Though sometimes overshadowed by New York and Los Angeles, Boston remains one of America’s most Jewish cities, with the sixth-largest Jewish population in the U.S., according to a 2020 Brandeis University report, and like other Jewish communities, it is rapidly shifting.

Findings from Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ “2025 Greater Boston Jewish Community Study,” which was released on Thursday, offer a snapshot of a shifting community that mirrors the changes occurring in Jewish communities across America, with a growing number of interfaith families and rifts appearing between generations, especially related to views on Zionism — or at least the way individuals define the term. Yet the study also shows a community united in common values.

“The more closely you follow American Jewish life, the less you are surprised by a lot in here,” Rabbi Marc Baker, CEO and president of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the city’s federation, told eJewishPhilanthropy.

The study, undertaken every 10 years for the past six decades, drew from a sample size of 4,800 adults and estimated that in the past decade, the Greater Boston population has increased by 8% to 333,000 people residing in 138,200 Jewish households. Sponsored by CJP and conducted between December 2024 and April 2025 by Rosov Consulting, the study showed that 51% of total households include someone who doesn’t identify as Jewish, and that 65% of households with children were interfaith.

This follows a trend across America, with 2021 Pew research showing that 42% of married American Jews were married to a spouse of a different religion, with that figure rising in non-Orthodox homes and with those married after 2010.

“The number of people who do not identify as Jewish [who are] living in Jewish households is extraordinary,” Baker said, “and 70% of interfaith families raising Jewish children, to me, is an incredible number and a sign of the investment our community has made in being welcoming in engaging people and in really expanding the boundaries and the notions of what it means to be a Jewish family and a Jewish community.”

Similar to last week’s Jewish Federations of North America study, the Boston study found that while a majority of Jews support Israel as a Jewish homeland, they often define Zionism and anti-Zionism differently from one another. Among adult respondents under 30 years old, 38% identified as anti-Zionist, 32% identified as Zionist and 30% said they were not connected to either term. At the same time, 60% of all young adults felt it was important for Israel to be the nation-state of the Jewish people.

“It is surprising to see the number of young people who associate with the word anti-Zionist [and] who said that they believe Israel should be the nation state of the Jewish people,” Baker said. “That raises eyebrows, because we tend to both take people at the word of what they say and then often react to the words that they use, and this is clearly showing us that people are meaning all sorts of things by these terms, and that we have a lot of work to do to better understand the terms people are using and what they actually believe and think about Israel.”

More than half of Bostonian Jews have traveled to Israel, which is proof that Boston’s investment in programs bringing residents to Israel is working, Baker said. “For decades, Boston has been in the forefront of investing in Israel travel [and] Israel experiences. My predecessor, Barry Shrage, whom I give a lot of credit, led the way in championing Birthright for our next generation… We probably have close to 10,000 Israelis living in our community. It’s just an important part of the lifeblood of the Boston Jewish community.”

Eight in 10 Jews overall supported Israel as a Jewish nation-state, a percentage that increases among older Jews. Views on Israel were just one of the ways generations differed in how they saw the world. While 94% of respondents were concerned with antisemitism across the globe, younger Jews were significantly less likely to be concerned about antisemitism in their backyard. Thirty-six percent of Jews under 29 were concerned about antisemitism in Greater Boston, compared to 86% of Jews over 75. Younger Jews were much more likely to shift their behavior because of antisemitism, including altering what they post online and not wearing items that identify them as Jewish.

The younger generation is “experiencing and making sense of the world in very different ways,” Baker said. “Younger adults report experiencing twice the rate of emotional distress and loneliness than the population as a whole. There are real generational differences, and, to me, this says, we really need to lean into this with curiosity and not make it about one particular issue, but really say, ‘We have work to do to understand how our younger generation is experiencing the world.’”

One-third of Jewish households reported feeling economic adversity, with 13% reporting falling more than 250% below the federal poverty line and 17% saying they weren’t or were barely getting by financially.

“Sometimes we forget or just don’t pay attention to the fact that there are many Jews in our community who are economically vulnerable and also struggling with either mental health challenges [or] other disabilities,” Baker said. “It’s a reminder of one of the most important commitments that we make as a Jewish community, which is to take care of the most vulnerable among us, to make sure that no one falls through the cracks. Part of the American Jewish story is that we built a really powerful human service safety net, and we need to double down on that, especially right now.”

Although the younger and older generations have differences, there is much that unites the community, Baker said. Eighty percent of respondents said being Jewish was important to them, and 80% gave to charity in the past year. Seventy-six percent believed Holocaust remembrance was important. Eighty-six percent observe Jewish holidays throughout the year and 38% observe Shabbat in some way. Sixty-five percent of respondents attended an in-person or online program hosted by a Jewish organization in the past year.

“There’s a lot that we do share in common, and there’s a lot of opportunity for bridge building, finding common ground and shining a light on the things that continue to unite us as a Jewish community,” Baker said.

According to the study, the No. 1 barrier respondents cited as being an obstacle in participating in Jewish programs and activities was awareness, with 37% of respondents simply not knowing where to find events, which is “both a frustrating number, but also an exciting one, because there’s a lot of opportunity there,” Baker said.

Two connectors bridging the generations are camps and day schools, which are “intergenerational experiences” that are “sustaining in our community,” Shani Wilkes, associate vice president of research and evaluation at CJP, told eJP. Adults who attended day schools or yeshivas were more than four times as likely to send their children to those institutions, and adults who participated in overnight camp were twice as likely to send their children to camp.

This year’s study marks a change for CJP because they plan to use it to launch “a program of ongoing research and follow-up,” Baker said, “so that we’re diving more deeply into this data and essentially knowing our community on a more regular basis and also evaluating the success and effectiveness of the interventions and investments.”

The first follow-up study will launch this summer, and CJP plans to release an AI data tool to enable the community to mine the data for themselves.

“We’re excited for the elected officials, civic leaders and allies in Greater Boston to be able to use this data to better understand the Jewish community as they strive to build a broader civic Boston where Jews can live and thrive,” Baker said.