A history of the Jews in the United States

Front matter

en Le |

A History OF THE JEWS IN THE UNITED STATES

COMMISSION ON JEWISH

Preface

Louis I. Egelson, Assistant Director of the Department of Synagogue and School Extension, and to Mr. M. Myer Singer of the Department who is responsible for the typography and design of the book.

Ler J. LEVINGER Columbus, Ohio May, 1930

CHAPTER 1. THE JEWS WHO LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY 3 i. The Jewish Part in feline Jae Hete. 3 ii, American Jewry at Present 4 iil. Where the American Jews Came From 9 iv. Characteristics of the Three Migrations 12 v. The Mingling of Elements in American Jewry 16

Part I

JEWS WHO SETTLED IN THE COLONIES CHAPTER 2. JEWS WHO HELPED CoLuMBUS . . .. 23 i. The Beginning of American ge Sat bathe Pree. li. Christopher Columbus... .*; ;.. es Ne A mG WIG OCICTIVISISih ol fahren, Cre See (ele 2D iyo jewish PipanicialAlelp efi) Wb hs Waews one toe, Kirst V Oyagenivauc wag vite vt’ 4 CHAPTER 3. JEWISH SETTLERS IN SPANISH AMERICA 39 i. In Spanish Territory—Inquisition Rules . . 39 ii. In Portuguese Control—Secrecy and Danger . 45 iii. With the Dutch—A Moment of Freedom . . 46 iv, ‘With the*English*—Voleration (0.0. 8 54

<1

CHAPTER 4. How THE First JEws CAME TO NorRTH AMERICA . : i. New Amsterdam, 1654 ii. Earlier Arrivals. iii. Ten Years in New Amsterdam iv. A Century under Great Britain

CHAPTER 5. A THRIVING JEWISH COMMUNITY BEFORE THE REVOLUTION i. Newport, R.I. . ii, Massachusetts iii. Connecticut

CHAPTER 6. How THE JEWS SCATTERED THROUGH THE CoLONIES : i. Pennsylvania, the Setlenient i Willian: Post : ii. Maryland—Toleration for All Christians iii. Virginia—an Established Church . iv. South Carolina under Official Toleration v. Georgia—a Mixed History

Part II HOW THE JEWS GREW WITH THE NATION

CHAPTER 7. JEWISH INFLUENCE ON THE NEW RE- PUBLIC he i. Direct Influence ii. The Jews and the Puritans iii, The Deists . iv. The Bible and Freedom

CHAPTER 8. JEWS IN THE FOUNDING OF THE REPUBLIC i. The Jewish Sympathies ii. Revolutionary Soldiers iii. Patriots in Peaceful Ways. iv. Washington and the Jews

CHAPTER 9. THE LAND oF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY i. The European Theory Transplanted . ii. The New American Theory iii. Religious Liberty in the States X11

