World Jewish population increased slightly by 58,557 during 1955 to reach a total of 11,908,443, or 0.4 percent of the total world population, it is reported in the 57th annual issue of the “American Jewish Year Book,” published today by the American Jewish Committee.
A significant fact revealed in the 689-page record of events and trends in American and world Jewish life is that New York, the city with the world’s largest Jewish population, lost 80,000 in Jewish population, mostly to suburban Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey between 1952 and 1955. Manhattan dropped by 30,000 to 320,000; Bronx dropped by 50,000 to 475,000; and Brooklyn at 870,000 showed a loss of 70,000.
The distributions of Jewish populations by continents is as follows: Europe (including Asiatic USSR and Turkey), 3,442,627; America (North and South), 6,062,362; Asia, 1,684,454; Africa, 660,750; Australia and New Zealand, 58,250.
During 1955, the United States, Soviet Russia and Israel maintained first, second and third positions respectively as the countries with the largest Jewish populations, with Israel showing a one-year increase of 62,488 for a total of 1,550,958. The Jewish population of the United States remained at 5,200,000 or 3,1 percent of the total population of 165,248,000.
The figure of an estimated 2,000,000 Jewish population for the USSR remains the same since the Russian government declines any information on its Jewish population. However, the “Year Book’s” article on the Soviet Union reports that “tens of thousands” of Jews in Russia populate the Soviet prisons and forced labor camps.
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.
