A new California bill would require state government forms that collect demographic data to add “Jewish” as an ethnic identity.
This would both allow Jews to identify themselves as an ethnicity for the first time and make California the first state required to collect data on Jews in this way.
Checking the box will be optional.
Currently, some state government forms ask a question about religion and include “Jewish” as a response. State Sen. Henry Stern (D-Sherman Oaks), a California Legislative Jewish Caucus member who introduced SB 1387, told J. that the state needs better demographic data on Jews in the state. He added that some may identify as Jewish ethnically instead of religiously.
“This is really just to identify and understand the citizens we’re serving, and how to best serve them and what pressures they might be going through,” said Stern, who introduced the bill in late February. “We’re trying to give space for people who don’t fit in a box right now.”
He said that this gap in data has had real consequences, ranging from hate crimes getting miscategorized to difficulties in understanding trends affecting Jewish students in public schools.
California collects demographic data on forms for services like public school enrollment, voter registration, paid family-leave benefits and CalFresh food assistance.
SB 1387 is coauthored by state Sen. Ben Allen (D-El Segundo) and Assemblymembers Marc Berman (D-Palo Alto) and Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). Like Stern, the co-authors are members of the Jewish Caucus.
The bill is sponsored by Jewish California, which represents a statewide coalition of more than 40 Jewish organizations and is formerly known as the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, or JPAC.
The bill was introduced just months after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 91 into law. That legislation created a new category under race and ethnicity on state forms for people with Middle Eastern and North African origins, which includes Israelis.
“There are a lot of Jewish people that identify with their Jewish identity based on ancestry or history, language, food, culture, physical characteristics and values, and those things that are often defining characteristics of ethnicity,” said David Bocarsly, Jewish California’s executive director. “We’re not just a religion. We’re a culture, a peoplehood and an ethnicity. That is what we are.”
The bill would also amend education law to clarify that the category of ethnicity “is inclusive of Jewish identity,” according to the bill text.
The requirement to include “Jewish” as an ethnic identity would apply broadly across state government, affecting agencies that collect demographic data in areas like health, education, social services, licensing, research and surveys.
The bill would also add Jewish identity to criminal justice data within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as well as to disability benefits data.
Under SB 1387, the data collected would be publicly reported in aggregated form, meaning the information would be presented as averages, totals or percentages without personal identifiers.
The bill, which will likely undergo revisions during the 2026 legislative session, has tentatively earned institutional support among Jewish organizations. For some people, though, it raises significant questions about privacy.
Joshua Goldstein, a professor of demography at UC Berkeley, said that although it would be presented in aggregated form, this type of data is “often collected in a non-anonymized manner.” He pointed out that “a respondent’s name will be linked to their answer from the outset of data collection and only removed later” for publication.
Goldstein, who has studied how mixed-race and ethnic populations form and are identified, said it is important to consider whether the benefits clearly outweigh the risks of creating such a dataset.
“We should be very, very cautious about potential side effects of the collection of ‘ethnicity’ on Jews,” he said. “One does not need to go to Nazi Germany to see historical examples of government data on ethnicity being misused.”
Stern stressed that he understands the “sensitivity of the moment,” and Bocarsly noted that the measure is intended to act as a “protective shield” for the Jewish community.
They said that individuals who are concerned about sharing their identity are not required to check the box. They each added that in their view, better data can improve health care outcomes, public schooling and other government services.
“If there are a few people who don’t feel comfortable sharing that data, they don’t have to” Bocarsly said, “so there shouldn’t be any risk here.”