Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/421

Jews in the Czechoslovak Republic constitute a class of citizens whose relation to the Christian majority still lacks much of being satisfactory.

Jews residing in the lands of our Republic do not get along with their Christian neighbors as well as they do in the West of Europe, in England and America; there persist misunderstandings and quarrels between adherents of the Christian and Jewish faiths, disagreements that gave rise to the so-called Czech-Jewish question in the lands of the former Bohemian crown; now, after the reunion of Slovakia, we have with us also the Slovak-Jewish question, more difficult still.

The Jewish element in the Czechoslovak Republic is an influential factor, not only because of the large number of Jews, but especially because of their powerful social and economic position.

This will be made clear by a few figures; they make no pretension to scientific exactness, for the war and the great changes consequent upon it, destroying some states and creating others, affecting not only political, but social and economic questions as well, make themselves felt in the composition of the citizenship of our Republic. This naturally includes the relation of Jews and Christians, both with regards to numbers and to their respective economic strength. It will, however, give us a basis of figuring, if we use data from the census of 1900 and 1910.

In all Cisleithania, that is to say, the western half of the former Dual Monarchy, there lived in 1900 a Jewish population of approximately 1,225,000, or 4.68% of the entire population. In Bohemia there were 93,000, or 1.47% in 1900 (in 1910 less than 86,000); in Moravia about 45,000, or 1.82%, and in former Austrian Silesia about 12,000, or 1.76% of the total population.

As to the number of Jews in Slovakia before the war I have no data, nor will it be easy to determine their number at the close of the war, for the union of Slovakia with the Czechoslovak Republic induced many Jewish citizens of the former Hungarian state to migrate into the present Magyar state.

The total number of Jews in the former kingdom of Hungary was, according to the census of 1910, over 850,000, or 4% of the population. Between two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand of them have become citizens of our Republic, so that the total number of Jews living in the Czechoslovak Republic is from 350,000 to 400,000.

For a proper appreciation of their significance in the state we must pay attention to their social and economic position.

Jewish proletariat, in the sense in which it is found in Galicia and in all Polish and Russian countries, is non-existent in our Republic. Here the Jews are found almost exclusively among the middle classes, and they even hold a position of importance in great industry and high finance. For the most part they live in cities.

For many years the Jews have been migrating from the villages to large cities, or at least country towns; their reasons have been both economic and social. Thus they numbered in Prague in 1910 about 19,000, and in the suburbs over 8,000, in Brno about 5,500; out of some 12,000 Silessian Jews, a great majority live in Těšín, Fryštát and Bílsko.

The percentage of Jews making their living in agriculture was 4.97% in Bohemia and 4.55% in Moravia. In 1900, 4,600 Jews in Bohemia followed agriculture, 19,319 industry, 47,543 commerce and 21,275 the professions. The percentage of Jews among agricultural workers was only 0.2 in Bohemia, 0.5 in Moravia, 1 in all Austria; among industrial workers, 0.7 in Bohemia, 1.3 in Moravia, 5 in all Austria; among commercial workers, 7% in Bohemia, almost 10 in Moravia and 20.5 in all Austria. These figures bring out well the great importance of the Jewish element in commerce.

Engaged in independent enterprise were 59.16% of the Jews in Bohemia, 58.51% in Moravia and 52.9 in Austria (Cisleithania). Among the higher state officials the percentage of Jews was 15.71 in Bohemia, 14.69 in Moravia and 9.6 in Austria.