Kagedan, Eve Litvak, Lev Paasche-Orlow, Tamar Shachaf Schneider, Joanna Spyra, and Gal Zahori spent countless hours searching for missing contact information for members of the sample. Breanna Vizlakh prepared a Russian-language version of the survey, which Sofiya Nuryyeva used to complete several interviews with respondents over the phone. Jeff Hart, Tamar Shachaf Schneider, Joanna Spyra, and Gal Zahori coded responses to open-ended questions in the survey. Jeff also developed Stata code to simplify the compiling of the Codebook and Comparison Charts. Naomi Weinblatt helped to prepare tables for the report. Deborah Grant provided editorial advice and feedback, and she and Masha Lokshin organized the report for its final layout. Masha Lokshin and Ilana Friedman provided logistical support throughout the study. Special thanks go to Sarah Harpaz, whose dedication to our work is deeply appreciated. Sarah managed the logistics of the study from Brandeis, liaising with the call center; fielding questions, concerns, compliments, and complaints from members of the sample; helping with reminders; assisting in the development and testing of the questionnaire; building the maps; and participating in countless other tasks necessary to the proper conduct of the study. 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study i Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables ................................................................................................................. iv Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 About This Study ............................................................................................................................. 5 Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 6 Undercounted Populations ............................................................................................................. 7 How to Read This Report .............................................................................................................. 8 Reporting Qualitative Data............................................................................................................. 9 Comparisons Across Surveys ......................................................................................................... 9 Report Overview .............................................................................................................................. 9 Report Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 10 Chapter 2. Demographic Snapshot of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community ................. 11 Jewish Population Estimate.......................................................................................................... 11 Jewish Adults .................................................................................................................................. 11 Jewish Households ........................................................................................................................ 12 Age and Gender Composition ..................................................................................................... 14 Household Composition .............................................................................................................. 15 Jewish Identity by Age .................................................................................................................. 15 Jewish Denominations .................................................................................................................. 16 Inmarriage and Intermarriage ...................................................................................................... 16 Jewish Young Adults ....................................................................................................................