101 101 103 107 108

129 129 132 134

PAGE CuHapreR 10. THe First WAVE OF IMMIGRATION: From SPAIN. . cuties) ae My | | BAT i. How and Whence They Came shied Wom Pirn} Lal ii. Their Institutions .. onthe Sd La’ iii. The Spread of Jewish Settlements gy eet las iv. The War of 1812 and the Mexican War. . . 154 CHAPTER 11. OUTSTANDING JEWS OF THE First HALF Or THE NINETEENTA CENTURY, (. °°. 2°) 458 i. Judah Touro, 1775-1854 . . SS ii. Mordecai Manuel Noah, 1785- 1851 PTS OTST ili. Uriah Phillips Levy, 1792- 1862 ioe tae sae LOT iveu Rebecca, Gratz. 81 7 81—1869,07 6 vies waits bi D Pe 7) 170 Vi FeninapVicisewer,O7A1 B80 et) howd werce 2 eat 2 CHAPTER 12. THE SECOND WAVE OF IMMIGRATION: From GERMANY. . . UE e Mae Pome ee al ak) i eeu iesel Trimieraiien Weeeie Rae | 250 EES ii., - Their’ General» Characteristics: «rss0:0 2) 8 ..- 178 iii. Where They Went. . il dak. dpa. ab b82 iv. What They Accomplished fo) Sao ORM Y aaE LOD CHAPTER 13. THE Civit War: JEWS IN THE NoRTH AND SOUTH ..,\.. aly ey. 1s be dhg LOZ i. The Sympathies of the Tens Sr Aer CRC Ae OZ ie Abraham. Lincelm ands the Jews t..0:5 sf. 82 195 imemelews in ithe Armies; dig oie. Seah ty £99 ive eh ke DCNIAIMIN "8 ous hy SNR 16 WIRE pened tee na 205 CHAPTER 14. THE BASIS OF JUDAISM IN AMERICA . 210 Pepe berOrtnouox, oyhagoseow iis ykoay wu a eee LO it) he New Idea of,'Reform™ ~. eee ve iii. The First Reform Congregation in America. . 213 ivaturther Progress. of “Reform? sy nvre™ vase’. 216 weeulsaac. Leeser, Leader of Orthodoxyy jth 219 CHAPTER 15. THE GrowTH oF REFORM JUDAISM . 225 i. Early Development of the Reform Idea. . . 226 ie mncreeenod OL rGrowth yf i id Oy aga nee ire: Phe RrerlodaOl REMItIONS, mie. ker cae ce a oe iv. Other Religious Developments . . . . . 235 v. The Principles of Reform Judaism . .°*.- . 238

Xili

CHAPTER 16.

vi.

CHAPTER 17.

qi ll. iv.

CHAPTER 18.

CHAPTER 19. OUTSTANDING JEWS OF THE SECOND HALF

Vi.

CHAPTER 20. THrE UNITED States AS A CHAMPION OF

WERE FORMED .

The German he takier

The Jewish Charities .

The Lodges

The Jewish Press .

Board of Delegates of American Israelites Jewish Education

From RuvssIA

The Size of the Rissinn Migtation

The European Background 5 hia Character of the Russian Immigration . What the Russian Jews Did in America

RUSSIAN JEWS

The Synagogues and Charities Yiddish and Hebrew

Zionism: 4s

The Jewish Labor. Movement

OF THE CENTURY 52 Michael Heilprin, 1823-1888 Emma Lazarus, 1849-1887 Simon Wolf, 1836-1923 . . .

Jacob Henry Schiff, 1847-1920 David Lubin, 1849-1919 . , Oscar S. Straus, 1850-1926

JewisH RIGHTS.

Versailles Peace Conference, 1919 xiv

How JEwisH LODGES AND CHARITIES

THE THIRD WAVE OF IMMIGRATION:

THE CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE

PAGE

261 265 270 272

283 284 286 289 293

299 303 306 309 313 317

323 325 326 329 334 335

CHAPTER 21. THE AMERICAN JEW IN THE WORLD WAR i. The Spanish-American War ii. The World War iii. Civilian Work .

Part HI

AMERICAN JEWS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

CHAPTER 22. ANTI-SEMITISM AND ITS ANSWER IN AMERICA is i. Anti-Semitism in Europe ii. Anti-Semitism in America ili. The American Background iv. The American Answer to Anti- Semitism v. Anti-Semitism on the Decline

CuHaAPTER 23. A Brrp’s-EvE VIEW OF AMERICAN JEWRY

1° Numbers: ~‘. ii. The Social Classes of the Jews

CHAPTER 24. How THE JEW KeEeEps His JUDAISM IN AMERICA . COP a A NEE NC i. The Synagogue in Nereis ii. The Reform Institutions . iii. Conservative Judaism . iv. American Orthodoxy v. Religious Unity of All Jews

CHAPTER 25. How a CuILp RECEIVES A JEWISH EDU-

CATION IN AMERICA

i. Elementary Jewish Euesson

ii. Extension Education

iii. Schools for Special Purposes

iv. Jewish University Students

v. Jewish Books

vi. The Jewish Press

CHAPTER 26. How THE JEW CarRES FOR HIS OWN IN AMERICA . i. An Estimate of Pavek chaste ii. Types of Philanthropies Hate . XV

