JTA — “The City Without Jews” is the title shared by a 1922 satirical novel by Hugo Bettauer and a forthcoming history of Nazi Vienna by Douglas Smith.

It could also be the title of a recent map feature published by the New York Times, posted on the eve of the July 4 holiday.

“How a Nation of Immigrants Traces Its Roots” is a lovely multimedia feature mapping Americans by their ethnic and immigrant origins. A celebration of diversity, it includes 200 “unique identities” represented across all 50 states: Scandinavians in the upper Midwest, African-Americans clustered in the South and beyond, Mexican-Americans in the Southwest, Portuguese along the coast of New England, Yemeni immigrants and their descendants in Detroit, and Native Americans living across a country that was once theirs.

“Much of what we see is a history of immigration,” explain the authors, Albert Sun, Jeff Adelson, and Larry Buchanan. The story accompanying the map goes on to describe the ebbs and flows of the migrant tide, including the surge at the turn of the 20th century and the current crackdown on refugees, asylum seekers, and even naturalized citizens.

But zoom in on the map, and there’s a notable omission: Jews. Hover over Manhattan, home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, and you’ll find pockets where 20 percent or more of the residents are Chinese, Puerto Rican, African American, Dominican, German, and Italian. Conspicuously, there is no heading for “Jewish.”

Readers noticed, and the comments section included a number of complaints. “This analysis completely hides descendants of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe,” wrote “AKJersey.”

“I am a Jew descended from immigrants from Germany and what is now Belarus,” wrote “Hannah Banana.” “I think that Jews as a group should be so defined, and not as........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)