THE JEWS: RACE AND ENVIRONMENT 



bis: 



2 59 



this has a definite physiologic or ethnic bjtsis as its cause, which is 

 common to all Jews living in different countries. The social environ- 

 ment, such as economic prosperity, occupation, city life, etc., and also 

 climatic conditions, were not considered. ' Race ' was a satisfactory 

 explanation. But the figures in the appended table giving birth rates 

 of the Jews and christians in various European countries disprove the 

 ethnic theory of the low birth rate of the Jews. If it was a phys- 

 iological characteristic of the Jews, we should expect that the rates 

 in every country would be about the same. As a matter of fact, how- 

 ever, the figures show wide limits of variation. In Algeria the rate 

 is 44.67 per 1,000 population; in Galicia, 38.01; in Russia, 35.79, etc., 

 while in Bavaria and Bohemia it is only 17.8, and in the city of 

 Prague only 15.85. Ethnic conditions are never known to display 

 such wide limits of variation. 



It appears from these figures that wherever the rates are higher 

 among the christian population, the Jews also show higher rates and 

 the reverse. This is particularly striking when separate provinces of 

 a country are considered. The following figures, taken from Ruppin's 

 work on the Jews, illustrate this fact in Austria: 



It is thus seen that in Galicia and Bukowina, where the birth rates 

 of the christians are high, the Jews also have a high rate, while in 

 Bohemia and Lower Austria the rates for both Jews and christians are 

 low. In the fifteen provinces of Russia which constitute the so-called 

 ' Pale of Settlement,' the same phenomenon was revealed in the statis- 

 tics collected during the census of 1897, the birth rate of the christian 

 population being 51.71, and that of the Jews, 32.13 per 1,000 popula- 

 tion. From the figures presented below, it appears that in the prov- 

 inces where the higher birth rates are observed among the christians 

 the Jews also are more fertile, and the reverse. Thus in Ekater- 

 inoslav and Kieff the highest rates are recorded among both Jews and 

 christians, while in Kovno, Bessarabia and Wilna the lowest rates are 

 recorded both among the Jews and the christians. With two excep- 

 tions (Minsk and Poltava) the rule appears to hold good. 



Christians. Jews. 



Ekaterinoslav 61.82 42.28 



Kieff 55.44 39.92 



Minsk 54.90 29.76 



