|
|
May 18, 2007
Where are we living now?
The Jewish community is spread out all over Greater Vancouver.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
In the late 19th century, the first Jewish immigrants to Vancouver
settled in the West End. Those who followed set up home in the Downtown
Eastside, from where the community slowly migrated westward. After
the Second World War, with new housing opportunities south of King
Edward Street around the Oak Street corridor, Jews moved into the
Oakridge area in large numbers. These days, the availability of
housing is again driving Jewish migration, both to the outlying
areas of the Greater Vancouver region and back to our "origins"
– the West End.
The Jewish community is becoming more and more spread out –
and it is growing quickly. These facts pose challenges to service
providers, such as synagogues, community centres, social aid organizations
and others. And, to better understand these community-planning concerns,
the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and UIA Federations Canada
have published six reports: one each on basic demographics, populations
by geographic areas, the elderly, the poor, immigration and issues
of identity. Using Census 2001 data, they are packed with information
such as that used throughout this article, and they provide some
idea of who we are, where we are living and what our future needs
may be.
The recognition that we are no longer Oak Street-bound is the reason
that the Jewish Independent has decided to launch its first-ever
Neighborhoods special edition. This issue's focus is Yaletown and
the West End. Future special sections will highlight Greater Richmond,
the North Shore, Burquest (the Tri-Cities area) and perhaps even
venture further afield, to the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows/Langley
region.
While the vast majority of the 22,585 Jews living in Greater Vancouver
live in the city of Vancouver, Richmond had the highest level of
absolute growth in the 1991-2001 decade, increasing by 530 Jews.
The West End had the next highest increase (450 individuals), which
gave it the fastest growth rate for that period (49.7 per cent).
According to Federation's census analysis, "Much of this growth
can be attributed to empty-nesters, young professionals and others
moving into the growing number of condo units being built in the
downtown core."
Even without hard data, one can see that there are more Jews living
downtown, with Kaplan's Star Deli opening a new restaurant on Alberni
Street and the addition of Phat Deli on Mainland Street in Yaletown.
Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, has moved its offices
out of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver at Oak and
41st, and is now located on Alberni. As well, there is a Chabad
of Downtown Vancouver, which operates out of B'nai Brith Manor on
Howe Street, and there is the Vancouver Downtown Jewish Community,
which organizes various events and was created after the census
results indicated that there were 1,355 Jews living in the West
End – six years later, there are probably many more.
"The 2001 Census – those numbers don't reflect all of
the housing development since then in Coal Harbor and Yaletown,
and we have a feeling that there are a lot more Jews there, young
professionals living down there, and we're all wondering about ways
to reach out to them more effectively," said Abba Brodt, director
of planning and community development at Federation.
Brodt spoke to the Sholem Aleichem Seniors Club at the Peretz Centre
for Secular Jewish Culture May 11. He presented an overview of the
demographic situation in Greater Vancouver and the challenges facing
the community in terms of planning, including the growth of the
community and its increasing dispersion. After his Peretz lecture,
Brodt spoke to the Independent specifically about the West
End.
"The census shows us that there's a fairly high proportion
of high-income individuals living there in the Jewish community
and a fairly high proportion of those who below the poverty line
living there," he explained. "And the challenge going
in there is to see how we can serve them, a very different set of
populations."
Another difficulty for community planners is the high rate of intermarriage
in Greater Vancouver, where 41.3 per cent of Jewish spouses/partners
are married to non-Jews. In the West End, the rate is much higher,
at 52.5 per cent.
What else do we know about West End Jews? For the vast majority
(about 75 percent), English is their mother tongue; followed by
Russian (nine per cent) and Yiddish (2.6 per cent). Just over 47
per cent of the West End community falls into the 25-44 age group,
with the median age being 41.6; compared to 36.9 years, the median
age for Greater Vancouver as a whole. And the men outnumber the
women substantially, comprising 57.6 per cent of the population.
But all of these statistics are overshadowed by the main one –
this community is the fastest growing in the Greater Vancouver area
and, therefore, likely the fastest changing, so no one knows what
the next census will show. And this is what makes planning for the
future so difficult.
^TOP
|
|
