Madison Square Park in Manhattan. Photo: wiki commons.

1.1 million.

That’s the number of Jewish individuals currently living in New York City, representing an increase in the population size since 2002 , according to a newly released study by the UJA Federation of New York, which publishes an update nearly once a decade.

The growth in the city’s Jewish population however has been fueled by high birthrates among the Orthodox population, which has a higher poverty rate when compared to Jews of other denominations.

“Over the last decade wealthy, Ivy League graduates like those on the Upper West Side have increasingly lost population share relative to Orthodox groups, like the Hasidic population in Brooklyn, where college degrees are rare and poverty rates have reached 43 percent,” Joseph Berger writes in the New York Times.

According to the study, which the UJA says “will not only inform our own strategic planning but also prove helpful to agencies, synagogues, day schools, and other Jewish social service, educational, and grassroots organizations”, 1 in 4 Jews living in New York City are poor, representing in increase from the 1 in 5 number cited in the 2002 study.

Outside of Israel, the New York area represents the largest Jewish population in the world, making up one third of American Jewry.

Professor Steven M. Cohen of Jewish Policy and Action Research, which the UJA used to help conduct the study, says the findings will resonate throughout the United States.

“The New York area is such an important part of the national Jewish community that these findings will also help illuminate trends taking place nationwide.”