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Demographic Duo

March 19, 2012 | 11:01 am RSS

End to Number of Israeli Migrants Debate

Posted by Pini Herman

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Even Yemenite Jews Were Born in Israel

Finally, computerization of population censuses and databases combined with learned estimation has produced the information that about 3% of the world’s population, 214 million people, have migrated across international borders.  One in four of the world’s Jews has migrated from one country to another, compared to 5 percent of Christians and 4 percent of Muslims who have left their native lands.  Representing nearly half a million data points, the Global Religion and Migration Database (GRMD) was constructed – the only global database estimating the global migrant population (stock) by origin, destination, and religious affiliation.

Only 330,000 international migrants originated from Israel and only 230,000 of them are estimated to be Jewish.  Even if every one of these Jewish Israeli-born migrants ended up in Los Angeles, it would be be less than the number of Israelis claimed at various times by the Israeli Consulate and various Israeli and Jewish organizations.   

A conservative upper-bound estimate of Jewish Israeli migrants ending up in the U.S. would be about 138,000, or 60 percent of the 230,000 Jewish Israeli-born international migrants.  Los Angeles Jewry’s share of Israeli-born international migrant would be about 21,000, or about 4 percent of the estimated total LA Jewish population.  If one goes to a Jewish setting in LA and there are more than one-in-twenty-five Israelis there, then Israelis are over-represented at the gathering.

It would be a rare Jewish event in LA where Israelis don’t pass the 1-in-25 threshold.  I know of one, and that morning minyan of Holocaust survivors stopped gathering regularly two months ago, for the first time in fifty years.

Israelis, being the Jews-of-the-Jews in LA, are over-represented in every LA Jewish setting,  while second generation American-born Jews are usually conspicuously absent.

Update: Read print article in Jewish Journal 4/27/12 Rumors of Mass Israeli Emigration Are Much Exaggerated

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

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March 14, 2012 | 12:25 pm

Getting Over The Flu Demographically

Posted by Pini Herman

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I spent the weekend with two boys and myself having the flu.  Young feverish brows resisted chewable and other forms of Tylenol, but finally acquiesced.  My thoughts naturally turned to the demography of illness, that is, epidemiology.  I was wondering how many people were sharing our, what medical researchers call “Influenza Like Illness”, because without a lab tested viral culture one doesn’t really know.

A commonsense approach to tracking the flu was developed by Google in the form of Google flu trends.  The researchers at Google found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate current flu activity around the world in near real-time.

I found that while flu activity is moderate around Los Angeles and the rest of the United States. Flu activity is intense in Sweden and high in Norway as well as my birthplace of Hungary.  So, at least I didn’t feel that we were the only ones suffering, but also felt good that there wasn’t an uncontrolled worldwide pandemic of which the Flu Trends would serve as an early warning device.  Actually, flu query information on Google in the U.S. had a two week lead on the information that was available to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which relies on reports of lab specimens positive for influenza collected by local health departments.

In this sped up world, there is even an point of view that searches on Google are too slow as people actually share their flu symptoms much more quickly on Twitter according to Mark Dredze of Johns Hopkins.  The above chart shows an extremely high correlation found between Twitter flu communications and the CDC’s positive influenza sample reports.  My guess is that the correlation would have been higher if a chip testing the influenza virus directly real-time linked to the CDC would have been available. The ability to have a two week lead to discern the rise of an epidemic may be eclipsed by the utility of seeing two to three weeks ahead when the epidemic is waning and public expressions of panic may be aided to subside.

There is a certain comfort in knowing that while one is recovering, most of the “herd” remains and will probably remain healthy.  I know, a flu shot may have helped. Chances are that a flu shot wouldn’t have made a difference unless the flu strain could be foreseen, but that technology hasn’t developed yet.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

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March 2, 2012 | 10:40 am

Jewish Identity: Is Mitt Romney Dogged by Wealth?

Posted by Pini Herman

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With a Jewish Family Size, the Dog Can Ride In the Car

No, this is not about the story of Seamus, the Romney family Irish setter, riding in a carrier on his car roof for a 12-hour family trip.  Yes, its tza’ar ba’alei chayim, or preventing suffering to animals. Jewish values would rather the dog ride in the carrier rather than one of the five Romney kids.  I think that people are scratching their heads as to why someone so ostentatiously wealthy would crowd five kids into one car rather than getting a more commodious vehicle.