388 393 399 404 406

428 429 431 ili. Settlements and Jewish Centers

iv. The Federation Movement

v. National Control of Jewish Charity vi. Work in Foreign Lands

CHAPTER 27. How THE AMERICAN JEWS ARE OR- GANIZED FOR MANy PURPOSES cea i. Social Organizations ii. Organizations for Women and Young People ili. Jewish Labor Unions . Yo v. Jewish Rights v. The Zionist Movement

—e

CHAPTER 28. JEWS WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO AMERICAN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART i. Literature

ii. The Theatre

iii. Yiddish Literature . iv. Hebrew Literature . v. Musicians

vi. Artists vii. Scientists

CHAPTER 29. JEws WHO ARE PROMINENT IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY AND PusBLic LIFE i, Agriculture . ii. Labor iii. Business iv. Philanthropists . . v. Jewish Public Men.

CHAPTER 30. WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR THE JEW IN AMERICA . «hes aica al ae amas i. The Era Ahead ‘ii. Outside Pressure iii. Jewish Institutions . iv. Jewish Unity

Xvi

451 455 458 461 465

Maps and Charts

Jewish Population in United States in 1927

Comparison of Jewish Populations

The Three Waves of Jewish Migration

Early Settlements of Jews in Central and South ee New York City in 1695

First Jewish Settlements in the United Stiles

How the German Jews Settled aie a the cunts up to 1865 sae Seem

Curve of Jewish Immigration 1881- 192 (be

Comparison of U. S. and Vee Population at Various Periods

New York City—Where eek Ponciaion Tged:| in 1925

Percentage of Places Having Jewish Residents

Density of Jewish Population in the United States

Population Density of Jews of the United States as Compared with Density of Total Population

Proportion of Jewish Children Receiving Retro Instruction ;

How the Jews of America aes to eariote Brees

Number of National Jewish Organizations in the United States ay BAL ON Bene oe oper

XVil

183 262

264 376 378 379 ry ‘ sn =

Illustrations

The Inquisition . : Savannah of the eee ecaan

Commemoration Medal of the 250th hari of the Settlement of the Jews in the United States

Old Jewish Cemetery, West car eae Street, New WORK INET Y Wile,

New York City in 1695

Sketch and Site of Old Mill Street Synagogue Ne VOLK 2 IN. oY ;

Hebrew Cemetery, Newport, R. t

Aaron Lopez

Title Page of Judah Mons Sinantee

Bay Psalm Book, Title Page

Col. Isaac Franks

Statue of Haym Salomon

Excerpt from Letter of ee erntons to hive Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R. I.

Heroes of Religious Liberty

Touro Synagogue, Newport, R. I.

Judah Touro

Mordecai Manuel Noah

Uriah P. Levy

Rebecca Gratz

Adolf Kraus

David Einhorn . ;

Monument in Honor of revisit Silden (Brooklyn)

Judah P. Benjamin

Temple Beth Elohim, Chet sibe! Ss, C.

X1X

PAGE 43 51

64 66

67 74 78 81 106 116 124

Illustrations

Rabbi Isaac Leeser

Rabbi Isaac M. Wise

Dr. Kaufmann Kohler ..

Dining Room, Hebrew Punheust Hone New Vere N. y. At the Sewing-Machine Re es Tears on the Iron .

Baron Maurice de Hirsch .

Maxwell Street (from The Ghetto, by Liotid Wirth) Jacob Gordin

Meyer London

Michael Heilprin

Emma Lazarus .

Simon Wolf .

Jacob H. Schiff

David Lubin

Oscar S. Straus .

Petition to the Czar

Graves of Jewish Soldiers WMete Marked si 5 “Magen David. ;

Jewish Soldiers in France at sedet

Temples Recently Built

Air View of Hebrew Union College, Cincnnet Ohio

Ceremonial Collection at the Hebrew Union College

Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, N. Y.

