Oct 28th Blog Question

2. Q: Why did Jews move to cities and which cities became large Jewish centers?
   
    A: Jews moved to cities in order to find educational and economic opportunities. There, they found a variety of intellectual and cultural ideas that tended to challenge Jewish practices and beliefs. Cities that became large Jewish centers were Salonica, Paris, London, St. Petersburg and Odessa. In addition to this, cities like Vilna (40% Jewish), Bialystok (66% Jewish), Brody (75% Jewish), Pinsk (80% Jewish) and Berdichev (87.5% Jewish) were major cities for Jews. With a mass migration of jews from Galicia and Russia, New York City became the largest urban Jewish center in history with 1,503,000 Jews in 1917. Cities such as Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Casablanca, Montevideo, Mogador, Fez, Algiers, Oran, tunis, Constantine, Baghdad, Istanbul, and Teheran were also majorly populated Jewish cities as well.