The electorate’s inability to understand that Mormon family composition and family culture supersedes Romney’s perception of what his money can buy him, space and convenience that most Americans take for granted, is perhaps why this story has gone viral.  American society is going solo, that is remaining single, often never sharing a sleeping space with anyone else since birth. NYU sociology professor Eric Klinenberg has written a new book called “Going Solo,” which explores the increasing phenomenon of adults living alone. He describes the change as a huge demographic shift.  Klinenberg points out that “going solo” is primarily for the middle class and wealthy who can afford it.  Others, of lesser means must share living quarters or take roommates.

So, Romney, rather than being attacked for his family culture, is being attacked for his wealth in the current environment of people taking a harder look at the 1% who control much of American resources and personal characteristics are also coming under greater scrutiny.

There is an undercurrent of mistrust of the rich which is inviting attacks even by other Republicans on Romney achieving his wealth and his paying of paltry taxes that was recently deemed as Republican “class warfare” by many pundits.

It used to be that Jews were specifically singled out for scrutiny, even those without wealth.

We are used to seeing Jews as exemplars of honesty that worthies, such as Mark Twain have waxed eloquently about. Even Bernard Madoff was recently unable to remove the shine of historical probity from the general Jewish community.

While the recession is still very much with us, there are Jews among the Jews who remain wealthy. One in decline, but attempting to gain wealth through a new book, Jack Abramoff, former lobbyist and convicted felon speaking at his local alma mater, Beverly Hills High, shared with the students that his fall, he said, was not a result of setting out to break the law, but rather of an arrogance that led to the belief that the laws did not apply to him.

Recently UC Berkely researchers found that the rich were more likely to cheat. Because rich people have more financial resources, they’re less dependent on social bonds for survival, the Berkeley researchers theorized. As a result, their self-interest reigns and they have fewer qualms about breaking the rules.  The caveat is that the researchers also discovered that anyone’s ethical standards could be prone to slip if they suddenly won the lottery and suddenly became wealthy.

It may be that wealth has less of an effect on many Jews’ ethical standards. I did find that Jews were overrepresented among millionaires who signed a public petition to increase their taxes, though not in Los Angeles.  Perhaps that’s why many Jews continue to look like Episcopalians and keep on voting like blue collar African Americans and Latinos.  In contrast, Mitt Romney is more similar African American and Latinos in terms of family size and culture and votes like an Episcopalian.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

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February 23, 2012 | 1:38 pm

No Count: Administrative Non-Persons in Israel, the US and Ron Paul

Posted by Pini Herman

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Human Commodities, No Charge, No Trial, No Rights

Forty-two years ago I got kicked out a Modern Israel Society course being taught at Tel Aviv University’s first Mechina (Preparatory Year) by the professor who took exception to my raising the topic and asking about Israel’s “Administrative Detention.”  The professor let me back in the next session, probably because I would have decreased his class attendance count by one. 

I was counted, whereas there was no way of counting the mostly Israeli Arabs, often poets and other literary types at the time, who were held incommunicado, never charged, never brought before a judge under a British pioneered “Administrative Detention” which can be renewed indefinitely by Israel’s Minister of Defense or a delegated military commander.  It was then I came to appreciate the existence of a formal constitution, which Israel lacks, which has within it the right that everyone be counted, even if in the U.S. slaves were only counted 3/5 a person and native Indians only if they were tax-paying.

Bradely Bursten in Haaretz writes about one aspect of Israel’s struggle toward democracy:

This week alone, in an extraordinary expression of the power of non-violence, a 68-day hunger strike by one jailed Palestinian forced Israelis, for the first time, to truly face and begin to debate the carefully hidden practice of administrative detention, imprisoning Palestinians without trial, criminal indictment or other due process.

This week, under threat of a possible High Court order, and with an international media spotlight on the case, officials struck a deal under which the prisoner, Khader Adnan, will be freed in April.

