Young Jewish families up in South Palm Beach County
While senior citizens still make up a big chunk of south Palm Beach County’s Jewry, a new survey has found surprising growth among another segment of the population: children.
The number of kids in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Highland Beach expanded from 11,000 in 2005 to 17,300 today, a 57 percent increase, according to a study released on Monday by the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County.
More than 2,000 Jewish households answered questions about their families, their synagogue affiliations and their attachment to Israel for the survey, which was conducted earlier this year.
The number of Jews in the area grew slightly, to 134,200, a 3 percent increase from the last study, completed 13 years ago.
The study found Jews belong to an assortment of denominations, with Reform Jews representing the largest segment at 37 percent. Conservative Jews measured 25 percent, Orthodox Jews 8 percent and about 30 percent called themselves “secular/just Jewish.”
“The community has changed,” said Leonard Saxe, director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, which conducted the study. “There’s been a huge growth in the number of children, and fewer snowbirds, who haven’t been replaced. They are being replaced by young families with children.”
A survey of the Jewish community of central and northern Palm Beach County is expected to be released in the coming months.
The Palm Beach County studies complement two surveys performed by Jewish federations in Broward and Miami-Dade, offering a complete picture of the demographics and needs of Jews in the tri-county area.
In 2014, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation found 123,200 Jewish residents in Miami-Dade County, an increase of 9 percent over the previous 10 years. But a 2016 survey by the Jewish Federation of Broward County showed 149,000 Jewish residents, a decrease from 243,000 in 1997.
In Broward, the Jewish population fell due to the mortality of the large senior citizen population. While there were 123,500 Jews older than 65 in 1997, there were only 46,500 in 2016.
The number of seniors 75 and older also plummeted, from 77,000 in 1997 to 23,000 in 2016.
South Palm Beach County also found a decreasing number of adults, falling from 119,900 in 2005 to 116,900 this year.
Saxe said the retiree population has been decreasing as deaths mount from Americans born before World War II and Baby Boomers choose other retirement destinations.
“We are seeing a shift of people northward and westward,” to retirement destinations such as Naples, Orlando and other parts of Florida, he said.
Researchers found a high attachment to Israel among south Palm Beach County’s Jews. About 70 percent have visited Israel, compared to half of all American Jews. And 19 percent are struggling financially, which federation officials said will become a particular area of focus.
“In a community that’s thought to be affluent, having one in five that are vulnerable is a concern to us,” said Stuart Silver, the federation’s vice president for community planning.
The study also found the rate of intermarriage in south Palm Beach County has increased, from 9 percent in 2005 to 16 percent today. Still, the rate is lower than the national average, which is 44 percent.
The number of households with adults or children who have a disability or a health issue is high, at 28 percent, but the rate likely is connected to the large number of senior citizens, who measure 44 percent of the population, Saxe said.
The Jewish Federation will use the statistics to target needy groups and plan communal activities, Silver said.
“This gives us an objective way to plan,” Silver said. “It’s going to take us a while to figure out what to do with all the information.”