Click through the slideshow to see most and least Jewish states in America:
Most and Least Jewish States
A study measuring religious bodies in the United States called the, “2010 U.S. Religious Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study (RCMS)” was recently released by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB). The most comprehensive study of its kind, it provides detailed county-by-county information on congregations, members, adherents and attendance for 236 different faiths groups. (The survey differentiates between specific denominations within the same tradition.)
Close to 2.26 million Jewish adherents and 3,464 congregations were reported across the country in 548 counties. The researchers found New York to be the most Jewish state with around 4 percent of the population identifying as Jewish adherents. The researchers found Wyoming to be the least Jewish state with only about .02 percent identifying as Jewish adherents. New York reported 1,029 congregations for its 784,106 Jewish adherents while Wyoming reported just one congregation for its 127 Jewish adherents.
The researchers define adherents to be those with an affiliation to a congregation including children, members and attendees who are not members, and believe that the adherent measure is the most complete and comparable across religious groups. Congregations are defined as groups of people who meet regularly at a pre-announced time and location.
As illustrated in the map below, the most Jewish states where more than 0.6 percent of the population identify as Jewish adherents are located largely in the Northeast. States where less than 0.1 percent identified as Jewish adherents were mostly in the Midwest and in the deep South.
The most dense concentration of Jewish congregations is found in parts of the Northeast, South and West while most of the country did not report any Jewish congregations.
In the last 10 years, a number of counties in the Bible Belt states of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina and a few counties in the West reported that Jewish synagogues and temples were opened in areas where there were previously no Jewish places of worship. During the same period, a number of counties in Louisiana, Kansas and Oklahoma, among others in the Midwest and Northeast reported a drop in the number of synagogues and temples.
Bibliography:
Grammich, Clifford, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E. Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley, and Richard H. Taylor, 2012. 2010 U.S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.
Click through to see a list of most and least religious states in the United States as reported by Gallup:
