About the Study Team
Ira M. Sheskin, Ph.D.
The 2014 Miami Jewish Population Study is being conducted under the direction of Ira M. Sheskin, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Geography and Regional Studies at the University of Miami and Director of the Jewish Demography Project of UM's Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies.
Dr. Sheskin is an authority on demographics and the Jewish community, having conducted three previous population studies for the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and 39 similar studies for Jewish communities throughout the United States. He was on the national committee that conducted the 1990 and the 2000 National Jewish Population Survey.
Dr. Sheskin has served on the board of the North American Jewish Data Bank (now the Berman Jewish Data Bank) of The Jewish Federations of North America.
He is the Editor of the American Jewish Year Book and authors the annual article in that volume on the number of Jews in over 900 Jewish communities around the United States. His other books are Comparisons of Jewish Communities: A Compendium of Tables and Bar Charts, which compares measures of demography and religiosity among 55 American Jewish communities and Survey Research for Geographers.
He is past Chair of both the Transportation Geography and Ethnic Geography Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers and serves on the Board of the Race, Ethnicity and Place Conference.
Greater Miami Jewish Federation Volunteers
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s 2014 Miami Jewish Population Study Committee is composed of volunteer leadership from across Miami’s Jewish community, who are working closely with Federation Planning professionals. Chaired by Amy Chafetz, the committee includes: Joe Ackerman, Rabbi Chaim Albert, Robert Berrin, Brian Bilzin, Michelle Burger, John Bussel, Rachel Camber, Charles Citrin, Rebecca Dinar, Rabbi Ed Farber, Joseph Givner, Steven Gretenstein, Penny Harris, Todd Heller, Dan Jacobson, Ron Katz, Leah Klein, Laura Koffsky, Paul Kruss, Adam Lustig, Mark Oren, Sam Sheldon, Sami Shiro and Stanley Weinstein.
