Boston Jewish community history stretches back more than 175 years, from Central European immigrants in the South End to today’s region of 333,100 people living in Jewish households, according to CJP’s 2025 community study. As the region marks three years since Oct. 7, 2023, here is a guide to the neighborhoods and institutions that shaped Jewish life in Boston.
Early Settlement: South End, North End and West End
Boston had no significant Jewish community until the mid-1800s, when Jews from Poland and Germany began arriving; about 1,000 lived in the city on the eve of the Civil War, according to Boston College’s Global Boston project. Congregation Ohabei Shalom, which dates to the mid-1800s, was Boston’s first synagogue and survives today in Brookline, according to Northeastern University’s Digital History of the Jews of Boston.
From the 1880s, a far larger wave arrived from the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe, fleeing poverty and pogroms. Newcomers crowded into the North End and West End; by 1910, roughly 40,000 Jews lived in the West End, Global Boston says. Nearby Chelsea, where Jews made up nearly half the population by the 1930s, became known as “the Jerusalem of America.” Of the many small congregations from that era, the Vilna Shul on Beacon Hill, built in 1919 by immigrants from Vilna, is the last remaining immigrant-era synagogue building in the city and now operates as a cultural center.
Blue Hill Avenue: Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan
In the first half of the 20th century, Jewish settlement moved south along Blue Hill Avenue through Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan,. Northeastern’s researchers note that Dorchester and Roxbury had been areas where Jewish and Black residents lived side by side. Many Jewish families moved to Brookline, Newton, Sharon and the North Shore suburbs after World War II, and the researchers write that redlining practices in the late 1960s accelerated the decline of the inner-city Jewish neighborhoods. Blue Hill Avenue remains a key corridor today; see our coverage of the Blue Hill Avenue bus lane debate.
Later arrivals reshaped the community again. Holocaust survivors resettled in Greater Boston after the war, and roughly 10,000 Jews from the Soviet Union had settled in the region by the early 1990s, Global Boston reports.
Key Institutions in Boston Jewish Community History
- Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP). Boston’s Federation of Jewish Charities was formed on April 25, 1895, by five charities and was the first Jewish federation in the United States, according to the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center. It became CJP through a 1960 merger. CJP has surveyed the region’s Jewish population every decade since 1965, it says.
- Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC). Sixteen Jewish organizations formed the council on June 14, 1944, after antisemitic violence on Boston streets, JCRC says. It now represents a network of 40 Jewish organizations and helped lead advocacy for the state’s antisemitism commission.
- Beth Israel Hospital. Opened on Townsend Street in Roxbury in 1916 with 45 beds, it moved to Brookline Avenue in 1928, partnered with Harvard Medical School and merged with New England Deaconess Hospital in 1996 to form Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
- Hebrew SeniorLife. Founded in Dorchester in 1903 to care for older adults, it is now based at 1200 Centre St. in Roslindale and has been affiliated with Harvard Medical School since 2007, according to the organization.
- Brandeis University. Founded in 1948 in Waltham by the American Jewish community as a nonsectarian university, named for Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the first Jewish justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, according to Brandeis.
- New England Holocaust Memorial. Dedicated on Oct. 22, 1995, near Faneuil Hall, its six glass towers are etched with numbers and survivor recollections, according to the memorial.
The Boston Jewish Community Today
CJP’s 2025 study, conducted with Rosov Consulting and SSRS from December 2024 to April 2025, counted 138,200 Jewish households in Greater Boston, an almost 8% increase in people since 2015. Of the 333,100 people in those households, 228,500 identify as Jewish. A majority of Jewish households (51%) include someone who is not Jewish, and 65% of Jewish households with children are interfaith, CJP reported.
This week, many of those households are marking the third anniversary of Oct. 7 at commemorations across Greater Boston. Our report on antisemitism in Massachusetts covers the latest data and the state’s response.