We in the US also have our dark corner akin to Israel’s “Administrative Detention”, some might point to Guantanamo.  I think its a bit closer to home and was bravely raised by LAPD chief Charlie Beck who is arguing that undocumented immigrants should have IDs and that California should issue drivers licenses to them if they pass the test.

The US constitution has no express power to limit immigration (as it has no express power to limit marriage as U.S. District Judge Jeff S. White ruled this week).  Desperate to stop the huddled masses, the courts used the “importation of persons” that is slaves, as the legal basis. Ron Paul Forum discussants argue that federal immigration laws are unconstitutional, they may very well be correct.

Migration to the U.S. was limited on the basis of commerce and even in 1875 the first immigration law was framed as barring the “importation “of Chinese workers.  Therefore, even today, people interdicted attempting to enter the United States without proper documentation are legally considered having the same constitutional rights as a keg of nails.  These people, estimated to be numbering in the thousands, can and sometimes are being held indefinitely at US taxpayer expense in immigration lockups without benefit of any US constitutional rights.  It is our U.S. equivalent of Israeli “Administrative Detention.”

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

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February 20, 2012 | 12:31 pm

Adopt Your Girlfriend: Subprime Personhood

Posted by Pini Herman

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Incorporate and Get Supreme Court Personhood

A Florida billionaire has adopted his adult girlfriend in an effort to divert a portion of his assets to her, is accused of killing one 23-year-old Scott Wilson in a drunk driving crash two years ago and faces both criminal charges and a civil suit. The adoption has brought legal response from the billionaire’s biological children.

A state-paid judge, ostensibly representing the people of the state of Florida’s interests, signed the adoption order.  In the next US census when the enumerator mails a survey, makes a phone call or comes knocking on the door and John Goodman and his “daughter” come to the door after having marathon legal non-consanguineous adult incestuous father/daughter sex, they can show the official census enumerator the official judge-signed court certificate that they must be officially listed, on the pain of legal penalty, as father and daughter.

Their undocumented maid, living in their manse’s small maids room, who opened the door for the enumerator is also enumerated, for now, but John Goodman, the billionaire, could be a financial supporter of FAIR (Federation of American Immigration Reform) which is trying to ban the enumeration of undocumented immigrants and has petitioned to courts to “un-adopt” such persons from being accounted for in political reapportionment of Congressional representation.

John Goodman, the billionaire, is mightily trying to protect his shares in corporations through girlfriend adoption. These corporations which have been recently given free speech rights of subprime personhood through the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  This gives the right of these corporations to weigh in, using corporate wealth and resources, not only in the election and appointment of politicians, but also judges who may continue to expand their inanimate rights of personhood. Additionally, corporations recently received from the U.S. Supreme Court, additional subprime uber-person rights so they can basically escape from the civil justice system when engaging in discriminatory or predatory behavior, the Supreme Court weakened the class action right of flesh and blood people.

Sub-prime personhood is now also being created for human embryonic cells and blastula and John Goodman, the billionaire, may hold that belief about when personhood begins and may encourage his corporations to help appoint and elect the judges, whom I pay with my tax dollars, to enforce his theology of personhood.

As the Biblical/Koranic Abraham might have said, to an incredulous idol worshipping chief judge when he put the ax in the hand of the intact “jealous” idol surrounded by the splinters of the destroyed idols, the idol did it. That an inanimate, man-made object could have human characteristics did not pass the personhood sniff test then and it does not pass the person-hood sniff test now.

Our politicians and judges, by constructing beings out of thin air put an ax in the hands of man-made inanimate constructions and ignore the hands of men who push that ax that fells people.  We flesh and blood people are not granted the same protections as the inanimate “persons/beings/entities” corporation owners have constructed through legal legerdemain. These corporations constituted of a privileged wealthy few, not necessarily U.S.citizens, can leverage this increased corporate power, for any purpose they see fit, including war and peace, without having to put their own, or their children’s, physical bodies in danger.

