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ALL of the sources listed - the Reform Jewish Magazine, and these others, get their numbers from the Hillel site I linked to. So, everyone is working off these estimates. The description on one of them is:
Jewish student population statistics are estimates only and have been provided, along with fraternity/sorority, Jewish courses, and Jewish studies information, by local Hillel foundations.</p>
<p>pbleic - If they are all working off that source, why are the numbers different? Could be different years I suppose. Not that important anyway.</p>
<p>interesteddad - I am just quoting what Yale itself says</p>
<p>[Factsheet</a> – Statistical Summary of Yale University](<a href=“http://yale.edu/oir/factsheet.html#Yale]Factsheet”>http://yale.edu/oir/factsheet.html#Yale) College Student Body Characteristics</p>
<p>I mean OK, it says white and other, but I assume the “other” must be unreported, and Asian is accounted for separately as is African American, Hispanic/Latino and Native American. Best data that exist right now as far as I can see. Whatever, it is only an estimate on all counts. I think the main point is we are likely dealing with a school that is 20-30% Jewish overall undergrad, and 30-40% or so of the white students. Not sure how it really matters beyond that.</p>
<p>I go to Emory and I can attest to the fact that there is a very noticeable Jewish population. Not sure of the exact percentages, but there is a large Jewish culture.</p>
<p>fallencheimst, it’s 70% of non-internationals, meaning 83% or white and other make up 58% of the total student body including internationals.</p>
<p>Just to present ONE issue, given that people with one jewish and one gentile parent are probably AT least as over represented on elite campuses as people with two jewish parents, and that said people can range from folks who are enthusiastically Jewish, to marginally Jewish, to athiests with a weaker sense of ethnic jewishness than atheists with 2 jewish parents, to marginal christians, to enthusiastic christians, I expect that absent a team of social scientists trained in Jewish demography there is NO WAY to get an “accurate” read, and its hardly surprising that estimates by Hillel, by campus admin, etc, vary wildly.</p>
<p>Surprising numbers. We have only a few million Jews in the states and most of their kids are at one of the top schools. How can you tell who’s a Jew and who’s not? Almost all of them are white to me except a few African Jews.</p>
<p>pbleic, Thanks for the clarification. Had we known it from the start, we would’ve saved three pages of heated debate. Do these organizations have a reason to believe these estimates represent a true picture? Have they done a study linking the estimates and true numbers at all?</p>
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<p>Well, people with two Jewish parents can range from enthusiastically Jewish to marginally Jewish (etc) just as well as people with one Jewish / one non-Jewish parent.</p>
<p>As for those with one J / one non-J parent who identify as marginal or enthusiastic Christians … they aren’t going to show up to Hillel events anyway. I know Orthodox Judaism would consider the subset of those with a J mother / non-J father as Jewish, but honestly it’s pretty silly to call someone Jewish if the person doesn’t self-identify as such and practices another religion. </p>
<p>What’s the old joke? How can you tell the Jewish kids from the gentiles at Hillel? I’m butchering the joke, but the gist of it is that the Jewish kids have the last names of O’Hara and Gonzalez whereas the gentiles have the last names of Goldstein and Rosenblum.</p>
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<p>Although various branches of the Jewish religion have specific definitions of who is a Jew, for the purposes of these statistics (which aren’t official, anyway, because colleges don’t collect information on this aspect of students’ heritage), I think that if you say you’re Jewish, you are. I don’t think anyone has any particular motivation to lie about whether or not they’re Jewish; being Jewish doesn’t give you a boost in college admissions the way that being a member of an underrepresented minority group does. And at the kinds of colleges we’re talking about, where the Jewish community is a major presence, I don’t think there’s any motivation for students who are Jewish to say that they are not. </p>
<p>Jews are one of the cultural groups in the United States who place a high value on education – much like many Asian groups do. Thus, a higher proportion of their kids go to college in general and to top colleges in particular, as compared to kids from some other ethnic groups (including the rest of the white population). So it’s really not that much of a surprise (at least to those of us from the Northeast, who expect it). </p>
<p>Not all of the schools on the list are top schools, though – there are some lower-ranking ones (like the University of Maryland).</p>
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I am simply reading off of the descriptive information on the original PDF, and the two posted websites. They all are taking their numbers from these Hillel estimates, according to the explanatory notes. I would guess they are working off different years.</p>
<p>“Well, people with two Jewish parents can range from enthusiastically Jewish to marginally Jewish (etc) just as well as people with one Jewish / one non-Jewish parent.”</p>
<p>which of course is why i said ONE issue, its not the only one that impacts the difficulties.</p>
<p>But it impacts definition more directly, as one can decide althose marginal Jews are at least by definition Jewish, even if its hard to find them all. In the cases I cited, even the basic definitions are going to be unclear to most called on to make an estimate, unless they really stop and think about them. And even so, the definitions are likely to vary rather wildly from person to person.</p>
<p>“they aren’t going to show up to Hillel events anyway”</p>
<p>This isn’t about estimates of who is involved in Hillel,IIUC, but about estimates of how many Jews are on campus. Even though in this instance some of the estimates are made by people at Hillel.</p>
<p>"but honestly it’s pretty silly to call someone Jewish if the person doesn’t self-identify as such and practices another religion. "</p>
<p>But in this day and age of celebrating diversity, there are folks who practice christianity who still do express some pride in their jewish background after some fashion, IIUC. And in all cases, it may affect the tone and style of campus life.</p>
