A California bill that would add “Jewish” as an ethnic identity on state government forms was advanced in the state Senate on Tuesday.
The Senate’s Governmental Organization Committee greenlit Senate Bill 1387 unanimously, 15-0. Introduced by Henry Stern (D-Sherman Oaks) in February, the measure will move to the Judiciary Committee next.
If approved by the Legislature, SB 1387 would require “Jewish” to be included as an ethnic option in any demographic data collection done by state government agencies, ranging from education and health services to criminal justice and social programs. It would make California the first state required to collect data on Jews in this way.
Supporters, including representatives from Jewish California and the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, argue that better demographic data could improve responses to antisemitism, public health disparities and education outcomes. When they spoke to J. in March, Stern and David Bocarsly, Jewish California’s executive director, pointed to recent challenges in tracking hate crimes and identifying trends affecting Jewish students as evidence of the need for more precise data collection.
Individuals who are concerned about sharing their identity are not required to check the box, Stern and Bocarsly said.
However, some people have concerns about how sensitive identity data is collected and stored. UC Berkeley professor of demography Joshua Goldstein told J. that that even aggregated reporting does not eliminate risks if personal information is initially gathered in identifiable form, and that it is important to consider whether the benefits clearly outweigh the risks of creating such a dataset.
The bill has also sparked debate online.
In one post on the r/Judaism subreddit, where users are anonymous and freely share their opinions, a user wrote that “Jews being on lists never leads to anything good.”
“Yikes — I’ll never be answering that one truthfully,” added another.
Posters discussed several issues they had with the bill, from fears about how the government will use the data to debates about the definitions of race, ethnicity and Jewishness.
“Tbh I hate these questions on forms. I’m Argentine and Jewish and these forms always confuse me. Am I white? Am I ‘Latino or Hispanic’? I never feel like any category quite works for me,” said one user.
Revisions to the measure are expected as it advances through the Legislature.