The Jews of Color Initiative is embarking on our next major research study. We seek a highly-talented research team to conduct a meta-analysis of available data to answer the question, how many Jews of Color will there be in 2025, 2030, 2040, 2050?
You can read the full RFP here.
There are approximately 1,000,000 Jews of Color in the United States. Fifteen percent of Jewish young adults in the United States ages 18-29 identify as People of Color. And while as of now there is no reputable count of Jewish Americans ages 0-18, trends raised from Counting Inconsistencies, Unlocking the Future of Jewish Engagement, and Pew’s Jewish Americans in 2020—as well as regional studies such as the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation 2021—suggest that Jewish Americans and our families are becoming more racially diverse every day.
The Jews of Color Initiative works to build Jewish communal leadership and efforts that reflect the racial diversity of our people. Our last research study illustrates the wealth of learning gained from qualitative studies of Jews of Color—exploring our perspectives and experiences rather than reducing us to our population size. Access to Jewish communal resources, especially funding, representation, and advocacy for marginalized Jews, should not be dependent on the population size of that group. Nevertheless, communal demographic studies continue to be one of the most powerful sources of data informing how federations, funders, and their decision makers allocate communal resources. These resources, generally distributed through philanthropic pathways, support vital Jewish communal institutions such as synagogues and federations, lifecycle services, education, and community-building entities like day schools, day camps, Jewish Community Centers, and engagement or infrastructure efforts in arts, culture, and media.
While numbers tell a limited story, we know that the Jewish communal ecosystem continues to prioritize demographic data. As long as this remains the case, the Jews of Color Initiative recognizes that demographic studies are key to attaining racially equitable and just communal resource allocation not only now, but in 2025, 2030, 2040, and 2050.
The JoCI values interdisciplinary collaboration as a source of rich research. We hope research teams include demographers, quantitative and qualitative social scientists, and researchers from departments of education, sociology, religion, business and management.
Proposals are due October 16, 2023.
View the full RFP here. If you have any questions about submitting a proposal, you can reach out to researchRFP@jewsofcolorinitiative.org.
If you would be interested in attending an informational webinar about this RFP, please submit this brief form.