August 6, 2012 | 12:45 pm

Israeli Settler Boom Mostly Driven by Quality of Life

Posted by Pini Herman

Independence Day at Na'ale

Jewish population growth in Israel since 2000 has been 20 percent. The growth in the West Bank settlements has been 80 percent, or four times the growth rate of the country as a whole. The Jewish settlers on the West Bank have passed the 350 thousand mark, about two-thirds as many Jews that live in Los Angeles. As many Angeleno Jews commute to work, most settlers not working from home have to commute to employment primarily in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

It seems not to be true, as has been reported:

Most of the growth –- now about 4.5% annually –- is coming outside the major settlement blocs in areas that are not expected to become part of Israel under a two-state solution, according to a report Thursday in the pro-government Israel Hayom newspaper

as conveyed by the LA Times Edmund Sanders.

My analysis indicates that most of the last decade’s growth is actually coming from settlements boasting proximity to Israeli urban centers, job markets and major settlement blocs. Israelis don’t seem to be voting with their feet and migrating to West Bank settlements which don’t offer a “quality of life” which usually translates into security and convenience. Perhaps the term “settlement blocs” is malleable to suit ideological orientations.

Using recent data from 2010, the two fastest growing West Bank settlements, Na’ale and Adam are secular have grown six-fold and three-fold respectively.  Na’ale, was founded and settled by employees of Israel Aircraft Industries which is a 29 minute commute away according to Google Maps. The third fastest growing is Kochave Ya’acov a religious West Bank settlement has grown two-and-a-half times and it is 28 minutes drive from Jerusalem.

Much of the settler population boom has been caused by natural increase in predominantly religious West Bank settlements, but these are also usually within the main settlement blocs. Modi’in Illit, thirty minutes drive from both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, has almost doubled in population in the last decade. Modi’in Illit had an annual growth rate of 11 percent in 2009. An estimated 80 percent of the population is under age 30 and in 2006 the city’s median age stood at 10, the lowest of all Israeli municipalities.

Its fairly clear to me that most West Bank Jewish population growth is actually inside and not outside the major settlement blocs in areas that are expected to become part of Israel under a two-state solution.  This seems to indicate that Jewish West Bank settlement is less driven by ideology and more by quality of life issues.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is a past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

August 2, 2012 | 4:13 pm

Israeli American Voters Could Be Numerous as Ballots Cast by Corporations

Posted by Pini Herman

The elections are growing closer Mitt Romney and Howard Berman have something uncomfortably in common. The don’t seem to be doing their demographic research as to whether the voters they are pursuing actually exist.

Romney wasn’t warned by Jewish Republicans in time to prevent raised eyebrows about reports that he intended to attend a $50-60 thousand a plate fundraiser in Jerusalem on the day of the Tish’a B’Av fast.  That should have been Romney’s first clue about his Jewish supporters.

The Republican Jewish Coalition head Ari Fleischer and his entourage traveled 5,683 miles to Israel, more miles than there are potential American Republican voters which I estimate to be around 2,500, in Israel.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has created estimates that roughly 150,000 U.S. citizens and eligible votersare living in Israel, including many from key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. So the RJC is organizing a registration drive in Israel.

The 2011 Statistical Abstract of Israel shows 154,000 originating from North America and Oceania, meaning primarily the U.S., Canada and Australia, of which 59 percent are Israeli-born, thus not likely to have registered to vote in the U.S.  That leaves about 64,000 of which 86% are Americans, leaving 55,000, if similar rates of registration and voting occurs as in the U.S. for Jews, then about 81 percent would vote in the best case, which would leave 45,000.

45,000 potential voters is optimistic because of another hurdle to voting. Americans don’t vote directly for U.S. president, we vote for Electors from each state.  Therefore, American citizens ages 18 and older can register to vote. To register, voters must meet the residency requirements of their states, which vary, and comply with voter-registration deadlines.

It would take a truly rabid political Israeli American political animal to maintain after a number of years registration in their last state of residence.  So if an optimistic 10 percent of Israeli Americans did so, only 4,500 might vote.  Let’s say Israeli Americans buck the Democratic voter trend and half vote Republican, that translates to 2,500 potential votes for Romney.

