Nobody keeps track of how many black Orthodox Jews are in New York or across the nation, and surely it is a tiny fraction of both populations. Indeed, even the number of black Jews over all is elusive, though a 2005 book about Jewish diversity, \u201cIn Every Tongue,\u201d\u009d cited studies suggesting that some 435,000 American Jews, or 7 percent, were black, Hispanic, Asian or American Indian.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone agrees that the numbers have grown, and they should be noticed,\u201d\u009d said Jonathan D. Sarna of Brandeis University, a pre-eminent historian of American Jewry. \u201cOnce, there was a sense that \u201d\u02dcso-and-so looked Jewish.\u2019 Today, because of conversion and intermarriage and patrilineal descent, that\u2019s less and less true. The average synagogue looks more like America.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in an Orthodox synagogue, there\u2019s likely to be a few people who look different,\u201d\u009d Professor Sarna said, \u201cand everybody assumes that will grow.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Through the Internet, younger black Orthodox Jews are coming together in ways they never could before.<\/p>\n