The conservative Volksfreund, edited by Joseph Selig Glick, has appeared in Pittsburgh since 1889; Das Yiddishe Folk is the Zionist organ, established in New York 1909 and now edited by Ab. Goldberg; and Der Yiddisher Record of Chicago began to appear in 1910. The monthly Zukunft has had a checkered career since 1892, while Ch. J. Minikes’ Yom Tob Blätter has appeared several times each year since 1897.
A class of professional writers and editors, some of them specialists of marked ability, grew up to supply the needs of the Yiddish publications, especially of the daily newspapers. Besides those mentioned above it includes among others: Gedaliah Bublik, J. L. Dalidansky, William Edlin, L. Elbe, J. Entin, Jacob Fishman, Dr. Fornberg, Jos. Friedkin, Israel Friedman, J. Gonikman, Dr. B. Hoffman, S. Janowski, E. and N. Kaplan, Z. Kornblith, A. Liesin (Wald), Jacob Magidoff, Ch. Malitz, Abraham Reisen, Bernhard Shelvin, Joel Slonim, Nathan Sovrin, J. M. Wolfson, Dr. Ch. Zhitlovsky and Israel Ziony. Of those who departed this life, M. Bukansky (1841–1904) and John Paley (1871–1907) deserve to be mentioned among those who contributed to the advancement of Yiddish newspaperdom in America.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PRESENT CONDITIONS. THE NUMBER AND THE DISPERSION OF JEWS IN AMERICA. CONCLUSION.
Dispersion of the Jews over the country and its colonial possessions—The number of Jews in the United States about three millions—The number of communities in various States—The number of Jews in the large cities—The number of the congregations is far in excess of the recorded figures—The process of disintegration and the counteracting forces—The building of synagogues—Charity work is not overshadowing other communal activities as in the former period, and more attention is paid to affairs of Judaism—The conciliatory spirit and the tendency to federate—Self-criticism and dissatisfaction which are an incentive to improvement—Our great opportunity here—Our hope in the higher civilization in which the injustices of the older order of things may never reappear.
Jews are living at present (1911) in every State and Territory of the United States, and there are small communities in Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands. There are some forms of Jewish organizations, synagogues, lodges or cemetery associations in more than 750 separate localities, from places where there is only a “minyan” on the High Holidays at the beginning of the Jewish year, to the immense Jewish community of New York City, which is estimated to consist of nearly 1,000,000 souls. Wherever actual figures as to the number of Jewish inhabitants in smaller places and the number of synagogues in larger cities are obtained, they are usually far in excess of the published figures and estimates, and there seems to be justification for placing the number of Jews in the country at not far below 3,000,000, if not actually at that number. While the largest communities, as well as the largest number of communities, remain in the East and the Middle West, the dispersion is much more extensive than is generally supposed.
There are, for instance, nearly forty cities and towns in Texas which have Jewish communities; other Southern States, like Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia, have each about, or nearly, half that number, and Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee about ten each. Each of the new States of Arizona and New Mexico have three or four Jewish communities, Oklahoma has five; Florida, in the extreme South, and Maine, the furthest North, each have about a half dozen; California has more than both of them together; Washington has three, and Oregon one. Of the other far Western States Utah has two communities, Montana two, Nevada one, Idaho one, Wyoming one and Colorado nine.
Coming to the nearer Western States and toward the border States, we find four communities in Nebraska, eight in Kansas, twelve in Missouri, thirteen in Iowa, eight in Kentucky and five in West Virginia. North Dakota has five, Minnesota eight, while Wisconsin, with nineteen, and Michigan, with twenty-four, show the result of proximity to the great Central States where Jews have been settled in considerable numbers for the last two generations. Among those States Illinois has the largest number of Jews, owing to the great community of Chicago, while the number of cities containing Jewish communities—twenty-three—is somewhat smaller than that of Indiana, which has twenty-six, and of Ohio, with its twenty-seven. We notice the same in the two greatest States in the East, where, if we consider Greater New York City as one community, the number of places containing Jewish organizations is slightly less than in Pennsylvania, which has sixty-two such places. New Jersey has more than forty, and of the New England States Massachusetts leads with thirty-five, and Connecticut is second, having twenty. Rhode Island has seven; Vermont and New Hampshire four each. The list is completed with one community in the District of Columbia, five in Maryland and one in Delaware.[64]
Philadelphia and Chicago are, besides New York, the only two cities which contain about 100,000 or more Jews each. Boston has about three-fourths of that number, Baltimore, Cleveland and St. Louis about 50,000 each, and after them come in the order named: Newark, San Francisco, Pittsburg and Cincinnati (with about 30,000 each); Detroit, Buffalo, Providence and Jersey City, each having about half of that number, while Rochester, Syracuse, New Haven, Milwaukee, Louisville, New Orleans and Kansas City belong to the class which have 10,000 or more. The twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul would belong to that class if they were considered as one, which they really are. Washington, the national capital, belong to the class of cities having between 5 and 10,000 Jews, which includes Albany, N. Y.; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Tex.; Denver, Colo.; Pall River, Mass.; Hartford, Conn.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Los Angeles, Cal.; Memphis, Tenn.; Omaha, Neb.; Paterson, N. J; Portland, Ore.; Scranton, Pa.; Seattle, Wash., and Trenton, N. J. There are some old and important settlements containing less than 5,000, but the number which would have to be included in a class of communities of that size is too large to be mentioned.