96 Percent of U.S. Jews Live in Urban Areas, Census Bureau Reports

Details of the Census Bureau report of a sample survey on religious affiliation of the United States population–which indicated that 3, 900, 000 persons over the age of 14 declared their religion as Jewish–were given here today. The survey was conducted last March and answers to the religious question were voluntary. This question will not be included in the 1960 census.

For purposes of the survey, the census considered the southern region to embrace all states from Delaware south and extending west as far as Oklahoma and Texas. The west included the Rocky Mountain and Pacific coast states; the north central area took in all states north of the Ohio River and as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

In the northeast there were 2, 671, 000 professing the Jewish religion or 8-1/2 percent of the population of the region. This represented two-thirds of all those reporting the Jewish religion; the bureau estimated that 460, 000 persons in the north central states considered themselves as belonging to the Jewish religion, 299 000 in the South and 438, 000 in the west.

Whereas 64 percent of the entire population lives in city areas, there were marked rural-urban differences in the religious groups. Of the Jewish group, 96 percent lived in urban areas; of the Catholics, 79 percent; of the Protestants, 57 percent; and of those reporting no religion, 54 percent.

Among the married couples in which one spouse was Roman Catholic, the other partner was Protestant or Jewish in 22 percent of the cases. For the couples in which one partner was Jewish, seven percent of the husbands or wives was Protestant or Roman Catholics. The question on religion was not asked of persons under 14, but the bureau said it was possible to classify nearly all young children according to the religion reported for the head of the family or his wife.