Stories & Voices
Jews of Color: The Numbers Matter
May 28th, 2019
UJA Federation of New York >> Ilana Kaufman, director of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, who recently visited UJA to share findings from Counting Inconsistencies, a report her organization commissioned.
Ilana Kaufman, director of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, who recently visited UJA to share findings from Counting Inconsistencies, a report her organization commissioned.

Consider this: At least 12-15% of American Jews — that is, just over 1 million people — are Jews of Color. Put differently, every minyan in America should include a Jew of color.

This eye-opening statistic is just one of the findings from Counting Inconsistencies, a report that set out to count how many Jews of Color there are in the United States today and how many there will be in the future.

On May 22, Ilana Kaufman, director of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, came to UJA to talk about why her organization commissioned the report and what the study uncovered. Ilana explained that when researchers began to look at previous population studies, they found that many of those studies asked questions about racial identity in different ways. Some studies didn’t even ask the question. As a result, studies couldn’t be compared and Jews of Color were underreported.

Now, we’re finally getting a more complete picture of our multi-hued Jewish population.

UJA was excited to host the conversation, an important step in learning about the needs and makeup of our evolving multiracial community.