Jewish Communities in Wyoming: Jackson, Cheyenne, Casper

How Many Jews Live in Wyoming?

Wyoming’s Jewish population is estimated at roughly 1,150 people, among the smallest of any state, spread across a handful of towns rather than one central city. Cheyenne and Jackson Hole each have a few hundred Jewish residents, with Casper and a scattering of smaller communities making up the rest. Wyoming’s Jewish history goes back more than 140 years, and the community has actually grown substantially in recent decades — up more than threefold since 1980 — as remote workers, retirees, and outdoor-recreation families have discovered the state.

Jackson Hole: An Independent Community, and a New Chabad Center

For more than 60 years, Jewish life in Jackson Hole has centered on the Jackson Hole Jewish Community (JHJC), an independent congregation that doesn’t affiliate with any single movement — a deliberate choice that lets Reform-minded, Conservative-minded, and unaffiliated Jews share one communal home. JHJC runs weekly Kabbalat Shabbat services, a Jewish education program for all ages, and a summer camp out of the Centennial Building on West Broadway. Alongside it, Chabad Lubavitch of Wyoming, led by Rabbi Zalman Mendelsohn, has built a fast-growing presence in town, recently completing the community’s first-ever Torah scroll and breaking ground on the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Wyoming — Jackson’s first building constructed specifically to house Jewish worship, including a synagogue, mikveh, and rabbi’s residence. Together, the two organizations serve an estimated 300 or so Jewish residents in the valley.

Cheyenne’s Mt. Sinai Congregation: Wyoming’s Oldest Synagogue

Cheyenne is home to Mt. Sinai Congregation, founded in 1910 by German and Eastern European Jewish settlers and Wyoming’s oldest continuously operating synagogue. Among Cheyenne’s earliest Jewish settlers were William Myers and Max Idelman, German immigrants who came west seeking religious freedom and helped establish the community that would eventually found Mt. Sinai. Its first permanent building went up in 1915 with support from the Homestead Acts and the Jewish Agricultural Society, becoming the first permanent Jewish house of worship in Wyoming; a wave of postwar immigration in the 1940s swelled the congregation to some 600 members, more than the original building could hold, leading to the current Mid-Century Modern building, designed by Denver architect Earl Morris and completed in 1951 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. Mt. Sinai holds Friday evening services every week, in person and by Zoom, and welcomes Jews across the religious spectrum — a practical necessity in a community too small to sustain separate Reform and Conservative congregations.

Casper’s Temple Beth-El

Casper’s Jewish community organized in 1923 and built Temple Beth-El, a Reform congregation, in 1957 — the only Reform congregation in Wyoming with its own dedicated building. Services blend English and Hebrew, and the congregation gathers most Friday nights for dinner and prayer. A smaller, newer lay-led group, Congregation Kol Ha’Am, also holds monthly Shabbat gatherings for Casper’s Jewish community, giving the city two points of entry for Jewish life despite its modest size.

What Jewish Life in Wyoming Actually Feels Like

Wyoming has only about five synagogues and one Chabad center in the entire state — meaning that in each town, one or two institutions carry the full weight of Jewish communal life, from a bar mitzvah to a shiva minyan. That scarcity produces a distinctly practical, non-denominational culture: congregations that in a bigger city might split into Reform and Conservative wings instead pool everyone together. Jewish Wyomingites describe feeling secure and largely free of antisemitism, with strong ties across the state’s small congregations even though hundreds of miles separate them.

Finding Your Place in Wyoming’s Jewish Community

Whether you’re settling near the Tetons, in Cheyenne, or in Casper, HeimishMart’s Community Explorer can help you locate Jewish life across Wyoming’s scattered communities, and the Jewish Events calendar tracks Shabbat services and holiday gatherings at JHJC, Chabad, Mt. Sinai, and Temple Beth-El. If you’re house hunting near any of these communities, browse Real Estate listings or Rentals for something closer to synagogue. Many Jewish transplants come to Wyoming for outdoor-industry or remote work, and the Jobs board can help with that search. In towns this small, Chessed, HeimishMart’s mutual-aid network, can matter enormously when there’s no larger Jewish infrastructure to fall back on. And if you run a Jewish-owned business or have space to rent near any of Wyoming’s congregations, you can add a listing to help others find you.

By the HeimishMart Community Desk — HeimishMart is the community marketplace for Jewish homes, jobs, and local life across North America.