Romney has lost a lot of credibility for his missteps on this foreign foray. He changed the scheduled Tisha B’av fundraiser and didn’t have time to travel a three-quarters of an hour by car and visit the Palestinian Authority’s leaders as well as gratuitously insulting them with insensitive remarks.  Actually, Palestinians are sometimes called the Jews of the Arab world because of their parallel emphasis on education, entrepreneurship and economic achievements in the Diaspora.

Now more locally to Congressman Howard Berman

I can’t understand why Howard Berman is not pursuing the Latinos in the newly configured West San Fernando Valley Congressional District 30. Unfortunately Howard Berman is endangering his re-election by efforts to curry favor with Israeli American voters who actually don’t exist in enough numbers to elect him even to the LA City Council if the race was close. As of the 2010 U.S. Census the average population of a congressional district was 710,494. Israelis by the widest definition constitute less than 30 thousand living all over Los Angeles.  There are roughly 76 thousand Latino citizens of voting age who have the choice between two Jewish congressman.  Berman is beloved by Doris Huerta, organizer along with Cesar Chavez, of the United Farm Workers, when I met her urged me to work to support Berman and was fearful of losing him in Congress. 

As a California state legislator, Berman authored the landmark legislation that established agricultural collective bargaining in California in 1975. That law helped Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers achieve unprecedented successes in agricultural union organizing.  Rep. Berman co-authored the agricultural worker “legalization” program in the 1986 immigration legislation, providing one million farmworkers with the opportunity to become full-fledged members of our society.  He has been a major Congressional supporter of publicly-funded legal services for farmworkers and other poor people. Rep. Berman has defended farmworkers’ rights during the as agricultural employers have lobbied strenuously for rollbacks in farm labor laws.

There are lots of congress members on the Israel train. With Berman, I’d like to be able to continue to brag about that kind of forty-year record of a Jewish congressman to every Latino I know.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is a past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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July 30, 2012 | 11:38 am

Israel, Jewish numbers, and Population are Quite The Topic

Posted by Pini Herman

Time to Count the Community

It’s been a popular topic for demography in the local print media and even in the hand-written bible reading over the past weeks.

We recently completed reading the weekly Torah portions of the book whose title in Hebrew ba’midbar or “Wilderness” ends up being called “Numbers” in English.  Why Numbers?  The answer that Moshe Sokolow provides is that the English is a translation of not the book’s current Hebrew title but its classical one: Humash ha-Pikkudim, meaning, literally, the Pentateuch book of censuses, which the Greek Septuagint rendered as “Arithmoi.”

The Los Angeles Times’ excellent 5 part series this week “Beyond 7 billion” couldn’t have been written without the census counts and surveys aggregated by agencies such the U.S. Census Bureau and it’s International Data Base (IDB) which currently covers 227 countries and areas with current populations of 5,000 or more.  It provides a context that that underscores the often repeated fact Israel and Jews don’t stand out numerically and are a relatively smaller proportion of the world’s population. 

The stagnant population growth of Jews could change with the increasing transparency of world faith systems enabled by technology as well as the increasing genomic transparency of people’s personal genomes, e.g. 20 percent of Catholic men in Spain and Portugal had Y chromosomes that indicated they were of Sephardic Jewish ancestry.  A passing interest in personal genetics of a multitude of the “newly informed”  may spark a generation of seekers with unprecedented access and sources to Jewish knowledge and traditions which could have significant demographic consequences for the Jewish people.

This brings us back to the lack of the counts of Jewish people here in Los Angeles and nationally highlighted in a feature article by Julie Gruenbaum Fax in this week’s Jewish Journal.  The consequences of the lack of reliable counts of L.A. Jews is well-covered.  Another consequence of what I documented as the “one million Jew mistake” and the lack of a national Jewish population survey is that we can’t even say for sure that Israel has become country with the most Jews in the world, which would be a milestone of perhaps spiritual, ideological and historical proportions.

