Your city's Jewish community

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

jewish popualtion by city:

cleveland: 86,600
detroit: 78,000
pittsburgh: 42,200

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ish_population

yep, and metro Detroit is twice as large as metro Cle or Pgh...

[Steely Dan]

^ but even on a proportional basis, the numbers don't seem to indicate that pittsburgh is meaningfully more Jewish than detroit.

Cleveland? Yeah, but everyone knows cleveland is one of the most Jewish midwest cities, along with chicago.

[Docere]

Cleveland has a very sizeable Jewish community, and has one of the most impressive Jewish concentrations in North America in its eastern suburbs.

[Crawford]

The Cleveland community is larger, more geographically concentrated and much more observant, so Cleveland feels considerably more Jewish.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ but even on a proportional basis, the numbers don't seem to indicate that pittsburgh is meaningfully more Jewish than detroit.

Cleveland? Yeah, but everyone knows cleveland is one of the most Jewish midwest cities, along with chicago.

ok whatever so omit Pittsburgh from the conversation. The original question I asked remains, which is why cities that received big waves of Eastern European immigration (Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago...) have such disparities in their Jewish populations. What made Cleveland more appealing than Detroit or Pittsburgh? The smaller community in Cincinnati can be attributed to the city largely missing out on the big second wave of immigrants in the early 1900s, but why the variation among cities that have similar immigration patterns?

[Docere]

The garment industry.

By 1910, the garment industry was the second largest industry in Cleveland. It was the fifth largest center of garment manufacturing in the country, after New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia

https://beltmag.com/history-garment-...ion-cleveland/

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by edale

The smaller community in Cincinnati can be attributed to the city largely missing out on the big second wave of immigrants in the early 1900s

hmmm, i didn't know that cincy largely missed out on that. i thought all of the older urban midwest cities got plenty of poles, slavs, greeks, balts, etc.

was that really just a great lakes thing (chicago, detroit, cleveland, milwaukee) in the midwest?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

The garment industry.

And, more recently, Cleveland is a popular destination for NYC-area Orthodox seeking a community with affordable housing. Basically Baltimore 2.0.

Go into any big Brooklyn Orthodox neighborhood, and there will be private bus lines offering frequent service to Baltimore, and increasingly to Cleveland (alongside Lakewood, NJ, Monsey & KJ, NY and all the more local migration destinations).

Prices in the bedrock Orthodox communities (much of Brooklyn, Central Queens, Riverdale, Five Towns/Far Rock, Englewood/Teaneck) are pretty crazy, so young families are considering more distant locations.

[mrnyc]

also, based on reputation and word of mouth i would imagine, but cleveland is one of the handful of places that got a large bump up wave of orthodox jewish after the fall of the soviet union.

[Capsicum]

Clearly, Cleveland was appealing at the time that there was migration to the city from elsewhere, in addition to direct immigration from overseas.

I'm just thinking about how Superman's creators were Clevelanders, but one of them moved there from Toronto.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And, more recently, Cleveland is a popular destination for NYC-area Orthodox seeking a community with affordable housing. Basically Baltimore 2.0.

Go into any big Brooklyn Orthodox neighborhood, and there will be private bus lines offering frequent service to Baltimore, and increasingly to Cleveland (alongside Lakewood, NJ, Monsey & KJ, NY and all the more local migration destinations).

Prices in the bedrock Orthodox communities (much of Brooklyn, Central Queens, Riverdale, Five Towns/Far Rock, Englewood/Teaneck) are pretty crazy, so young families are considering more distant locations.

Yes, it's affordable, has very nice suburbs and excellent Jewish community infrastructure in place.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

also, based on reputation and word of mouth i would imagine, but cleveland is one of the handful of places that got a large bump up wave of orthodox jewish after the fall of the soviet union.

Hardly any Orthodox Jews came from the FSU.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

hmmm, i didn't know that cincy largely missed out on that. i thought all of the older urban midwest cities got plenty of poles, slavs, greeks, balts, etc.

was that really just a great lakes thing (chicago, detroit, cleveland, milwaukee) in the midwest?

Yep, Cincinnati largely missed out on that wave of immigrants. There are hardly any Poles, Slavs...even the Italian community there is much smaller than say, Cleveland or Pittsburgh. There's no 'Little Italy' like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Chicago have. No Ukranian Village (Cleveland), Polish neighborhood like Hamtramck in Detroit or any number of Chicago neighborhoods. It's mostly a city of Germans, Irish, African Americans, and Appalachians, with a smattering of other cultures. Much different than the Great Lakes cities. I'm not sure if St. Louis more closely resembles Cincy or the Great Lakes cities in this regard.

For some reason, it seems like Cincy did get a fair number of Greeks, and they certainly left their imprint on the culture. Skyline Chili was founded by Greeks, and the recipe is supposed to be some derivative of a Greek dish.

[Steely Dan]

^ i wonder why cincinnati missed out on all of that eastern european goodness?

Originally Posted by edale

Skyline Chili was founded by Greeks, and the recipe is supposed to be some derivative of a Greek dish.

yep, the flavor profile of cincy chili is very reminiscent of the seasoning mixture (heavy on the cinnamon) used for the meat in the greek dish pasticchio.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I can't quantify this with stats, but it seems like there were still a lot of Germans moving to the Cincinnati area between the first and second World Wars, in addition to the German immigrants that were already there? Most of my mother's side of the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Cincinnati around that time. Most other European immigrants went elsewhere.

It's always amused me that, despite its German heritage, Cincinnati's most well-known food is Greek. Then again, there's goetta...

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ i wonder why cincinnati missed out on all of that eastern european goodness?



yep, the flavor profile of cincy chili is very reminiscent of the seasoning mixture (heavy on the cinnamon) used for the meat in the greek dish pasticchio.

I assume it's because Cincinnati had less in the way of heavy industry compared to the Great Lakes cities + Pittsburgh, so there weren't tons of jobs available to immigrants. There also might have been a bit of xenophobia among locals, so the city was less welcoming than the big cities to the north. Not really sure though.

If you look at historical growth rates, you can see Cincinnati grew to be a big city earlier than the Great Lakes cities, and then hovered around 1% annual growth rate between 1900-1930. Cleveland averaged about 3% annual growth rate during this time period, while Detroit was even higher, at about 5%.

sources:
http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-...ti-population/
http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-...nd-population/
http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-...it-population/

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

hmmm, i didn't know that cincy largely missed out on that. i thought all of the older urban midwest cities got plenty of poles, slavs, greeks, balts, etc.

was that really just a great lakes thing (chicago, detroit, cleveland, milwaukee) in the midwest?

It's not really a "Great Lakes" thing as Dayton, Columbus, KC, Omaha, Cedar Rapids, I'm sure Indy, etc had plenty of those groups come in.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

It's not really a "Great Lakes" thing as Dayton, Columbus, KC, Omaha, Cedar Rapids, I'm sure Indy, etc had plenty of those groups come in.

None of those cities were significant centers of Southern and Eastern European immigration.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by softee

Toronto's Jewish community has produced some pretty big names in the entertainment industry such as Joe Shuster, Frank Shuster, Lorne Michaels, Ivan Reitman, David Cronenberg, Howie Mandel, Howard Shore, Garth Drabinsky, Rick Moranis and Drake.

I know there are tons more but let's not forget Glenn Gould.

[Docere]

Glenn Gould was not Jewish.