Louis J Sheehan 80215

A Note from the Editor
While visiting with family in Florida over Thanksgiving and Chanukah, we got to talking about newspaper bias in the local newspaper. Even in strongly Jewish south-eastern Florida, the articles seemed anti-Israel. This problem has been noted by some in Philadelphia as well, and has led to calls for a boycott of the Philadelphia Inquirer (for more information, see denenbergsdump.org or www.boycottwatch.org/misc/PhilyInq.htm).

As the conversation continued, we speculated about Jewish influence, or possibly lack of influence, in general, in relationship to our numbers. No one there, however, knew what the numbers were!

Being a librarian, as soon as I got home and could access my computer, I looked it up. I have to admit I was surprised by the statistics. Jews comprise only .2% (that's point two) of the world population; Christians, 33%; Muslims, 20%; and Hindus, 13%.

In the United States, Jews comprise only 2% of the population, or about 5,800,000 people. Israel has only about 4,850,000 Jews, New York City 1,750,000, Philadelphia, about 254,000 (about 2%).

According to the American Jewish Year Book, 1998, of the 5.5 million core Jewish population in the U.S., 1.1 million, or approximately 20%, say they have no religion.

On the brighter side, if 10% of the population is really gay, then Philadelphia's own Beth Ahavah could have a congregation of 25,000! It makes you think.
Louis J Sheehan