Your city's Jewish community

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Docere

Montreal has about 90,000 Jews and it's increasingly francophone, Sephardic and Hasidim. Basically it filters toward religiosity and people who don't care about the English language one way or integrating into English-speaking society one way or the other. Even though Toronto has twice the Jewish population there may be more Kosher restaurants in Montreal due to a lot of French Sephardim coming from Europe.

Montreal used to have a larger "Reform Jewish" (what I refer to as secular Jews) population, but a huge number of them left as part of the anglo exodus in the late 70s and 80s.

As you allude to, the groups that tended to stay and move to Montreal are the ones that didn't care so much about the English language and culture being mainstream.

Reform Jews that left Montreal en masse tended to be classic anglophone North American Jews in the manner of Neil Diamond and Steven Spielberg.

[Docere]

Secular Jews and Reform Jews aren't the same thing. Reform is the most liberal of the major Jewish denominations and Reform is the largest Jewish denomination in the US. Most Reform Jews live very secular lifestyles and only attend for High Holidays, though there's a segment that's more active.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Docere

Secular Jews and Reform Jews aren't the same thing. Reform is the most liberal of the major Jewish denominations and Reform is the largest Jewish denomination in the US. Most Reform Jews live very secular lifestyles and only attend for High Holidays, though there's a segment that's more active.

Thanks. I am not up on these nuances, but in the context of how left Montreal and who stayed, I'd say the exodus was mostly of English-speaking Reform and Secular Jews of Ashkenazi origins.

Orthodox Hasidim tended to stay behind (and even to move from Montreal from other parts of the world) and the Sephardim community was very small at the time, but has grown a lot since then.

[Docere]

No doubt the Montreal Jewish community is very different than it was 50 years ago. The people who left were mostly Ashkenazi and non-Orthodox and of prime working age, with the elderly remaining behind. Since then the Hasidic and Sephardic communities have increased greatly in size.

[Docere]

Sephardim population and % of Jews (2011):

Cote St. Luc 5,580 29%
Ville St. Laurent 3,365 48%
Snowdon 1,490 28%
Cote des Nieges 1,315 25%
Hampstead 1,230 23%
NDG 850 15%
Chomedey 825 37%
Westmount 645 14%
Mount Royal 570 40%

https://www.jewishdatabank.org/api/d...al+English.pdf

22,000 Sephardim in 2011 or about a quarter of the Montreal Jewish community. Percentage has likely increased since with French Sephardim arriving.

[Docere]

The Hasidim can be isolated by language.

7,660 speak Yiddish at home in Montreal according to the 2021 census (9% of the Jewish community).

The borough of Outremont (H2V postal code) is the heart of the Hasidic community.

Outremont (H2V)

Population: 30,900

Jewish: 8,215 26.6%

Speak Yiddish at home: 5,350 17.3%

[Docere]

Jewish population ca. 1930

New York 1,765,000 25.5%
Chicago 275,000 8.1%
Philadelphia 270,000 13.8%
Boston 90,000 11.5%
Cleveland 85,000 9.4%
Detroit 75,000 4.8%
Los Angeles 70,000 5.7%
Baltimore 68,000 8.4%
Newark 65,000 14.7%
Pittsburgh 53,000 7.9%
St. Louis 50,000 6.2%
Montreal 49,000 5.9%
Toronto 45,000 7.2%
San Francisco 35,000 5.5%

[austlar1]

Interesting compilation of Jewish demographics for 1927. Very detailed lists of state and city populations of Jewish community.

https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/...ion%201927.pdf

[Docere]

Chelsea, Mass. might have been the most Jewish place (by %) in the US. It wasn't as big as Roxbury (the main Boston Jewish area) but it was another sizeable settlement.

[Docere]

Yiddish mother tongue, 1920 Census (% of total city population)

New York 946,139 16.8%
Chicago 159,518 5.9%
Philadelphia 143,514 7.9%
Boston 60,042 8%
Newark 39,863 9.6%
Baltimore 39,333 5.4%
Detroit 34,727 3.5%
Cleveland 30,383 3.8%
Pittsburgh 22,752 3.9%
St. Louis 20,420 2.6%
Hartford 13,623 9.9%
Minneapolis 12,372 3.3%
New Haven 12,233 7.5%
Paterson 11,709 8.6%
Rochester 11,447 3.9%
Milwaukee 11,265 2.5%
Los Angeles 10,540 1.8%
Providence 9,821 4.1%
Buffalo 9,705 1.9%
Jersey City 8,989 3%
Worcester 7,702 4.3%
St. Paul 7,493 3.2%
Cincinnati 6,808 1.7%
Bridgeport 6,255 4.4%
Springfield 6,238 4.8%
San Francisco 5,598 1.1%
Syracuse 5,433 3.2%
Kansas City 5,162 1.6%

[Crawford]

In 1920, who spoke Yiddish as mother tongue? Basically anyone from shetls of Eastern Europe?

