nity. To them the issue of how electoral an official position except the American not included in governmental de~ennit#~,]dbe in, reform would adversely affect American Jewish Congress, which is against it. censuses and because Jewish organiafOur.~t this Jewry may or may not be a legitimate Sumeys of state legislators, to whom any tions, on the whole, are reluctant ileWs r consideration, incidental to their position constitutional amendment must be for- spend the money involved in makinimillionis n, based on more general principles. warded once past Congress, have indi- sampling surveys for demographic put{ However Perhaps ironically, Stuart Eizenstat, cated bipartisan support-though poses. Before 1970, relatively fe$ in N~WYor Special Assistant to the President for whether it would be enough for ratifica- Jewish communities did gather dernd by Domestic Affairs, once active in Atlan- tion is anybody's guess. graphic data using sampling methods;; philanthrop ta's Jewish community and the father of a People up on Capitol Hill say there is a However, even in these communities; all, the An; Jewishday school student, worked on the good chance Bayh's amendment will the data was soon outdated. :. whichhas f reform proposal with Vice President come up for a vote in the Senate, where it Means other than sampling to obta'q bles on the Mondale and David Rubinstein, another is expected to pass. There is no indication data on Jewish populations, particuladl prepared 1 White House aide. Eizenstat jokingly that the efforts of Senator William Prox- in large cities, are not tmstworthy anddr CJFWF, I says, "we outnumbered Mondale two to mire, who for several years has inserted not obtain current information such s 1,836,000 one" but after paying "particular atten- into the Congressional Record a daily age, income, etc. Henrietta Szold, as through Vo tion" to the intpact of minorities decided item advocating electoral reform, has editor of the American Jewish Yeai, year, the tot the loss was not substantial enough to significantly molded public opinion. Book, was engaged in aproject of findini bmmghs w warrant retention of the electoral college However, the issue is now a priority with the number of Jews in Baltimore ifBook (althc system. Jimmy Carter, who is pushing for Senate 1899-1901 by use of death rates. Thii state totals: approval. method, which had its own complici NJPS was I here seems to be widespread support Passage in the Senate would transfer tions, has been used on other occasions,: The Ame T for direct vote, although it is one of the debate over electoral reform to each but, at best, it cannot give much usefu' used the to those issues that lends itself more to of the fifty states, three quarters of whose demographic information on the livini for Mew Yt philosophical platitudes than to practical ratification is necessary to make direct Jews. The Yom Kippur method, white to action. A recent Gallup poll showed 81 vote the law of the land. The road wit1 gave an estimate of Jews by comparing: sampling o percent of Americans sumeyed in favor surely be a long one; rejection by only attendance in public schools on Yomi population, of direct election of the President. Major thirteen states will kill the proposal, Kippur with an ordinary school day, had' organizations, among them the Ameri- while many more than that would many drawbacks and was not very help. can Bar Association, the AFL-CIO, the theoretically lose influence under direct ful as regards to other demographic i?. w1":: Chamber of Commerce and the League vote. The challenge to the Jewish com- formation. Finally, thecouncil of Jewisi ethnic corn! of Women Voters, have endorsed the munity nevertheless exists, and must be Federations and WelfareFunds (CJFWR' fected. Lar concept; most Jewish groups don't have addressed. sponsored the National Jewish Popula, of the recena tion Study (NJPS) 1970-71. This na. There has I tional study included data on the Net Jews from York Jewish population, encompassing another. A: the five boroughs of New York City, it holds its I How Many Jews Westchester and Nassau-Suffolk, using families. sampling methods. Bureau o According to NJPS, the number 01 YorkCity a in New York City? members of Jewish households in 1970. in populatic 71 was distributed as follows: Brooklvn. I this pe;iod, Manhattan 171,000 157,000 03 jack Diamond Bronx 143,000 However, Brooklyn 5147000 figure, whic Queens 379,000 that may h; eams of paper have been used in the candidates for mayor in the last election Staten Island 21,000 terbalanced R last few years to write ahout New were Jews, that the Jewish population of Total NYC 1,228,000 There