Congregations Today by Denomination

Today

2,763 congregations, one dot each

Every dot is a synagogue the census lists as active, sorted into slices by denomination. Reform has the largest slice with 539 congregations, followed by Chabad with 502 and Orthodox with 475. Inside each slice the oldest congregations sit nearest the center.

What the census knows

1,942 have a known founding year

The 821 congregations without a founding year step out of the circle. Coverage varies a lot by group, with dates for 94 percent of Reform and 91 percent of Conservative congregations, 50 percent of Orthodox ones and only 13 of the 225 Chassidic congregations.

The timelines that follow use only the dated dots.

The first dots

Five colonial congregations still meet

Shearith Israel in New York (1654) heads the line, followed by Jeshuat Israel in Newport (1658), Mickve Israel in Savannah (1733), Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia (1740) and Beth Elohim in Charleston (1749). All five began in the Sephardic tradition. The Savannah and Charleston congregations are Reform today, so the oldest Reform dot is older than the Reform movement itself.

Only nine of today's dated congregations were founded before 1830.

Growth spurts

Four waves of new congregations

Each column counts today's congregations by the decade they were founded. Foundings jump in the 1840s with immigration from Central Europe and climb again from the 1880s as Eastern European Jews arrive. They fall by 43 percent in the 1930s, then surge after the Second World War and peak in the 2000s at 206.

Only congregations that survive appear here, so older decades look smaller than they were.

The postwar boom

Reform and Conservative led the postwar wave

Of the 299 dated congregations founded in the 1950s and 1960s, 108 are Reform and 67 are Conservative, 59 percent of the total. The 1950s remain the biggest decade for both movements. Conservative foundings have slowed since, with 20 dated congregations founded after 1999.

The Chabad era

Half of the congregations founded since 1990 are Chabad

Chabad dots start to appear in numbers in the 1970s. Of the 575 dated congregations founded since 1990, 285 are Chabad, including 116 of the 206 founded in the 2000s.

Each movement's arc

First dots and peak decades

Each row holds one group, with its oldest dated congregation ringed and a dashed tick at a founding moment for the movement in America.

Many first dots come before their movement existed, since congregations changed affiliation over time. The oldest Conservative dot (Easton, Pennsylvania, 1839) is 74 years older than the United Synagogue, and the oldest Chabad dot (Philadelphia, 1882) came 58 years before the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe settled in Brooklyn.

Median founding years run from 1935 for Conservative and 1950 for Reform to 1959 for Orthodox and 2002 for Chabad.

Where they are

Every congregation on the map

All 2,763 dots return, dated or not, and settle in their towns. Brooklyn alone has 236 active congregations, more than any state except New York and California, and Monsey and Spring Valley in Rockland County add 97 more.

The 44 congregations with no recorded town wait in the corner.

State by state

New York holds almost a quarter

New York has 630 active congregations, 23 percent of the national total, and 216 of them are Chassidic, nearly all of the Chassidic congregations in the census. Chabad is the largest group in California, Florida and Washington, while Reform leads in Texas, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

City to countryside

Three in four sit in the biggest metro areas

The columns now sort congregations by the kind of county they are in, from the cores of metro areas of a million people or more out to rural counties. Each dashed box shows how tall a column would be if congregations were spread like all Americans, and each solid line shows the same for American Jews.

Big-city cores and suburbs hold 74 percent of congregations, against 56 percent of Americans and 85 percent of Jews. Among the four largest groups, Reform reaches furthest out, with 17 percent of its congregations in small metros, small towns or rural counties, against 10 percent of Chabad centers and 1 percent of Orthodox congregations. Independent congregations go further still, at 28 percent.

Alone in the county

220 congregations are the only one in their county

Of the 499 counties with an active congregation in the census, 220 have just one, shown in full color on the map. Of these counties, 56 percent are small metros, small towns or rural places.

Reform congregations fill 88 of these places, and 16 percent of all Reform congregations are their county's only synagogue, against 4 percent of Chabad centers and 1 percent of Orthodox congregations.

The census can miss small congregations, so a few of these counties may have a second one.

Red and blue

Half sit in counties Harris won by 20 points or more

Sorted by the county's 2024 presidential vote, 51 percent of congregations land in counties Harris won by 20 points or more. Those counties hold 29 percent of all Americans and 54 percent of American Jews. Counties Trump won by 20 or more are home to 29 percent of Americans but only 158 congregations, 67 of them Reform.

Orthodox congregations stand out in the fourth column, with 114. Rockland County and Miami-Dade, which Trump carried by about 12 points, account for 112 of them.

The margin is Harris's share minus Trump's share of their combined vote. A whole county gets one figure, so a column describes the county, not a congregation's members.

Income

Nearly four in ten sit in counties with a median income of $75,000 or more

Counties with a median household income of $75,000 or more hold 39 percent of congregations, against 24 percent of all Americans and 43 percent of American Jews. Counties under $50,000 hold 16 percent of Americans and 5 percent of congregations.

Modern Orthodox congregations sit in the wealthiest counties, with a median of $79,700. Chassidic congregations sit in the least wealthy, at $60,200, because most of them are in Brooklyn.

Median household income, American Community Survey, 2015 to 2019. One figure covers a whole county, so its richer and poorer neighborhoods are averaged together.

Violent crime

Close to the national mix of crime rates

47 percent of congregations are in counties that reported 400 or more violent crimes per 100,000 residents, against 41 percent of all Americans and 49 percent of American Jews.

Big cities set the pattern. Brooklyn's rate of 586 puts 81 percent of Chassidic congregations in the two right-hand columns, while Bergen County, at 84, sits in the lowest one.

Violent crimes reported to the FBI, the average of 2014 and 2016, as published in County Health Rankings. These are county rates and say little about the streets around any one synagogue.

Explore

Follow one group through every view

Choose a group in the key under the chart, then scroll back up to watch it move through each view. Hover over or tap any dot to see the congregation.