JEWS IN NEW YORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9307, 9 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

JEWS IN NEW YORK.

Tuk Hebrew element in New York steadily forges ahead, quite indifferent as to whether Henry Hilton or Austin Gorbin likes it or not. The Progress Club, which is composed wholly of Jews, has just decided to spend £100,000 on a club house on Fifth Avenue. It is needless to say that nearly all the members of the club are business men, as Hebrews are rarely anything else. The Semitic element is not often taken into account in connection with club life in New York, yet the Progress Club is one of the strongest organisations in the city. It has grown so fast in the two dozen years of its existence that it has had to seek more comrnodions quarters four or five times, and now it projects a clubhouse (hat will be one of the largest and handsomest buildings in the metropolis. The name of the club signifies more than appears at once. Not only lias progress marked the course of the club, but that of the whole Jewish part of the population as well.

The social position of the Hebrews has certainly undergone a remarkable change in the past thirty years. A great deal of the old prejudice against them has been broken down and the h'eld of their relations with other people has been greatly widened. Marriage between Jews and Gentiles steadily becomes more frequent; the Jew and the Gentile are often found together in business partnership ; and the children of both sit side by side in the schools and form ties of acquaintance and friendship that are likely to last for life. Tho present Jewish population of IS'ew York is probably about one hundred thousand. In a material sense it is an element of tho greatest value, and its social importance is constantly increasing. Of late years it has asserted itself with some effect in politics, and it may do more in that way by-and-bye. Its capacities are manifold, and there's no lack of opportunity for their development. Who knows but an American Disraeli may be a possibility of the not very remote future '!