Jewish Population in the U.S. Shows Marked Tendency to Disperse Throughout Country

The Jews in the United States display a marked tendency to move away from the ports of entry and to disperse gradually throughout the country.

In those places where the Jews live they constitute over eleven per cent in the large cities, over three per cent in the medium-sized cities, less than one per cent in the small towns, and over one and a half per cent in rural areas, it is shown in the study of the Jewish population in the United States made by Dr. H. S. Linfield, Director of the Statistical Department of the American Jewish Committee, which will be published in the forthcoming issue of the American Jewish Year Book. This study brought out the fact that the Jews in the United States numbered 4,228,000 in 1927.

Dr. Linfield’s survey shows that the spread of Jews to cities having a population of 25,000 or over has reached 100 per cent, there being no city of that size in any part of the country without inhabitants of the Jewish faith. But also among places of smaller size the spread of the Jews is very considerable as may be seen from the following: there were Jewish residents in nintyfour of every 100 places of 25,000 to 10,000 population; in eighty-eight of every 100 places of 10,000 to 5,000; in eighty-four of every 100 places of 5,000; to 2,500; in thirty of every 100 rural villages of 2,500 or less; and in seven areas of every 100 rural areas, commonly known as minor civil divisions.

This wide dispersion over the country appears to be of recent date. “Inasmuch as the canvasses of the Jews made ten and twenty years ago and also previously did not lend themselves to an examination of the distribution of the Jews and their densities at those years,” Dr. Linfield says, “it is not possible to make comparisons or to trace the movement of the Jews from the ports of their entry to the interior and from the large places to the small places, or to indicate the pace of their spread over the country. But the striking lightness of the density of the Jews in the rural places and especially in the towns of 25,000 or less would indicate that their spread to these places is recent.”

The study of Dr. Linfield discloses that the chief centers of the dispersion seem to be the City of New York, Philadiphia, Boston, Pittseburg. Jews from these large centers are spreading to the rural territory in the neighboring states as well as to smaller urban places. Similarly, the study brings out the interesting fact that there is a noticeable tendency among the Jews to spread from the North to the West and the South. Ten years ago only 3.16 per cent of the total number of Jews lived in the West, but in 1927, the percentage had grown to 4.26 per cent, and there has been a similar increase in the South.

In the country as a whole the Jews constitute 3.58 per cent of the total population, but their density varies greatly. This density is lightest in the State of Idaho and heaviest in the State of New York. “The density of the Jews in the country varies, however, not only according to geographic divisions of the country but also, or better, especially according to another factor, namely the size of the place, city or town,” says Dr, Linfield. The survey shows that in those places where the Jews live, they constitute 11.1 per cent of the total population in cities of 100,000 or over; 3.1 per cent in cities 100,000 to 25,000; 1.8 per cent in cities 25,000 to 10,000; less than one per cent in cities 10,000 to 2,500; and nearly 1.5 per cent in the rural places, in which the Jews live.