Solomon Schechter .

Jewish Theological Seminary i Anne

Yeshiva College, New York, N. Y.

American Bible Translators

Front View of Old Building of Jewish Orphans Home Cleveland, O. .

New Buildings of Jewish Grp Hone Gievennnt 0.

Y.M.H.A. Building, 92nd St. and mes Ave., New Mork Nye

Young Women’s Hebrew Asbcianan Ney Vor N. y.

Y.M. and Y.W.H.A. Building, Philadelphia, Pa. XX

PAGE

434 435

438 439 440

Illustrations

Foodless Dinner.

Louis Marshall .

Moses Ezekiel Oy WA Lisa, Ezekiel’s Statue of Religious Liberty Emile Berliner

Samuel Gompers.

Julius Kahn .

Xxi a ae INTRODUCTION Vos eA

W3A0 ONY Xe \ Q A “662 01 %!1 ZH Nat 4

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453 "GG" [ye AS _onyrsee oh tt 3 ) a4 aS / ee ¢ al Bea : = a ee q Yi pose y) Lp

CHAPTERAL

The Jews Who Live in the United States Today

I. THE JEWISH PART IN AMERICAN HISTORY

HEN we read American history or study it in our

schools, there is seldom much mention of the Jews. Thoughtless people might judge from this that the Jewish people have had little to do with the history of the United States, or that the Jews are newcomers who arrived after others had founded the nation and made it great.

But this happens to be far from the facts. Jews have lived in the land that is now the United States of America long before it won its freedom; they have worked for it, sacrificed for it, and loved it at every period of its great history. But they came as families or even as separate persons, not in large groups, like the Pilgrims or the Cavaliers; they did not have a whole colony of their own, like the Quakers in Pennsylvania or the Catholics in Maryland. Therefore they are often lost to view among the individuals of many different races and religions who lived in America and helped to make it what it is today. :

We will want to study this book to find out something about the Jews of the United States today, where they came from, how they got here, and what they have done in this country. We will want to know whether they have contributed much or little to America in peace and war; whether they have neglected the heritage of their fathers, or have built great Jewish institutions in the New World.

II. AMERICAN JEWRY AT PRESENT

EVEN in the twentieth century, the Jews are by no means the largest of the many elements of population in the United States. In 1928 they constituted about 4,200,000 of the 118,000,000 citizens of this nation, a large and important body in itself but a small percentage of the entire people. Still, this comprises the largest number of Jews living in any country of the world, and almost one-fourth of all the Jews on earth. These people live chiefly in all the large cities of the United States, but they have smaller groups scattered everywhere, a . Jew in nearly every village as one of its business men, in many a country district as one of the farmers.

The city of New York alone has fully one and three-fourths million Jews as part of its great population, the largest number of Jewish people ever gathered together in any city since our history began, more than Jerusalem ever held in its greatest days. Other great cities also have large numbers of Jews, their number varying according to the size of the city as a whole and the nature of its special industries.

JEWS OF POLAND 2,654,000

ENTIRE POPULATION OF SWITZERLAND

Jooo | 300,000 15Q000. 12 : IPHILADELPHIA 5 ALL or ASIA 589,000

COMPARISON OF JEWISH POPULATIONS

The Jews are divided by their work and their wealth into almost the same groups as other Americans. They have their rich and their poor, large numbers of poor immigrants who must be helped to get a start in the new land, as well as many rich men and women who are ready to give them their chance. They have professional men, business men, manufacturers, and workingmen. They often live near each other for company in one section of a city. They often enter the same fields of business where they have acquaintances. For example, the garment industries are largely owned by Jewish manufacturers and manned by Jewish workers.

