Adjusting Our Lives

By far the most striking trait that differentiates the present-day Jewish communities in the great American cities from those of forty or thirty years ago is the decentralization and the dispersion of the Jewish population over various metropolitan areas. The new Jewish neighborhoods are widely scattered over the big cities wherein the bulk of American Jewry resides.

The more modern and fashionable a new Jewish city-section is, the remoter is it from the old immigrant ghetto which, after all, has little changed since it was first settled by the Jews.

EXODUS FROM OLD SETTLEMENT AREAS

Within the last fifteen years, the old Jewish sections of New York have lost from one-third to one-half of their Jewish population. From the densest Jewish sections, such as the lower East Side, Harlem, and Williamsburgh, over thirty per cent of the Jewish residents have moved away since 1916. The aggregate decrease in population amounts to 250,000.

The natural desire to improve one’s standard of life, to live in more attractive, and comfortable homes, is one of the main driving forces of the population movements in the cities. Again, the influx of the Negroes from the South has supplied an additional impetus for the white people to look for newer residential sections.

Thus, there arise new purely-Jewish sections, as it were, diluted ghettoes, called by sociologists “areas of second settlement,” such as Second avenue around Fourteenth street, the South Bronx, and East New York. Applying this term to still newer developments, we may call the Grand Concourse, Eastern parkway and Flatbush “areas of third settlement.”

Accordingly, the common notion that Jewish areas are located only on the lower East Side, or in other poor districts, is unfounded. In fact, the percentage of Jews for the lower East Side is now only 49.5; whereas other sections of Greater New York have a much denser Jewish population, up to ninety-five per cent, of the total number of residents.

POPULATION MOVEMENTS IN BROOKLYN

The method of Jewish population trends is best revealed by the circumstances accompanying the growth of the greatest Jewish borough—Brooklyn. For years, of course, a migration has taken place from Manhattan into the old and new sections of Brooklyn, such as New Lots, Borough Park, and Flatbush. In 1916 the whole Jewish population of Brooklyn hardly reached 600,000, yet by 1930 it verged upon 900,000, an increase of fifty per cent.

But within Brooklyn, too, Jewish families from eastern sections (Brownsville) have moved westward, into Flatbush, Midwood, and so on. At the same time, the immigrant-residents from the northern sections (Williamsburgh and Willoughby) have been in an un-broken procession moving southward, that is into Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, and Coney Island.

The rapid growth of the Jewish community in Coney Island is particularly noticeable. There about 65,000 Jews, or ninety-six per cent, of the total population, reside.

Now, the Brooklyn movement has all been away from the old type dwellings and into one-family, two-family and apartment house sections. Originally, settlements in the new Jewish area, it has been observed, were made in sections where one-family houses prevailed. But the next wave from the older ghetto moved largely into two-family houses.

The third and final wave consisted mainly of an apartment house population, because the rise In land values made the construction of smaller dwellings, in point of cost, prohibitive. In North Flatbush, Eastern Parkway, and Borough Park, to name but a few sections, no more small structures are likely to be erected. These regions, that is to say, are bound to remain what they are today—pre-eminently upper middle class sections.

On the other hand, Eastern Flatbush, attracting as it does large parts of the population moving out from East New York, is at the point of becoming the newest center of the lower middle class Jewish population in Brooklyn.

ECONOMIC STATUS

The Federal Census of 1930 records present a distribution of home values and rentals for each of the 300 “health areas” which make up the metropolitan territory. A recent special study by a Jewish sociologist, Dr. J. B. Maller, covered fifteen of these areas with an estimated percentage of Jews ranging from eighty-six to ninety-nine, with an average of ninety-three per cent.

These Jewish areas were located as follows: one in Manhattan, four in the Bronx, and ten in Brooklyn. The total population in these areas was 497,223.

Now, the average monthly rental for the Jewish areas was $43. This is practically the same as the average monthly rental for the city as a whole. By and large, therefore, in economic status the Jewish neighborhoods are identical with the rest of New York.

This study of Jewish neighborhoods is to be continued so as to provide data on occupations, unemployment, recreational facilities, and the like.

TRAITS OF JEWISH AREAS

The study has revealed that the Jewish population is relatively younger than the total population in New York. The younger age groups had higher proportions in Jewish areas, while in the remainder of Greater New York the older age groups formed a large part of the population than in Jewish areas. Naturally, in the Jewish sections of the city there was a larger proportion of foreign-born and children of the foreign-born.

The Jewish areas have a slightly lower birth rate, and a definitely lower death rate and infant mortality rate, as compared with data for the total city. The death rate among Jews is lower for all causes of death except diabetes.

The school population in Jewish sections shows a smaller percentage of the more common physical defects, except vision. The pupils in these schools have a higher average of attendance and a higher rate of school progress.