From Brooklyn to the Burbs: The Sephardization of American Orthodoxy

I recently stumbled across a statistic that completely blew me away.

According to a 2025 NYU/Brandeis study commissioned by JIMENA, roughly 10% of American Jewish adults—about 590,000 people—identify as Sephardic or Mizrahi.

Now, I knew there were thriving Syrian communities in Brooklyn and Deal, and massive Persian centers in Great Neck and Los Angeles. But nearly 600,000 people? I never would have guessed it.

That stat sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. Why has the Sephardic-Mizrachi community grown so rapidly over the last decade? And why does it seem like almost every suburban Orthodox shul I visit lately has added a Sephardic minyan to its roster?

It turns out there’s a fascinating sociological shift happening right under our noses, driven by a few key factors:

• Under-the-Radar Numbers: First, there are simply far more Sephardim in America than most Ashkenazim realize. From Syrian and Persian to Bukharian, Moroccan, Iraqi, Latin-American, and Israeli Jews, the population is vast—and expanding.
• The Move to the Suburbs: The old model was simple: Syrian Jews lived in Flatbush, Persians in Great Neck, Bukharians in Queens. But their children and grandchildren are moving to ordinary suburban communities in Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey, and beyond. You don’t need 200 families to make an impact anymore; just 15 or 20 Sephardic families moving into a town is enough to start a weekly minyan.
• Flexibility in the Shuls: Fifty years ago, an Orthodox shul was strictly Ashkenazi. Today, shuls compete for members and aim to accommodate. If 30 families want to join a shul but pray in their own nusach, shuls figure out how to make it work. Look at Kehilath Jeshurun on Manhattan’s Upper East Side: their Sephardic minyan started in 2011 and now serves over 150 families under the same roof.
• Blended Families: Intermarriage between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews is higher than ever, with many young couples choosing to adopt Sephardic traditions and minyanim.
• A Cultural Renaissance: Younger Sephardim are embracing their heritage with distinct pride. They want the piyyutim, the music, the cuisine, and the history. They aren’t waiting for the Ashkenazi establishment to define their Jewish experience.
• Educational Integration: Sephardic and Ashkenazi worlds have overlapped academically. Young Sephardic Jews attend mainstream yeshivas and seminaries while keeping their family identity intact, blending Ashkenazi-style Orthodox education with Sephardic liturgy seamlessly.
• The Ashkenazi Attraction: Here’s an interesting twist: Ashkenazi Jews are actively choosing Sephardic minyanim. They find the davening more musical, participatory, energetic, and warm. At Magen David in Scarsdale, for example, plenty of Ashkenazim happily join in the service.
• The COVID Effect: The pandemic shattered routine shul habits. People experimented with new locations and micro-communities, shedding old assumptions about staying in their parents’ exact footsteps.
• The “critical mass” phenomenon: Suppose there are 20 Sephardic/Mizrachi families in a suburb. Twenty years ago, that would have been too few for a synagogue, so everyone joined the local Ashkenazi shul. Today, 20 families is enough for a Shabbat Sephardic minyan that can be created inside an Ashkenazi synagogue. And once the minyan exists, it attracts more people.

This brings us to what might be the biggest story of all.

Sephardic minyanim aren’t just growing because of shifting demographics. They’re growing because consumer behavior and religious identity have fundamentally changed. For the first time, American Jews of Sephardic ancestry are simply unwilling to accept the default assumption that an American Orthodox shul must be Ashkenazi.

That is a quiet, powerful revolution in American Jewish life—and it’s going to be remarkable to watch where it leads next.