Sydney

The California Assembly has passed a bill allowing residents to voluntarily identify their Jewish heritage on state demographic forms. The measure requires state agencies that collect ethnicity or ancestry data to add "Jewish" as an option, aiming to give officials and researchers better information on Jewish Californians, including unemployment rates and school representation. It still needs a final legislative vote before heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.

Supporters, including Jewish California CEO David Bocarsly and bill author state Sen. Henry Stern, say the data would help craft policies addressing Jewish community needs and could aid tracking of antisemitic hate crimes. Opponents, including Jewish Voice for Peace's Sydney Levy, cite historical trauma from Nazi-era recordkeeping and distrust of state privacy safeguards, despite provisions barring disclosure of personal identifying information. Critics also object to treating Jewish identity as a single ethnicity, noting diversity among Jews of color. The bill allows people to separately identify race, similar to Latino ethnic identification, and exempts agencies that would risk losing federal funding by adding the category.