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4,300 Jews Left Europe in Past 100 Years; Europe No Longer Principal Jewish Center

August 20, 1951
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Over 4,300,000 Jews migrated from Europe in the past one hundred years, a detailed survey conducted by the Institute of Jewish Affairs of the World Jewish Congress disclosed today.

As a result of this mass migration and the death of millions of Jews through persecution, Europe has ceased to be the principal center of Jewish life, the report says. It points out that 88 percent of the Jews of the world lived in Europe in 1850 and only 24,5 percent one hundred years later, adding that “the major part of European Jewry is now to be found in Soviet Russia, separated and cut off from the rest of the Jewish people.”

The results of emigration and mass extermination have been so striking that today there are considerably fewer Jews in Europe than there were in 1850. A century ago, according to the survey, 4,500,000 Jews lived in Europe, whereas the number in 1950 was only 2,750,000. The trend of Jews to emigrate from Europe is a continuing one, the study established. Approximately 530,000 Jews left Europe from the beginning of 1946 to the end of 1950 and that many thousands of others are registered for emigration.

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