<p>I had a dormmate in college, from the upper west side, who said “he was of jewish extraction” - he wasnt just 100% secular, but refused even to identify ethnically as a Jew (I think both parents were Jewish, probably UWS ex far lefties). Nonetheless his personality, interests, etc were SO much UWS “jewish” to not count him as J would have been to understate the J atmosphere of the campus. I suppose thats less so for someone who is actively Christian than for an UWS secularist, but still.</p>
<p>So the non-Jewish sponsored college with the highest proportion of Jewish students is Muhlenberg? Why is that?</p>
<p>gadad, Muhlenberg draws heavily from NY/NJ/PA and many Jewish students are attracted to the school from that region.</p>
<p>This is different than Emory which draws heavily from outside their region.</p>
<p>“From my memory Harvard it seemed like 50% Jewish, but I am sure that was really only my House or a quirk of who my friends ended up being”</p>
<p>It is about 50% Jewish in one sense…about 50% of the white Americans at Harvard are Jewish. But white Americans are now less than 50% of Harvard.</p>
<p>I think these estimates stay the same forever, or at least ever since the Ivies dropped the old 10% Jewish quota. I distinctly remember that when I entered Yale in 1972, all the estimates I saw were in the range of 25-30% of undergraduates being Jewish. </p>
<p>When my father entered Yale in 1936, the quota system was in full force, and 10% was a generous estimate.</p>
<p>Of course, before the quotas, Jews had already become what was seen as an unseemly high percentage of the student bodies at places like Harvard and Columbia:</p>
<p>[Harvard’s</a> Jewish Problem](<a href=“http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html]Harvard’s”>Harvard's Jewish Problem)</p>
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<p>But why Muhlenberg and not, say, Lehigh? </p>
<p>jym, thanks for posting the old links. It’s interesting to look at the 2006 list versus today’s. </p>
<p>Schools that were on the top 60 list in 2006 but aren’t on it now:
Barnard
Wesleyan
UMass Amherst
Pitt
U Washington</p>
<p>Schools that were on the top 60 list now that weren’t there in 2006:
University of Southern California
Pratt
Brooklyn College
Florida Atlantic University
UC Santa Barbara</p>
<p>Some schools “fell off” the list because the sheer number of Jewish students reported has increased.</p>
<p>IIUC muhlenberg has specifically targeted Jews, esp “jewish B students” as a niche market. Lehigh, while they are happy to point out the hillel house, jewish studies program, etc, isn’t marketing quite that way. Having spent ALOT of time on Lehigh’s campus being marketed too, I can vouch for that.</p>
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<p>brooklynborndad is correct - Muhlenberg has made a concerted, and very successful effort to recruit Jewish students, and as a result they have risen steadily up the Top Schools list. they have received a lot of press about this - here is a recent article [Students</a> Get Comfy With Heritage at School | The Jewish Exponent](<a href=“http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/21113/]Students”>http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/21113/)</p>
<p>"
But it impacts definition more directly, as one can decide althose marginal Jews are at least by definition Jewish, even if its hard to find them all."</p>
<p>I’m unclear what you’re saying; perhaps I’m slow this morning, which is a distinct possibility. In Reform – which is the majority of Jews in this country – you’re not a “marginal Jew” (compared to those with two Jewish parents) if you only have one Jewish parent and self-identify as being Jewish. Your Jewish orientation and affiliation will come from how seriously your family took it, not on the # of parents who were halachically Jewish. </p>
<p>There are totally many Reform families that have a secular outlook and are of the Hanukah-and-Passover variety (much as there are many Christians who are of the Christmas-and-Easter variety) but I just don’t see much distinction between those orientations and whether the parents are one or both Jewish.</p>
<p>“I’m unclear what you’re saying;”</p>
<p>Joe and Judy live in a dorm with 80 kids. They kinda sorta know all of them.</p>
<p>20 of those kids have two jewish parents. Of those 20, 5 are enthusiastic Hillel attendees, 8 go to services once in a while, 2 are totally non religious but strongly ethnic jews (socialist zionist sleepaway camps, etc) the other 5 have nothing to do with any organized jewish life. Joe and Judy can easily agree that all 20 are “jewish”.</p>
<p>Another 20 kids have one jewish parent each. Four have been educated at Reform Shuls, and are Hillel attendees. One (whose mother was J) was educated at a C shul and is a hillel attendee. 3 were educated at R or C shuls but are not hillel attendees. Two had no J education, but call themselves Jews. They are not interested in Israel, but are familiar with some jewish foods, and have some anecdotes about grandma. and light chanukkah candles. Two have no Jewish education, and call themselves halfJewish. They celebrate christmas, but do not attend church. Four call themselves non-Jewish, do not attend Hillel or church, dislike Israel with an emotional charge most nonJews dont seem to have, and have interests (social idealism, musical theater, etc) that are held by somewhat more Jews than non Jews on this particular campus. Four call themselves Christian and attend church regularly - of those 4, one talks alot about messianic Judaism and about being pro-Israel, and lights hanukkah candles. </p>
<p>Joe and Judy each have different estimates of how many of those 20 are Jewish. Each, if asked by the hillel director how many of those 20 are Jewish, will come up with different answers. Each of those answers will defensible by some criterion or another. </p>
<p>My point here is NOT to argue for or against any one definition or criterion, whether that of Orthodoxy, C Judaism, Reform, the folk definitions of my parents generation, self definitions, the definitions kids discuss on Jewcy.com, or whatever. My point is simply that the question of definiton is even MORE complex than it is for folks with two jewish parents, and this could well account for SOME of the confusion between Hillel’s numbers, university officials numbers, and the impressions from different people on campus.</p>