[Docere]

Yiddish mother tongue is basically the Eastern European immigration, it doesn't include the older German Jewish element.

I include it because I prefer census data (when available) to community estimates which vary in methodology and quality.

[Docere]

1897 Russian Empire census. At the time it was home to half the world's Jewish population (5.2 million). 97% spoke Yiddish. About half were urban and half were rural (Jews made up 15% of the urban population). Nearly all lived in the Pale of Settlement and Russian Poland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire_census

https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Ma...dia_(1905).jpg

Cities the Pale and in Poland had very big Jewish populations indeed:

Warsaw 219,149 35%
Odessa 138,915 34.4%
Lodz 98,677 31.4%
Vilna 64,000 41.4%
Kishinev 50,237 46.3%
Minsk 47,562 52.3%

Although Jewish immigrants are thought of as the sort of Fiddler on the Roof stereotype, the Jewish population was already quite urbanized. The political radicalism of the Lower East Side or Toronto's Spadina Avenue that lasted into the 1950s had its roots in the Eastern European Jewish proletariat.

[Docere]

Via the NY Jewish study in 1958. It's interesting to get the class composition of the population at the time. A comparison of the number in professional/managerial and crafts/operatives occupations in 1950 (Jewish population in brackets). This is from the Census but most of these areas are 40%+ Jewish.

MANHATTAN

Lower East Side (83,000)

Professional/managerial 13.8%
Clerical/sales 20.5%
Crafts/operatives 39.9%

Park West (75,000)

Professional/managerial 33.9%
Clerical/sales 27.5%
Crafts/operatives 17.8%

Washington Heights (73,000)

Professional/managerial 26%
Clerical/sales 32.7%
Crafts/operatives 25.8%

BRONX

West Bronx (138,000)

Professional/managerial 28.8%
Clerical/sales 34.2%
Crafts/operatives 27.6%

Morisania (81,000)

Professional/managerial 11.7%
Clerical/sales 22.2%
Crafts/operatives 43.2%

Fordham (105,000)

Professional/managerial 29.1%
Clerical/sales 35.5%
Crafts/operatives 24.8%

Tremont (46,000)

Professional/managerial 17.3%
Clerical/sales 28.3%
Crafts/operatives 41.3%

Pelham Parkway (59,000)

Professional/managerial 24.4%
Clerical/sales 31.1%
Crafts/operatives 32.6%

BROOKLYN

Williamsburg (67,000)

Professional/managerial 13.5%
Clerical/sales 20%
Crafts/operatives 42.2%

Crown Heights (75,000)

Professional/managerial 27.6%
Clerical/sales 30.7%
Crafts/operatives 26.6%

Borough Park (67,000)

Professional/managerial 27.4%
Clerical/sales 31%
Crafts/operatives 32.4%

Flatbush (122,000)

Professional/managerial 32.3%
Clerical/sales 36%
Crafts/operatives 21.7%

Brownsville (126,000)

Professional/managerial 19%
Clerical/sales 26.7%
Crafts/operatives 42.2%

East New York (74,000)

Professional/managerial 16.7%
Clerical/sales 28%
Crafts/operatives 44.4%

Bensonhurst (85,000)

Professional/managerial 23.8%
Clerical/sales 27.6%
Crafts/operatives 39.5%

Bath Beach (49,000)

Professional/managerial 20.6%
Clerical/sales 24.3%
Crafts/operatives 44.7%

Midwood (55,000)

Professional/managerial 31.8%
Clerical/sales 33.7%
Crafts/operatives 25%

Sheepshead Bay (48,000)

Professional/managerial 28.1%
Clerical/sales 31%
Crafts/operatives 30.1%

Coney Island

Professional/managerial 24.6%
Clerical/sales 28.3%
Crafts/operatives 34.8%

QUEENS

Forest Hills (34,000)

Professional/managerial 46.8%
Clerical/sales 31.5%
Crafts/operatives 13.4%

Source: https://www.jewishdatabank.org/api/d...ain_Report.pdf

The areas are mapped on page 52 and these stats can be found in Table 2 of the Appendix.