These Jews do not all agree in religion, or politics, or personal feelings. They work together for charity, however, and they have wonderful hospitals, orphan asylums, and many other kinds of institutions to help the unfortunate and the needy. Some of them belong to orthodox, some to conservative, and some to reform synagogues; these three religious groups have their separate national unions of congregations, conferences of rabbis, and schools for the training of rabbis. Many American Jews are Zionists, devoted to the Jewish nationality, and striving for the establishment of a Jew~ ish national home in Palestine. Others are not interested in Zionism, or disbelieve in the organization of Jews as a nation, preferring to constitute only a religious body.

Still others, and a very important body, too, are interested in the Jewish nation, though not the Jewish religion, but most of all in the welfare of human beings in general. These radicals are working in the cause of the laboring classes and of peace between nations.

Great numbers of Jews, coming from lands where they spoke Yiddish, still cultivate that language in America. There are Yiddish newspapers, Yiddish books, and Yiddish theaters, and a literature of very high quality is being produced in that tongue here in America. Other Jews are studying the ancient Hebrew language, the holy tongue in which were written the Bible, the Mishnah, and the prayer book. This is now the spoken language of the Jewish settlers in Palestine and is spoken and written by a number of their friends and sympathizers in America.

There is a great movement for Jewish education in America, beginning with the many Hebrew schools and religious schools connected with congregations, the communal Talmud Torahs, the schools for Jewish teachers, and ending with five colleges for the training of rabbis. The epoch-making Jewish Encyclopedia was written in America. The translation of the Bible into English by Jewish scholars, and the other important works of the Jewish Publication Society of America, are an enduring monument to Jewish learning.

This great body of American Jews, with all its different groups, different opinions, and different activities, has naturally been a great influence among the Jews in other lands. The rebuilding of Palestine, which has enlisted the efforts of Zionists in every country, has had much support and a great amount of financial help from

American Jewry even though most of the immigrants to the ancient home of Israel have been the persecuted Jews of eastern Europe.

The only unity ever achieved among all American Jews was during the World War, in the cause of the unfortunate sufferers of the war zone in Eastern Europe. At that time the American Jewish Relief Committee, the Central Relief Committee, and the People’s Relief Committee, representing the reform, orthodox and radical elements, worked together in the Joint Distribution Committee; they pooled their funds and sent the money to such places and in such a manner as to accomplish the greatest good. Through this organization the Jews of America saved the lives and the communal existence of thousands of their brothers and sisters of other lands. At the same time, they found for once that unity was possible among themselves. Neither the American Jewish Committee nor the American Jewish Congress, both of which have been organized as spokesmen for American Jewry in time of emergency, has ever been able to represent the entire Jewish community of America, as the Joint Distribution Committee actually did during its life of useful service.

We do not need to be reminded that the Jews of America have not only their Jewish life, but, like all other American citizens, contribute to American life in general. They belong to various political parties, in which they vote and sometimes hold office. They have their inventors, their writers, their musicians and artists. In time of war they send their full quota to fight for America. They have their business leaders in many lines of endeavor. In other words, the Jews of America are complete partakers in American life, and at the same time possess certain Jewish institutions, too. They combine in themselves the age-old Jewish tradition of worship and loyalty, and the newer American life of progress and freedom. Their Judaism and their Americanism reinforce each other.

III. WHERE THE AMERICAN JEWS CAME FROM

THESE Jews came to the United States from every land under the sun, for the. Children of Israel dwell everywhere. They came for the same reasons that our other immigrants have come since the very discovery of the New World. Some came, like the French or Spanish, for love of adventure or desire for colonization. Some came, like the Germans and Irish, because they were very poor in the Old World and wanted to establish homes where they could provide a better livelihood for their families. Above all, the vast majority of them came like the Quakers and the Pilgrim Fathers as refugees from religious persecution, seeking a land where they might worship God in their own way. As a modern writer, herself a Jewish immigrant, has said: “Every immigrant ship is another Mayflower, and Ellis Island is just a new name for Plymouth Rock.” (Mary Antin: They Who Knock at Our Gates.)