A society is at peril when even a clear acceptable count of persons can’t be made.  This country went to bloody war with itself in 1865 over the Constitution’s provision of counting some persons as little as three-fifths of a whole person.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

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February 17, 2012 | 11:47 am

Jewish Identity: Public Education, Educated and Educators and Willing to Pay $300 More Property Tax

Posted by Pini Herman

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A Tax Increase May Be Needed

Public education is vital to the Jewish community and supported by the vast majority of the Jewish community.  In practical terms because Jews are disproportionately home and property owners out tax investment in the public education system is great.  I personally pay a lot in property taxes and public education is vital to me.

If the Jewish Federation had fielded a Jewish Population Study of LA recently, it would likely find as I did in the last one 14 years ago that there were a high proportion of Jews employed in public elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as within the private education sector.  Another finding would probably be that Jewish educators were disproportionately female and had significant representation in the arts and music programs being target for elimination by the LAUSD.

Apart from the educators, the white students remaining in the LAUSD are disproportionately Jewish.  So it is our own Jewish kids and parents who will be carrying the burden of the LAUSD proposed cuts.

If the Jewish Federation still had a working Jewish community relations council, as it did in the past, they would be mightily working the school board and the pols to avert the cuts on which the vote has just been delayed on the $6 billion budget plan that would cause thousands of LAUSD employees to lose their jobs. 

Luckily my LAUSD board member, Steve Zimmer, heeded my tiny phone call and proposed the delay and said:

There is no public education without adult education, without the arts…There’s a difference between drastic cuts and catastrophic cuts.

Make you voice heard:

Call or email any or all of the following LAUSD School Board Members:

District 1      Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382      
District 2      Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180 *
District 3      Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
District 4      Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
District 5      Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
District 6      Nury.Martinez@lausd.net • 213-241-6388                    
District 7      Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
*LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT

And let Dr. Deasy hear from you, too!
Superintendent_JohnDeasy@LAUSD.NET 213-241-7000

UPDATE: The ax is suspended in mid-air for 21 days. The board has time to consider alternatives, including placing a ballot measure to increase property taxes by $300 annually to obtain $220 million.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

0 Comments — Leave your comment

February 14, 2012 | 10:38 am

Jewish Identity: Sharpies vs. Parnassim

Posted by Pini Herman

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Parnass or Sharpie

More than 200 groups, from animals rights organizations to political activists, say most of their donated funds vanished after the group that watched over the money stopped operations in the LA Times.

Makes one think about how Madoff got local Jewish charities in the hole recently.

The Forward recently had an penetrating article about the growth of donor-advised-funds in the Jewish and general community, pointing out the dangers of the wealthy “parking” their monies, while getting immediate tax benefits.

A discussion of Jewish communal ethics around the role of charitable stewardship is needed.  Are the decision makers adhering to the general communal well-being values of the “parnass” or are they adhering to the primary values of self-interest, self-dealing and doing-well-by-doing good of the “sharpie.”

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

1 Comments — Leave your comment

February 12, 2012 | 10:58 am

Whitney Houston: A Jewish Way of Death

Posted by Pini Herman

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Prescription Drugs?

Whitney Houston died of still unknown causes in the environs of the most densley Jewish political entity besides Kiryas Joel in the United States, Beverly Hills. 

While drowning is being considered and toxicology test results are weeks away, Whitney Houston may have died of the new dominant plague of prescription drugs, evidence of which was found in her room at the Beverly Hilton by the Beverly Hills Police Department.  Whitney Houston ironically died just less than 3 miles from where Michael Jackson was declared dead at UCLA.  This may be epicenter of the prescription drug death triangle.  The epidemiological picture may not be a coincidence with the significant number of Dr. Feel-Good offices populating the expensive real estate of Beverly Hills.

Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States. Fueling the surge in deaths are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol. Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma.

The epidemic of substance abuse has been documented in the Jewish community in the last LA Jewish Population Survey.  It would not be surprising if there was a disproportionate number Jews dying of drug deaths within this general societal trend.

Jews have an unearned reputation for sobriety. The LA Jewish Population Survey found that one-in-forty, or 6000 LA Jewish households reported having at least one member who needed assistance with problems of alcohol or substance abuse. There is a higher acceptance of use of substances such as marijuana in the Jewish community than the general population.

It would not be surprising if there was a disproportionate number Jews dying of drug deaths within this general societal trend.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population was third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter:

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