On Manhattan Island more than every
fourth person you meet is a Jew. The Jews admitted at Ellis Island
during the past five years outnumbered all the communicants in the
Protestant churches in Greater New York.
[Sidenote: Where they Come from]
Of the 106,000 Jews admitted in 1904, a large proportion of whom settled
in New York, 77,000 came from the Russian Empire, 20,000 from
Austria-Hungary, and 6,000 from Roumania. Jewish immigrants from eastern
Europe are all one people.
[Sidenote: Occupation]
They show a larger proportion with skilled, professional and commercial
training and experience than do any of the other newer immigrants except
the Finns. Nearly twenty per cent. of the Hebrew immigrants are tailors,
nearly five per cent. mechanics, merchants, or clerks, and almost one
per cent. follow the professions. Of the remainder a very considerable
proportion, though not a majority, are skilled workers such as bakers,
tobacco workers, carpenters, painters, and butchers. The garment trades,
to which they find themselves adapted, and for which New York is the
world center, engages perhaps 100,000 of them, men, women, and children,
many of them in the sweat-shops, which they created.
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