(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The natural increase among Jews in Palestine is higher than among any other Jewish community in the world, statistics on Palestine’s birth-rate published here disclose.
The figures show that the number of births registered in the Jewish community in Tel Aviv this year is equal to that of Vienna, whose Jewish population is five times as large.
Palestine’s birth rate is the highest in the world, the statistics show. Moslems are chiefly responsible for this record, the birth rate among them being 561 for every 10,000, followed by Christians with 389 and Jews with 351. Were it not for the appalling death rate among the Moslems, Palestine’s population would be multiplied three times as quickly as that of Sweden and more than 2 1/2 times as quickly as that of England.
The Moslem death rate, on the other hand, amounted last year to two-thirds of the births. Mortality among the Christians was slightly more than half the birth rate, and among the Jews above one-third. Thus, the natural increase among the Jews does not fall below that of the Moslems and Christians.
An effort to bring about the enactment of a kosher bill in Texas, providing for an official inspection of kosher food and meats, is being advocated by Rabbi Abraham I. Schechter of Adath Yeshrun congregation, Houston. The inspector would see that the foods and meats are prepared according to Orthodox Jewish requirements. The law would be modelled after similar kosher laws in New York and California.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.