Quote:
Originally Posted by Docere
Most Persians and Syrians for example in the NYC area are Jewish as well. But among the 2 million Jews in the NYC area you'll find Jews with roots in pretty much any country where there are or were Jewish communities. Plus there's converts too and the offspring of mixed marriages.
|
A while ago, I recall you mentioning that among Iranian-origin immigrants, Jewish Persians dominate among the US population (e.g. California) but not among the Canadian ones. Interestingly you mention this is true of Syrians in NYC, is it the case for other US cities.
The trend that the proportion of Middle Eastern Jewish populations (Persian/Syrian Jews/maybe Israelis too?) to Middle Eastern non-Jewish ones is higher in the US than Canada.
Is this driven by selectivity/sponsorship etc. by different groups (the Muslim Persians/Syrians to Canada coming more as refugees than economic migrants vs. minority religious groups like Jews, maybe middle Eastern Christians sponsored by families/religious groups).
I mean, formally the US has nation quotas (but does not ask religious data of its immigrants, right?) so immigration policy has no way of selecting some religious groups, unless I'm wrong, so this is driven by the choices/economic options of the migrants or (private? personal?) sponsorship.
Since the Persian/Syrian, Jewish or not, population was small 1960s, I don't think there were disproportionately enough Persian Jewish people pre 1965 to sponsor their families to a much larger extent than their Canadian counterparts, did other factors attract them much more to the US than Canada?
Or is it just a byproduct of the US being a better immigration destination for any immigrant, period and Canada being second choice (plus the US already had higher % Jewish populations for them to feel more at home).
The fact that Jewish Mid-easterners (Mizrahi Jews etc.) are rare in Canada but proportionally common in the US didn't really cross my mind until I started reading your posts. It seems conversely I encounter even Christian Middle Easterners (e.g Lebanese Christians, Coptic Egyptians) more than Jewish ones in places like Toronto, but in the US I've met many Mizrahi Jews, Israelis but conversely relative to Canada, fewer explicitly identified Mid-eastern Christians (people with family roots like Ralph Nader), or maybe they're there but since the US is more explicitly dominated by Protestant Christians (with even Catholics being not mainstream), Orthodox (Mid eastern, and other) Christians in the US are easily overlooked.