The first Jews who came to America were from Spain and Portugal, some of them coming to this country directly, and others after wandering to several other lands on their weary search for a permanent home. Since the year 1492 these Jews had been fugitives, trying to find a place of security east or west, north or south. Naturally some of them tried the New World, so that the first and for a long time the only Jewish immigrants to America were Spanish Jews. Another factor that led these people to America was the colonizing activity of the Spanish and Portuguese at that early date. It was natural that people from these lands come to America, first because ships were constantly sailing there, and second because they found colonists whose language they spoke.

Now and then a wanderer came from England, Germany, or even Poland, but until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century almost all the Jews were of Spanish origin. Then came a change, and from 1840 on the Jewish immigration came largely from Germany and other countries of central Europe. For this was the time of the great German immigration to America, when thousands of Germans of all religions fled their native land for the New World. It was the time when the revolt of 1848 had been repressed and those who wanted freedom had to seek it in a foreign land. It was also a period of great poverty in Germany, when multitudes desired a fresh start in a new home. Hence the German Jews came to America, along with other Germans, seeking opportunity, freedom, and above all liberty to worship according to the dictates of their conscience.

During all this time, there were very few immigrants from eastern Europe. But this immigration increased in 1881 when the terrible May Laws were promulgated by the Czar of Russia. Since that time persecutions have piled up in eastern Europe, taking the form of discriminatory laws against the Jews, anti-Semitic parties in politics and mob violence. Since then great masses of Jews have fled from Russia, Austria, Roumania and nearby lands, of whom the greatest number fled to the United States. They, too, came for a chance to make a living, for freedom from tyranny, and most of all for liberty to be themselves and to live as Jews. At the same time the Jews were not the only new arrivals from eastern Europe. Large numbers of peasants also, especially of the different minority nationalities, came for the same reasons. Tyranny was heavy on them all, poverty was bitter to them all, but both poverty and tyranny bore most terribly on the Jews.

One might think of Jewish history in America in terms of certain figures, showing the increase of the numbers of Jews in this country. After the Revolution there were 3,000 Jews in the new nation. In 1840 there were 15,000; in 1881, a quarter of a million; and in 1928, there were 4,200,000 all together. They increased much like a series of steps, each one immensely larger than the one before. With many individual exceptions, these steps roughly represent different countries from which the Jews came.

The first fifteen thousand represented largely the Sephardim, the Jews from Spain and Portugal; the next two hundred thousand or more are the German Jews; the next three and a half million are the Jews from eastern Europe. Thus the descendants of the earliest settlers form the smallest group of Jews in the United States, the next largest is formed by the descendants of the German Jews, while the largest of all is composed of the latest to arrive, those from eastern Europe, and their children. Of course, there are also small bodies of Jews from Persia, Turkey and all sorts of countries, who have sent a few of their representatives to this great gathering-place of the nations, America.

IV. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE MIGRATIONS |

NATURALLY, each of these three groups of immigrants had its own characteristics, depending on the sort of Jewish life these people had led, the kind of national sur- ‘roundings they had known in their former homes. The first migration, that of the Spanish Jews, consisted of a few families, drifting in from time to time. They were chiefly merchants; some of them were wealthy merchants, engaged in commerce with other lands. They settled in the thirteen original colonies in a few leading commercial cities, and had five congregations in all at the time of the Revolution. They were strictly observant Jews, and most of their institutions were for their reli-. gious life. The typical community began with a cemetery when a few families came to a town; as soon as there were ten men in the community for services, they established a synagogue; finally they organized to help r2 the poor, and to help each other in time of sickness or death.

The German Jews who arrived next were very different in several respects. Most of them were poor when they first came. They usually began in the new land as peddlers wandering from house to house and from farm to farm, often with their entire stock of goods on their backs. By industry and courage they overcame the obstacles of poverty, a strange language, and the natural suspicion for unknown foreigners. Many a one started by buying a horse and wagon with which. to carry on his peddling, then a little store, then a larger business of one kind or another. The result is that many of the very old men who are leaders in business, in charity, and in public work among American Jews today were among these pioneers, while a surprising number of the active middle-aged Jews of the present, judges, physicians and bankers, are their sons, reared and educated in America.

