Study Details Characteristics of Great Neck Jews

With one of the highest concentrations of residents ages 75 and over, Great Neck Jews are also some of the most engaged in the New York area, according to the Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 Geographic Profile. 

The report, UJA-Federation of New York’s second in the series drawn from the latest decennial study of New York’s Jewish population, provides area by area details at a local level of Jewish communities — including Great Neck.

“The Geographic Profile,” explained UJA-Federation of New York President Jerry W. Levin, “provides information on a very localized level so that the entire New York Jewish community can better understand the crucial distinctions among the many areas that make up our eight county catchment area.”

Information on the characteristics, needs, engagement and connections, and philanthropic patterns of 1.54 million Jewish residents shows some interesting findings regarding Great Neck Jews.

Jewish community engagement is higher in more Jewishly-dense neighborhoods where Jews compose a large proportion of the population, for example, in parts of Brooklyn and also in Great Neck, according to the report. 

Great Neck has one of highest levels of Jewish community engagement along with Borough Park; Williamsburg; The Five Towns; Flatbush, Midwood, Kensington, South-Central Westchester, Kew Gardens Hills, Jamaica, Fresh Meadows also named.

The report includes a statistical profile of Nassau County and its primary Jewish areas of Great Neck, Roslyn, Port Washington, Glen Cove, Old Westbury, Oyster Bay, Plainview, Syosset, Jericho, Merrick, Bellmore, East Meadow, Massapequa Oceanside, Long Beach, West Hempstead, Valley Stream and Five Towns.

The four distinct areas with large Jewish populations that would each qualify as one of America’s 20 largest Jewish communities are the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and in Brooklyn, Borough Park, Williamsburg and Flatbush/Midwood/Kensington.

Nassau ranked as the third-largest county in terms of its Jewish population with the highest proportion of married or partnered Jewish households among all the eight counties, according to the study.

The second-highest proportion of wealthy Jewish households, after Westchester, was in Nassau which has the highest proportion of Conservative-identified Jews among the eight counties.

Two of the six most Jewishly engaged areas are in Nassau County include the Five Towns and Great Neck areas, with high levels of Jewish engagement characterizing areas at both ends of the income spectrum.

The Jewish community in the eight-county New York area is diverse and has grown nine percent since the 2002 study. The geographic profile reports that growth was 13 percent or more in 11 areas with the greatest growth in Washington Heights, Borough Park, Williamsburg and the Forest Hills/Rego Park/Kew Gardens area.

Lower Manhattan East — comprising the Lower East Side, Gramercy Park, and Murray Hill — experienced the greatest numerical loss, approximately 17,000. 

Households with Jewish LGBT individuals are especially numerous in Lower Manhattan West.