19th and 20th centuries
The mass immigration of Jews to the United States, which started in the latter part of the nineteenth century, was one of the most important developments in modern Jewish history. The Jews were part of an enormous migratory movement, the largest in human history, which in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought tens of millions of Europeans to countries throughout the world, especially the United States. Its causes were the population growth in Europe in the nineteenth century, which exceeded the continent’s economic capacity and forced people to look for homes in other countries; the development of large steamships, which made sea travel safer, cheaper, and quicker; and the attraction of America, that wide-open country, rich in resources and opportunities.
For the Jews, there were also the specific problems of East European Jewry, such as the oppressive policies of the Russian and Romanian governments. The semiurban character of the Jews made it easier for them to adapt to conditions in the growing cities of the industrializing countries of the Western world. The relative number of Jews emigrating from East European countries Was much higher than that of non-Jews. They settled in Western Europe and in different countries in the Americas, primarily the United States.
From 1908 to 1924, the Jews were the second largest group of immigrants, after the Italians (whose number was twice as large). But for every 100 Italians who entered the United States in that period, 54.7 left; among the Jews, only 5.2 out of 100 left. This meant that the Jews were in fact the largest group of newcomers, since their net immigration (13.5 percent of the total) was slightly higher than that of the Italians. The Jewish immigration was also more balanced in its composition; 44 percent of immigrants were women (1889-1924), as compared with the overall immigration average of 31.7 percent; 24.4 percent of Jews were under fourteen years of age—the overall percentage of children (Jews included) was 12.4. Thus the data show that Jewish immigration was more family oriented and evenly distributed regarding sex and age than was the totality of immigration. It was also more “definitive”; the Jews came to the United States to stay.
World History
