ABSTRACT
What contributed to Jewish population growth were high birth rates and low death rates. The trend originated in the eighteenth century, though exact numbers are hard to come by for that period. We can be more precise about the period between 1850 and 1880; in eastern Europe, there were 17 more Jewish births than deaths for every 1,000 people. Even in places where the Jewish birth rate remained relatively low, such as in western Europe, the low death rates due to the higher survival rate among Jewish infants ensured a positive Jewish demographic balance. As one Jewish journal article on the subject proudly noted in 1910, “The death rate among Jewish children in the unhealthy, narrow confines of the Frankfurt ghetto is lower than the rate among the city’s [Christian] patricians.”
