Role of U.S. Jewry Considered of “decisive Importance” for Jewish Future

The role which American Jewry plays in Jewish life throughout the world was depicted in a survey published here by the World Jewish Congress. The survey established that “the nature and development of the Jewish community in the United States is of decisive importance for the future of the Jewish people” because more than half the Jews of the world are now in America–most of them in the U. S.

Prepared by Prof. Morris Ginsberg of the University of London, the survey stresses that Jewish developments in the United States are “highly complex” and that they attract wide attention. Prof. Ginsberg summarizes the situation of the Jews in the United States as follows:

1. The Jewish population in the U.S.A. exceeds five million, the latest estimate being 5,200, 000. Roughly 40 percent live in New York City. About 75 percent are now American born, though probably hardly more than 10 percent can claim a residence of more than two generations.

2. The Jewish population is said to be predominantly middle class. By this is meant partly that Jews have shared in the general post-war prosperity and partly that Jews have moved increasingly into the professional and salaried employments. The old Jewish working class has all but disappeared. On the other hand, large numbers have entered the skilled mechanical crafts and, in this sense, there has been a process of “laborization.” It is worth noting that a greater proportion of American Jews have a college education than American non-Jews of comparable age groups generally.

3. As Jews become more “middle class” they share in the general shift of the population towards the suburbs. They are moving away rapidly from the areas of “second settlement” and are founding new communities on the periphery of the great cities. In some of the new suburban settlements the Jews constitute a majority of the population; in others they are in a tiny minority. Everywhere, however, in these areas, there is said to be a greater mingling between Jewish and non-Jewish residents than in the cities and a greater approximation of living standards and patterns of life.

4. Jews have also taken part in the general drift of the population towards the Pacific Coast and some parts of the South. In 1955 there were 325, 000 Jews in Los Angeles and 65, 000 in Miami. Despite these various movements it remains that seventy-five percent of America’s Jews still live in the ten largest American cities. New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston have a Jewish population of 3,330, 000 or nearly two-thirds of all the Jews in the U. S. A.

5. A striking feature of Jewish life in the decades after the war is a return to the synagogue. Observers are agreed that there has been a remarkable expansion of synagogue construction, synagogue membership and of synagogue attendance. This is part of the general expansion of institutional religion in America. Precise statistical data are not available, but the evidence suggests that the movement of American Jews into the synagogue has been at least as vigorous as that of Americans generally into the church.