The proportion of Jewish students at Yale College has declined sharply over the past decade, according to data from the university chaplain’s office and a recent report from the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, as reported by The Yale Daily News. While Jewish students averaged 16.4% of first-year students between 2010 and 2020, this share dropped to 9.5% in 2024, the most recent year with publicly available data.The report, co-authored by Adrian Ashkenazi, president of the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, says similar declines have occurred at Harvard, although the reasons behind these trends remain unclear. “We don’t understand why the numbers turned out the way they did? Maybe [universities] can explain it,” Ashkenazi told the Yale Daily News.The drop at Yale is particularly surprising because the overall first-year class has grown in recent years, especially after two new residential colleges opened in 2017. Despite this increase in total enrollment, the proportion of Jewish students has declined. The report also compares the decline in Jewish students to the decline in white non-Jewish students and finds that the Jewish population has declined sharply. This suggests that the decline cannot be fully explained by efforts to increase racial diversity on campus.
University leaders emphasize a thriving community.
Pericles Lewis, dean of Yale College, emphasized that measuring the size of the Jewish population is complicated. “Many students may consider themselves Jewish but don’t answer the question in a particular way,” he told The Yale Daily News, highlighting the fluidity of religious identity at the college.University chaplain Mattel Saltel, who arrived at Yale in 2013 and will become the first Jewish woman to hold the position in 2024, also emphasized that Jewish student participation has increased in her experience, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. “Many of our students are part of multiple faith communities and may come from multi-faith households,” he told The Yale Daily News. “Religious identity in college is often fluid, as some students may be exploring who they are and what values they hold most dear.“Yale spokeswoman Karen Pert added that religious affiliation is neither collected nor considered during admissions, noting that the university promotes Jewish life through the Slifka Center for Jewish Life and Chabad at Yale. Yale has also established a permanent advisory committee on Jewish student life and has developed educational programming on antisemitism and the Jewish student experience on campus.
Campus Jewish leaders highlight the strong community.
Ori Cohen, executive director of the Slifka Center, said the Jewish student population has been “generally stable” over the past eight years. Hillel student leaders Zach Penn ’27 and Yosi Moff ’27 echoed that sentiment, adding that the community continues to thrive and has broken attendance records at events over the past year.“This is an important time to ensure that Jews feel welcome and safe on every campus,” Cohen told The Yale Daily News, highlighting the importance of institutional support amid rising antisemitism across the country.The Chaplain’s Office maintains religious demographic data at Yale dating back to the 1930s, providing historical context for ongoing discussions about diversity, religious identity, and community representation on campus.
