Yeshiva Enrollment in Rockland County Sees Exponential Growth

By: Yitzy Fried 

OJPAC, a group that advocates for the Orthodox Jewish community, has produced data showing the incredible growth in the number of Yeshiva students in various communities in New York State. 

Rockland County came in number two in seeing the greatest jump in numbers—a direct indicator of the growth of the orthodox Jewish population in the county. 

Using numbers from the New York State Education Department, OJPAC looked at the growth over two decades—from September 2001 to September 2021. In this time, Yeshiva school enrollment in Rockland County grew by 144%. In raw numbers, the number of boys and girls enrolled in Rockland County yeshivos this year is 32,435. 

Among other data points, the group looked at the numbers of enrolled Yeshiva students as a percentage of other non-public school students in all of New York State.  

“Twenty years ago, in the September 2001 school year, there were 470,872 non-public school students enrolled in schools throughout New York State. 98,712 (21%) were in Jewish schools. In the current year, non-public school enrollment is at 381,652, of which 162,894 (42.7%) are enrolled in Jewish schools,” OJPAC wrote.