Comparatively few of these German immigrants were scholars or professional men in their old homes, but many of them had a certain amount of both German and Jewish culture, due to the fine schools in Germany

THE 1 ee lit (ll

Zz

THE THREE WAVES OF JEWISH MIGRATION 18

THE cenman /// JEWS

THE EAST EUROPEAN JEWS during their youth. Many of these men read books and had modern ideas. Some of them had belonged to the rising new reform movement in Germany. Thus it came about naturally that liberal Judaism in America was fathered by these poor immigrants from Germany. They originated, likewise, social institutions, such as the B’nai B’rith and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. They founded philanthropic institutions—orphan asylums, homes for the aged, hospitals, and relief societies. All these, of course, were very small in their beginnings; all of them were needed by some element in the growing Jewish community. They organized nation-wide Jewish institutions, notably the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and through it the Hebrew Union College, in Cincinnati, the oldest seminary for training rabbis in America. They grew steadily in wealth, education, Jewish influence and public standing.

The distribution of the German immigrants was different from that of the Spanish. They did not stay in a few cities on the Atlantic seaboard, for they found a great continent just opening up to settlement. So they went ahead with the pioneers into every part of the growing nation. Naturally, they went largely to the same cities and sections where their non-Jewish comrades from Germany were settling. In this way Cincinnati became one of the most important Jewish centers in the United States, because it was a center of German settlement. These Jews settled in remote sections of the west and south; most of the Jewish communities of the country were founded during this period by some of these German immigrants.

Finally there came the great mass of immigration from eastern Europe. The Jews from Russia, Poland, Austria, Roumania and related lands came neither as scattered individuals nor as family groups. They represent the transplanting of whole communities, rich and poor, learned and ignorant together. The German immigrants had been chiefly the poor or the dissatisfied, for those with advantages at home hesitated to leave. So were the early immigrants from Russia. But after 1881 in Russia few Jews could be safe or prosperous; whole settlements were often ordered out of the villages where they had lived for generations, and driven to strange cities where they had no homes and no means of livelihood. This new migration was different, not only in its vastly greater numbers, but also in its nature. The new wave of migration centered in New York City, and spread out from that center. There are now Russian Jews in many other cities as well, but a great body of them still remains in that tremendous Jewish community.

These east European Jews were, for the most part, either orthodox or Zionists, or socialists and not religious at all. Very few of them belonged to reform synagogues, although very soon a milder modification of orthodoxy, called conservative Judaism, arose among them. They possessed a great deal of Jewish culture, as their rabbis and also many laymen were learned in the Bible and the Talmud; but they had fewer scholars in Russian or other

History bu the Jews in the United States modern tongues. This was due to the lack of public schools in Russia and the exclusion of Jews from many of the private schools, so that they had to rely entirely on their own Jewish schools and their own Jewish learning. Their culture, then, was either Yiddish or Hebrew. The Yiddish newspapers and theaters, the Zionist sentiment and organizations, the Hebrew schools and Talmud Torahs, owe their origin to the Russian Jews, exactly as the reform synagogues and their religious schools, charities and lodges, originate with the German Jews, and as | the first orthodox synagogues originate with the Spanish Jews.

V. THE MINGLING OF ELEMENTS IN AMERICAN JEWRY

AMERICAN Jewry represents all these three, not as separate groups, but as they now live intermingled and largely united. The differences pointed out are historical only, and exist now only in small part. Jews of Russian origin have a great influence through their overwhelming numbers, which Jews of German origin often equal because they came to America first, and consequently have acquired more wealth and are better adjusted to conditions in this country. Meanwhile the little Spanish community has largely been absorbed into the greater masses, retaining its separate identity in only a few cities.

In the rest of this book, we shall try to see in detail how all this came about, and how the Jewry of America came to be. We shall try also to see what influence the Jews have had in American history, what great men they 16 have produced in this country, and how much they have been able to accomplish for the benefit of their country: Finally we shall study the Jewish community of today, which is both interesting and important to all of us.