Jewish counts are still missing in LA and the US.  The interest and consensus for doing the counts is widespread. The segments of the organized Jewish community who have traditionally undertaken this important counting task are pleading, unlike their predecessors, that they are just not up to it with all the other pressing needs that are taxing their resources.  The one constant about the organized Jewish community, resources are always overtaxed….at least that’s what the fundraising pitches always points out.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is a past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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July 18, 2012 | 11:31 am

Israelis Turning Up Noses to Migratory Opportunities

Posted by Pini Herman

Twelve Cuban migrants in 2003 were 40 miles to America in a 1951 Chevy pickup truck "boat" and then sent back

It’s pretty clear, from recent and reliable data, that Jewish Israeli-born emigration from Israel is significantly lower at 4 percent than the emigration of native-borns of other comparable countries which averages 8 percent. This was reinforced by the likely declining number of Israeli-born Jews living in New York.

The highest percentage in the world, 25 percent,  of Jewish people not living in the country they were born in also happens to be in Israel.

The people with the lowest emigration rate are living in very close proximity, often immediate family members with the highest emigration rate.  Additionally, earlier research and Israeli media has indicated that both native and non-native Jewish Israelis have very high rates of application for and possession of passports from countries other than Israel.

So why is the emigration rate from Israel so low in spite of a high potential for migration?  Israelis historically prefer to migrate to certain countries, primarily the U.S. and to a much lesser extent to other Western democracies.  This are the countries which are highly desired by migrants worldwide and therefore the migratory slots are highly controlled and limited.

Emigrants from other countries have a wider palate of countries, often including neighboring countries that they consider as serious migratory destinations, not so in the case of Jewish Israelis.  For most Israelis it’s “America or Bust” mostly first New York/New Jersey and to a lesser extent and later, to California and other states.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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July 17, 2012 | 12:42 pm

Israeli-borns decline in New York Since 2002

Posted by Pini Herman

200

All the non-Jewish and Israeli gathered demographic indicators have shown Israeli-born migration to the U.S. to be a relatively modest phenomenon.  The recently published New York Jewish Community Study may have indicated a decline or stagnation in the number of Israeli-borns in New York this past decade.

The new survey found that in 2011, 29,000 Jews were living in the eight-county New York area, approximating the 31,000 found in 2002.  This may be an indicator confirming the relatively low out-migration of Israeli natives from Israel.  A long deferred national Jewish population study could confirm this important trend for American and Israeli Jewry.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

July 6, 2012 | 12:21 pm

Israel: A Republican Swing State?

Posted by Pini Herman

The instability of the Arab Spring may have pushed a few more Israelis to be wishing they were not a part of the Middle East, but rather to think of Israel as the fifty-first U.S. state.  The instability of the Romney campaign may have the Republican Jewish Coalition head Ari Fleischer and his entourage traveling 5,683 miles to Israel, more miles than there are potential American Republican voters which I estimate to be around 2,500, in Israel.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has created estimates that roughly 150,000 U.S. citizens and eligible voters are living in Israel, including many from key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. So the RJC is organizing a registration drive in Israel.

The 2011 Statistical Abstract of Israel shows 154,000 originating from North America and Oceania, meaning primarily the U.S., Canada and Australia, of which 59 percent are Israeli-born, thus not likely to have registered to vote in the U.S.  That leaves about 64,000 of which 86% are Americans, leaving 55,000, if similar rates of registration and voting occurs as in the U.S. for Jews, then about 81 percent would vote in the best case, which would leave 45,000. 

45,000 potential voters is optimistic because of another hurdle to voting. Americans don’t vote directly for U.S. president, we vote for Electors from each state.  Therefore, American citizens ages 18 and older can register to vote. To register, voters must meet the residency requirements of their states, which vary, and comply with voter-registration deadlines. 

It would take a truly rabid political Israeli American political animal to maintain after a number of years registration in their last state of residence.  So if an optimistic 10 percent of Israeli Americans did so, only 4,500 might vote.  Let’s say Israeli Americans buck the Democratic voter trend and half vote Republican, that translates to 2,500 potential votes for Romney.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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June 28, 2012 | 6:42 am

Will your great-grandchildren be Jewish?

Posted by Pini Herman

The just-released Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 clearly shows that the Jewish population decline in New York has been stemmed by large numbers of babies born to Orthodox families in America.

