A third of the adult Jewish population in Detroit was born in Detroit or Michigan, another quarter was born elsewhere in the United States, and slightly less than a half were born abroad, it was established in a study made public today by the Jewish Welfare Federation here.
The study, conducted for the Federation by Dr. Albert J, Mayer, of Wayne State University, shows that, of 100 Jewish families in Detroit, about 50 are headed by foreign-born adults, 40 contain parents native to the U.S. but whose parents were foreign born, and of the two remaining families only two had grandparents born in the United States.
“It can be said,” Dr. Mayer added, “that today the influence of European Jewish culture is still strongly imprinted on the American Jewish community, but this period is quickly drawing to a close. The Detroit Jewish community contains individuals born on all continents and in all European countries. Together these persons of varied national origins make up over one-quarter of the foreign born.”
The Jewish Welfare Federation also has made public another study by Dr. Mayer, on the educational level of the Detroit Jewish population. This survey shows that half of the men and a third of the women in the Detroit Jewish population went beyond high school, the comparative figure for the general population being one in six who went beyond high school, Men, it is shown, are more likely to have gone to college.
Pointing out that positions in family businesses attract the younger people instead to education, Dr. Mayer stated that “It is highly probable that the younger people do have less education than the middle age group.” He denied, however, that education is losing ground in the Jewish group and he suggested further investigation into this question.
ALMOST ALL JEWISH CHILDREN IN CITY ARE AMERICAN BORN
In evaluating the composition of the Jewish population in Detroit, Dr. Mayer said: “There is still a strong foreign born element in the Detroit Jewish population. While the children are almost entirely native, the adults are often foreign born. Only about a quarter of the foreign born are under 45 years old, and the bulk are in the 45 to 64-year-age group.
“In 20 years the bulk of the adult Jewish population under 65 years of age will be American born. This demographic fact will be a significant characteristic of the American Jewish community,” Dr. Mayer stressed.
Most of the present adult population came here before they were 20 years old, the study showed. Less than one out of five was over 35 years of age when they came to the United States and the distinction between those of foreign birth and the native born is not as sharp as appears at first glance.
“There is little difference between the people native to the United States and the people who came here before they were adolescent. More important is the fact that both had foreign parents. Today’s adult Jewish population is preponderantly–90 percent–either foreign born themselves or children of a foreign born father. Only about 20 percent had native parents,” Dr. Mayer pointed out.
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