[Crawford]

Very interesting. NYC had a giant population of Jewish garmentos and many others involved in other forms of manufacturing. Until the 60's, there were very large blue collar Jewish populations.

The South/Central Bronx, which was possibly the most Jewish place on earth early-mid-century, illustrates the differences. The West Bronx (Grand Concourse area) was more managerial and the East Bronx (Tremont area) was very working class. When Jewish flight hit the Bronx, Tremont was affected 20 years before the Grand Concourse. Even now, it's quite obviously different, with the stately prewars on the Grand Concourse, and the spartan tenements in Tremont.

[Docere]

Yup, very interesting to see the contrast at the time. The old settlements are still there, but movement to Queens and the suburbs is underway.

In Manhattan you have the first settlement LES still intact, as well as the "uptown Jews" of the Upper West Side.

Bronx has the more upwardly mobile West Bronx and East Bronx filled with garment workers.

Brooklyn has poor areas like Williamsburg and Brownsville, more upwardly mobile areas like Flatbush and Midwood but also a lot of factory workers living in the southern tier (Bensonhurst, Coney Island).

And in Queens a very different area is emerging in Forest Hills. Overwhelmingly middle class with few blue collar workers.

[Docere]

I added "clerical and sales" as well, as leaving it out distorts the picture. They were the plurality in neighborhoods like Flatbush. The only professional/managerial-plurality Jewish areas then was the "uptown" community of UWS/Park West Side and newer areas like Forest Hills, Queens.

Bernie Sanders grew up in Flatbush. His father was a paint salesman. He describes his neighborhood growing up as lower middle class which seems accurate.

New York Jews in 1950

1st generation men

professionals 9%
managers and proprietors 32%
clerical and sales 14%
crafts 16%
operatives 23%

2nd generation men

professionals 19%
managers and proprietors 27%
clerical and sales 28%
crafts 10%
operatives 12%

1st generation women

professionals 8%
managers and proprietors 12%
clerical and sales 28%
crafts 2%
operatives 40%

2nd generation women

professionals 16%
managers and proprietors 8%
clerical and sales 63%
crafts 1%
operatives 8%

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/arti...ecord-straight

[Crawford]

Flatbush is also geographically a pretty huge area, with somewhat amorphous boundaries, and a really wide range of housing, from tenements to mansions. Parts look like Forest Hills and other parts look like Brownsville.

20th century Flatbush birthed a ridiculous number of prominent Jews like Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond, Norman Mailer, Bernie Sanders.

[Docere]

Jewish population, 1930:

Lower East Side 102,200 39.2%
Park West 46,000 22.6%
Washington Heights 65,300 38.6%

West Bronx 125,200 70.6%
Morisania 170,600 67.4%
Fordham 83,400 44.5%
Tremont 55,800 36.1%
Pelham Parkway 33,700 39.8%

Williamsburg 78,100 40.7%
Crown Heights 53,800 36.4%
Borough Park 61,300 55%
Flatbush 56,100 32.6%
Brownsville 170,100 81.7%
East New York 99,200 57.4%
Bensonhurst 76,400 44.8%
Bath Beach 46,200 53.5%
Midwood 29,400 29%
Sheepshead Bay 20,800 40.9%
Coney Island 46,600 77.3%

Forest Hills 1,400 5.2%


Jewish population, 1950:

Lower East Side 82,900 38.4%
Park West 75,000 28.4%
Washington Heights 72,900 35.2%

West Bronx 138,400 66.8%
Morisania 80,900 33.7%
Fordham 105,200 47%
Tremont 46,300 30.7%
Pelham Parkway 58,700 41.8%

Williamsburg 66,600 39.6%
Crown Heights 75,400 46.9%
Borough Park 66,800 52.6%
Flatbush 122,400 51.1%
Brownsville 125,700 67.9%
East New York 73,800 46.3%
Bensonhurst 84,600 43.7%
Bath Beach 49,000 47.9%
Midwood 55,000 38.6%
Sheepshead Bay 48,300 62%
Coney Island 55,200 67.5%

Forest Hills 34,500 41.8%

[Crawford]

Note the extensive white flight in Morrisania and Brownsville, possibly starting before WW2, even. It looks like Jews were exiting very early. Both neighborhoods transitioned to black, Morrisania eventually transitioned from black to Hispanic.

These were, and are, lower income neighborhoods, likely immigration gateways back then. Maybe interwar immigration restrictions deprived these areas of newcomers.