The heroic fertility and educational efforts of Orthodox Jews — sometimes to the point of actual impoverishment — is legendary. Ironically, it is historically the Conservative and Reform Jewish movements that have unintentionally benefited from this Orthodox Jewish investment.

In 1990, 44 percent of American Jewish adults had shifted from their childhood denomination. Just 10 years later, in 2000, denominational switching increased to 59 percent of American adults. According to the recent study, now only a minority has stayed in the Jewish denomination in which they were raised. The greatest shifts are away from Conservative and Orthodox Judaism.

While this has greatly worried the Conservative movement’s rabbis, the denominational shift has always affected Orthodox Judaism proportionally to a far greater extent. In Los Angeles in 1996, four out of five Jewish adults who reported being raised in Orthodox families chose other denominational affiliations. This may be a phenomenon of the “unchurched West,” of Jews fleeing the traditions of the East Coast.

Historically, Conservative and Reform Judaism owe their very existence and phenomenal growth to the vast Orthodox Jewish migration to America prior to 1924 and the massive shift away from Orthodox Judaism, primarily to Conservative Judaism. Ironically, Conservative Judaism is suffering from the same leftward historical trend. In the past three decades, as many as half the children raised as Conservative Jews become Reform Jews as adults.

Orthodox Judaism has traditionally served as the feeder denomination for Conservative as well as Reform Judaism. Conservative Judaism gets the majority of adult denominational shifters from Orthodox Judaism, but Reform Judaism currently has in its pews about one in 10 adults who were raised by Orthodox parents.

It is in the self-interest of the Conservative and Reform movements to encourage the flowering of the Orthodox American Jewish community, for they are the ultimate beneficiaries of the adult choices of Orthodox-raised children. In spite of the best efforts of the Orthodox community, data shows that many of them will choose to live adult lives as something other than Orthodox Jews. In the same manner, it is in the best interests of Reform Jews to support the flowering of Conservative Judaism.

So, American Jews of all stripes, be nice to the Orthodox Jews, who comprise about one-tenth of the community. When Orthodox polemicists ask: Will your grandchildren be Jewish? The answer is: Probably. The more pressing question to the Orthodox is: Will your children be Orthodox? The answer is: Probably not.

A version of this article appeared in print.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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June 19, 2012 | 3:19 pm

The New New York Jewish Community Study and LA Trends: Population

Posted by Pini Herman

The New York Jewish Community Study, 2011 may or may not hint at Los Angeles Jewish trends.

In the 15 year absence of an updated Los Angeles Jewish population study, it might be instructive to conjecture whether trends that were captured in the just released demographic study of New York Jews might be relevant here.  As researcher Amy Sales has documented, the New York Federation has again inspired research across the nation. Here on the left coast the LA Federation, as Rob Eshman pointed out in this week’s Jewish Journal editorial, still hasn’t been inspired and is continuing to fly blind.

In New York after a decrease from about 2 million Jews in 1970 to 1.4 million in both 1991 and 2002, the region’s Jewish population increased to 1.54 million in 2011, reflecting higher numbers of both children and elderly.

Los Angeles has not had a decline in population since 1970 and actually part of LA’s Jewish growth may have been because New Yorkers migrating west.  NY experienced only slight growth in the last decade, fueled by the elderly living longer and a large number of Orthodox births.  LA is probably also aging in place, but as LA doesn’t have a large number of young Orthodox household having babies, LA would be dependent for an increased influx of Jewish migrants from other US communities or abroad.  That doesn’t seem likely so my guess is that LA’s Jewish population may be stable at about a half-million or slightly declining.

As is happening in NY, while Jews remain as a growing proportion of non-Hispanic whites in the urban area as the numbers of non-Jewish non-Hispanic whites decline. Jews continue to be dwarfed by other growing ethnic groups, e.g. Latinos and Asians, both new immigrants and second generation.  This has political implications both in NY and LA where most vividly its being played out with two Democratic Jewish congressman, Howard Berman and Brad Sherman vying for the same district resulting from their avoiding contending against a Latino candidate in a newly created adjacent “Latino” district.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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