2022-23 Greater Portland Jewish Community Study
Matthew Boxer, Matthew A. Brookner, Adina Bankier-Karp, Alicia Chandler, Daniella Levine, Adam Martin, Raquel Magidin de Kramer, Ilana Friedman, Matthew Feinberg, Janet Krasner Aronson, & Leonard Saxe
June 2023
The 2022-23 Greater Portland Jewish Community Study is the first in-depth assessment of the size and characteristics of the Jewish community in Greater Portland and Southwest Washington since 2009. The study also includes a separate mini-report for Lane County, the first scientific study ever conducted of the Jewish community in the Eugene area. The study provides a comprehensive portrait of the 56,600 Jews in Greater Portland and Southwest Washington; their families; their Jewish attitudes, affiliations, and behaviors; their health and financial well-being; and other measures of their engagement in Jewish life.
Read the Portland executive summary
Read the Portland technical appendices
Download the comparison charts for: Portland, Lane County, and Willamette Valley
Download public dataset for Portland
Why there is no public dataset for Lane County: Explanation
Among the findings:
- The Greater Portland Jewish community numbers approximately 75,500 people, of whom 56,600 are Jewish, living in 31,100 households.
- Twenty-nine percent of Jewish households in Greater Portland include children under age 18.
- The individual intermarriage rate (i.e., the proportion of married Jewish adults with a non-Jewish spouse) is 54%, higher than the national average of 42%.
- Fifty-two percent of Jewish adults in Greater Portland do not identify with any particular denomination. Twenty-three percent identify as Reform, 8% as Conservative, 5% as Orthodox, and 12% with other denominations.
- Jewish households in Greater Portland are divided geographically among seven regions. Twenty-four percent reside in Northeast Portland, 14% in Southeast Portland, 13% in Southwest Portland, 8% in Northwest Portland, 19% in the Western Suburbs, 17% in Southwest Washington and North Portland, and 5% in the Other Suburbs.
- Twenty percent of Jewish households in Greater Portland are members of a Jewish congregation.
- The barriers most commonly cited by Jewish adults in Greater Portland to greater participation in Jewish life are not finding Jewish activities of interest (30%), traffic or the location of events and activities (29%), lack of confidence in their Jewish knowledge (21%), and expense (21%).
- Eighteen percent of Jewish adults in Greater Portland reported having personally experienced an antisemitic incident in the past year.
- Twenty-six percent of Jewish adults in Greater Portland explicitly describe themselves as Zionists, 52% explicitly say they are not Zionists, and 22% either do not know or prefer not to say whether they are Zionists.
- Twenty-six percent of Jewish households in Greater Portland say either that they cannot make ends meet (4%) or that they are struggling to make ends meet (23%).