is York City's financial and economic this city is at its acme. Far from it. population plight but relatively little attention has There are reasons to believe that there Even this figure of 1.2 million for rate of abo been paid to the city's declining Jewish are only about 750,000 Jews living in the 1970-71 may be considered an overestl. years bet" population. The decline in the number of five boroughs of New York City in Oc- mate if we consider NJPS definitions and Center for Jews is certainly worthy of attention, and tober 1977. This, of course, conflicts totals. According to NJPS, a household Graduate S has had and will have far-reaching effects with the widespread impression that is "Jewish" even if only one respondent of CUNY, ; on the Jewish community and on the gen- there are two million Jews in New York is "Jewish." All other members of the/ Survey, us, eral population. City, which may or may not have been household are included in the totals even; in their satr Let no one suppose that because New true at the zenith of the city's Jewish though they may be brought up in another total numb, York has elected, as mayor, two Jews in population a few decades ago. religion. The definition of a "Jew" IS declined by succession, or that three of the major four Statistics on the Jewish population of one who has or had at least one Jewish of 80,000 1 New York City (and elsewhere in the parent. Thus, a family of four which in. If we ass1 JACKDIAMOND Writes ondemography and re- United States) are hard to come by be- cluded a person whohad only one Jewish decline in laled subjects. cause religion andlor ethnic groups are parent and who married a non-Jew, York Citym CONGRESS MONTHLY JANUARY October 1, 1977, which seems reason- creased sizably. As to "singles," the t this writing, the number of non- able, we come to a round figure of about NJPS has published the amazing statistic ho are pan of the total of 1.2 750,000 at the October date. that 47.4% of Jewish households in But this bleak numherof 750,000 Jews Manhattan in 1970-7 1 were one-person in New York City at present, does not tell households. While a large number of the full story. We must anticipate further these one-person households were of large declines because of the make-up of aged widows and widowers, it still indi- the present Jewish population and some cates a high Jewish "singles" popula- ongoing trends among Jews. tion. In the New York area, including In the NJPS of 1970-7 1, we find a very Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, large proportion of Jewish aged. The Jewish one-person households were Bronx had 33.6% of its total Jews at age one-sixth of the total households. 65 or older; Manhattan had 27.2% of its Nor can replenishment of New York Jews in this age group; and Brooklyn had City's Jewish population be expected 18.7% of this age. It is clear that the from migration from the rest of the proportion of Jewish aged in New York United States or from foreign immigra- City exceeds the national Jewish popula- tion. While there undoubtedly has been a tion average and probably of most other large departure of Jews from New York religious, ethnic or racial groups. Unfor- City to the suburbs, to neighboring areas tunately we may expect a high death rate and states, to Florida, California and forthe Jews of New York City becauseof other states across the nation, there also the age factor, even though Jews seem to has been a flow of Jews into New York have long life expectancy. City; but this in-migration has been rela- On the other hand, the proportion of tively small. About 10,000 Russian Jews children, particularly those between the have resettled in New York City since population, which is nowhere in sight. ages of five and fourteen, in the 1970-7 1 Jews have emigrated from the Soviet study, was somewhat below the national Union. No one has reliable statistics on Jewish norm. We have known for years the Israeli Jews who have recently made that Jews have had tow birth rates (to their homes in the city but the number is ethnic composition, withJews greatly af- which the rest of the population seems to not a major factor affecting the Jewish fected. Large "Jewish" neighborhoods be catching up). The low proportion of population. "white" children attending public schools in New York City was given in e are thus faced with a Jewishpopu- the New York Times of November 20, w lation of New York City which has 1977 which quoted Board of Education dwindled to about 750,000 and which statistics that 71% of the students were will continue to decline drastically if pre- "minority," mostly black and Pnerto sent trends continue.