Last week, we looked at the extent of spatial segregation between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, compared to the other mixed cities in Israel. Residential segregation in Jerusalem was strong compared to the other cities, and the index of dissimilarity stood at 96%. This number expresses the degree of segregation between Jews and Arabs in the city, and is defined as the percentage of residents from one of the groups who will, theoretically, have to move to another neighborhood so that in each area the ratio between the two groups will be the same as in the entire city. In this column we will try to examine the degree of segregation within Jewish neighborhoods, among the different groups that differ in religious identity – secular, traditional, religious and ultra-Orthodox.
Among the Jewish population in the city, there is also segregation in housing between different groups, but it is more moderate than the separation between Jews and Arabs. Using the Central Bureau of Statistics’ Labor Force Survey data, we examined the index of dissimilarity for people aged 15 and above, between every two of the four groups (totaling six relationships). The values of the index ranged from 30% (between religious and traditional) to 82% (between ultra-Orthodox and secular). As expected, the levels of separation between the ultra-Orthodox population and each of the other three populations (69% between ultra-Orthodox and religious; 77% ultra-Orthodox – traditional; and as mentioned, 82% ultra-Orthodox – secular) were higher than the levels between the three other groups (38% religious – secular; 31% religious – traditional; and as mentioned, 30% religious – traditional).
The picture rising from the data is of three populations that make up what we sometimes call the “General-Jewish population” that share the city’s neighborhoods, while the fourth, ultra-Orthodox, is much more separated, or segregated, in terms of housing. It is important to note that the dissimilarity index shows the degree of separation in residence, and not necessarily the degree of exposure of each group to the other group. There are other metrics for examining inter-group exposure.
