Jewish identity is a complex mixture of ancestry, culture, history, values, and community – not just faith.

 

According to Pew Research Center, over 50% of American Jews cite ancestry and culture as central to being Jewish, while 36% cite religion.

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Yet California's laws and data systems recognize Jewish identity as only a religion, flattening our diversity. The result is the systematic misunderstanding and undercounting of Jewish Californians in the very data the state relies on to identify disparities, direct services, track hate crimes, and enforce civil rights protections.

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SB 1387 closes that gap. When California collects ethnicity data, "Jewish" will be one of the options.

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WHY IT MATTERS

How our community is understood. When California's laws and forms recognize Jews as an ethnicity, the public begins to understand our community's complexity, and a flat picture gains dimension. The misconception that Jews are defined by faith alone is what makes caricature easy, and complexity is the enemy of prejudice.

Resources, research, and protection. California uses demographic data to direct services, fund programs, study health risks, and enforce civil rights law. Some agencies cannot collect any data on Jewish Californians today, and antisemitic hate crimes motivated by ancestry and peoplehood are misclassified when Jews are recorded only as a faith.

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WHAT SB 1387 DOES NOT DO

No lists. No registry. The state publishes aggregate counts only, never individual records. Personal information stays confidential under California's robust privacy laws.

Nothing is taken away. Judaism remains recognized as a religion wherever California collects religion. The bill adds an option and removes nothing.

Nothing is required. Answering is entirely voluntary, and you choose as many ethnicities as fit you, so Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Jews of color identify however they see themselves. Roughly 15% of American Jews are not white.

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This is well-worn ground, mirroring recent data expansion efforts for Middle Eastern & North African populations, LGBTQ+ communities, and AAPI and Black subgroups. SB 1387 applies the same approach to Jewish Californians, and makes California the first state in the nation to recognize Jewish identity as an ethnicity in statute.

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