CHAPTER II[ToC]
Immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe
In the thirty years between 1881 and 1910, 1,562,800 Jews entered the United States. An examination of Tables VI and VII reveals the fact that the great majority of the immigrants came from Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania. Of the total number, Russia contributed 1,119,059 immigrants, or 71.6 percent; Austria-Hungary 281,150 immigrants, or 17.9 per cent, and Roumania 67,057 immigrants, or 4.3 per cent. Together these three countries contributed 93.8 per cent of the total for the thirty years. The great majority of the Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom and British North America are not English or Canadian Jews but transmigrants or transient East-European Jews, to whom England and Canada were a halfway house from the countries of Eastern Europe to the United States.[60] If we included these immigrants, the Jewish immigration from these three countries of Eastern Europe would be considerably above 95 per cent. The Jewish immigration of the last third of a century is thus practically wholly from Eastern Europe.
Summarizing the results for the three decades,[61] we find that the Jewish immigrants from Russia maintained a fairly constant proportion to the total Jewish immigration, contributing 135,003, in the decade between 1881 and 1890 or 69.9 per cent of the total for the decade, 279,811 or 71.1 per cent in the decade between 1891 and 1900, and 704,245, or 72.1 per cent, in the decade between 1901 and 1910.
Roumanian Jewish immigration was relatively smaller in the earlier decades, numbering 6,967 in the first, 12,789 in the second decade, comprising 3.2 per cent and 3.6 per cent, respectively, of the total, and in the last decade, numbering 47,301 and constituting 4.8 per cent of the total immigration of the decade.
The Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary bore a proportion to the total higher in the first two decades, contributing 44,619 immigrants in the first decade and 83,720 immigrants in the second decade, or 23.1 per cent and 21.3 per cent, respectively, of the total, and 152,810 immigrants, or 15.7 per cent, in the last decade.
The Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom and British North America, which, in the first two decades constituting less than one per cent of the total of each decade, were included in the rubric "all others", rose in the last decade to 42,589, constituting 4.4 per cent, and to 9,701, constituting one per cent, of the total of this decade.
An examination of the yearly contributions made by the Jews of the principal countries[62] shows that the immigrants from Russia formed the majority of the immigrants for each year of the entire period, and as a rule, did not deviate far from the general proportion established for the thirty years. The greatest increases occurred during the years of maximum Jewish immigration, in 1882, 1891, 1892 and 1906, when the Russian Jewish immigrants constituted four-fifths or more of the total for the year.
The immigrants from Roumania showed higher percentages than their average in 1887 and in 1888, and a remarkable increase of their contribution from 1900 to 1903, in which years they constituted more than a tenth of the total number of immigrants.
The immigrants from Austria-Hungary formed, on the average, less than one-fifth of the total, but varied considerably in their proportions. In general, they maintained a rate higher than their average during the earlier years of their movement. In the later years they showed a relative decline, especially during the last decade, owing to the greater relative increase of the Jewish immigration from Russia and Roumania, though their absolute numbers increased greatly during this period. Their highest ratios of contribution were made from 1883 to 1886 and from 1896 to 1900, the latter period marking their maximum relative contributions.