@ZD
Your point about leaving rural areas for the cities is true among all European people, NOT just Jews. You write of the urban migration of the Industrial revolution of the 1800s.
@WTP
In the early 1900s Jewish farming colonies were established in NJ and CT for those Eastern European Jewish poor who managed to get to America. These were great failures because in general, except for keeping a few chickens for eggs and a kitchen garden, these village Jews were not farmers.