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,........

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