Election 2000: Russian Jews as Voters in New York City


 

Publication Date: September 2000

Publisher: American Jewish Committee

Author(s):

Research Area: Politics; Population and demographics

Keywords: Jewish Identification; Political Behavior; Immigration

Type: Report

Coverage: New York

Abstract:

The community of Russian Jews in New York City is large and diverse, but until recently it has received little scholarly attention. As a contribution in this direction, the American Jewish Committee, in April 2000, released a study, Russian Jewish Immigrants in New York City, which focuses on issues of status, identity, and integration. This pioneering research effort was funded by the American Jewish Committee and carried out by the Research Institute for New Americans (RINA), a new scholarly entity devoted to the study of the lives of Russian Jews in the United States. In the case of Russian Jewish Immigrants in New York City, the mode of analysis was a public opinion survey of 1,024 respondents from the Former Soviet Union.

Against the background of the 2000 election campaign, the American Jewish Committee asked RINA to return to the field in order to poll a sample of Russian Jews -- all of them United States citizens -- about their political opinions. The survey was conducted between September 1-29, 2000; a total of 516 respondents were interviewed over the phone, in the Russian language, by specially trained personnel. The respondents were drawn from RINA's research panel, consisting of 1500 individuals who are representative of the entire Russian Jewish immigrant community in New York City. The survey findings can be broken down by sex, age, education, income, and religious affiliation. The margin of error for the sample as a whole is plus or minus 5 percentage points.