Information about History Of The Jews In The United States

The history of the Jews in the United States comprises a theological dimension, with a three-way division into Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. In social terms the Jewish community began with small groups of merchants in colonial ports such as New York City and Charleston. In the mid and late 19th century well-educated German Jews arrived and settled in cities across the United States. From 1880 to 1924 large numbers of Yiddish-speaking Jews arrived from Eastern Europe, settling in New York City and other large cities. After 1926 numbers came as refugees from Europe; after 1980 many came from the Soviet Union, and there has been a flow from Israel. By the year 1900 the 1.5 million Jews gave the United States third place in numbers, behind Russia and Austria-Hungary. The proportion of the population has been about 2 to 3% since 1900, but in the 21st century Jews were widely diffused in major metropolitan areas in New York, South Florida, California, New England and Illinois.

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American Revolution -- Sephardic Jews: First Wave

In September, 1654, shortly before the Jewish New Year, twenty-three Jews of Portuguese ancestry from Recife, Brazil, arrived in New York, which at the time was under Dutch rule and known as New Amsterdam. This arrival was the beginning of Jewish-American history. Sephardic Portuguese Jews were also the early settlers of Newport (where the country's first synagogue was founded), Charleston, Philadelphia and Baltimore^[1].

By 1776 and the War of Salvation, around 2,000 Jews lived in America, most of them Spanish and Portuguese Jews (Sephardic Jews). They played a significant role in the struggle for independence, including fighting against the British (the first Jew to die during the War was Francis Salvador). David Salisbury Franksan, aide-de-camp of Benedict Arnold, suffered from his association with the traitorious general despite loyal service in both the Continental Army and the American diplomatic corps. Jews also played a key role in financing the Revolution, with the most important of the financiers being Haym Salomon.^[2]

President George Washington remembered the Jewish contribution when he wrote to the Sephardic congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, in a letter dated August 17, 1790: "May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in the land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants. While everyone shall sit safely under his own vine and fig-tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."

Jews (particularly Sephardic Jews) have over a 300 year history in Charleston, South Carolina.^[3] Charleston had, until around 1830, the largest and wealthiest colony of Jews in North America [1].

Jewish Texans have been a part of Texas History since the first European explorers arrived in the 1500s. [2] By 1990, there are around 108,000 adherents to Judaism in Texas. [3] Spanish Texas did not welcome easily identifiable Jews, but they came in any case. Jao de la Porta was with Jean Laffite at Galveston, Texas in 1816, and Maurice Henry was in Velasco in the late 1820s. Jews fought in the armies of the Texas Revolution of 1836, some with Fannin at Goliad, others at San Jacinto. Dr. Albert Levy became a surgeon to revolutionary Texan forces in 1835, participated in the capture of Béxar, and joined the Texas Navy the next year. [4]

19th century -- Ashkenazi Jews: Second Wave

During this period (especially the 1840s and 1850s), Jewish immigration was primarily of Ashkenazi Jews from Germany, bringing a liberal, educated population that had experience with the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. It was in the United States during the 1800s that two of the major branches of Judaism were established by these German immigrants: Reform Judaism (out of German Reform Judaism) and Conservative Judaism, in reaction to the perceived liberalness of Reform Judaism.

Jewish communities began to organize themselves in the early parts of the 19th century. A Jewish orphanage was set up in Charlestown, South Carolina in 1801, and the first Jewish school, Polonies Talmud Torah, was established in New York in 1806. In 1843, the first national secular Jewish organization in the United States, the B'nai B'rith was established. See also History of Jewish education in the United States (pre-20th century).

Civil War

Jews, like the United States itself, were divided on the slavery debate, although most appeared to be in favor of emancipation . They participated in the Civil War, with approximately 6,000-8,000 Jews (out of around 150,000 Jews in the United States, total) fighting on the Union side, and 1,500 on the Confederate side. Jews also played leadership roles on both sides, with nine Jewish generals and 21 Jewish colonels participating in the War. Judah Benjamin, a non-observant Jew, served as Secretary of State and acting Secretary of War of the Confederacy.

The Jews and the government

The first Jewish member of the United States House of Representatives, Lewis Charles Levin, and Senator, David Levy Yulee, were elected in 1845 (although Yulee converted to Episcopalianism the following year). Official government anti-Semitism continued, however, with New Hampshire only offering equality to Jews in 1871, the last state to do so. Jews also began to organize as a political group in the United States, especially in response to the United States' reaction to the 1840 Damascus Blood Libel.

:For more information, see Relationship of American Jews to the U.S. Federal Government (pre-20th century).

Jewish immigration explosion: 1880-1925

The history of the Jews in the United States was influenced by waves of immigration. The primary reason for immigration was the periods of anti-Semitism and persecution that rippled through Europe. The history of Jewish immigration therefore parallels that anti-Semitic repression in Europe.

Ashkenazi Jews: the Third Wave

But none of the early migratory movements assumed the significance and volume of that from Russia and neighboring countries. This emigration, mainly from Russian Poland and other areas of the Pale of Settlement, began as far back as 1821, but did not become especially noteworthy until after the German immigration fell off in 1870. Though nearly 50,000 Russian, Polish, Galician, and Romanian Jews went to the United States during the succeeding decade, it was not until the pogroms, anti-Jewish uprisings in Russia, of the early eighties, that the immigration assumed extraordinary proportions. From Russia alone the emigration rose from an annual average of 4,100 in the decade 1871-80 to an annual average of 20,700 in the decade 1881-90. Additional measures of persecution in Russia in the early nineties and continuing to the present time have resulted in large increases in the emigration, England and the United States being the principal lands of refuge. The Romanian persecutions, beginning in 1900, forced large numbers of Jews to seek refuge in the US.

By 1924, two million Jews had arrived, mostly from Eastern Europe and Russia. Growing anti-immigration feelings in the United States at this time, resulted in the National Origins Quota of 1924, which severely restricted immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia after that time. The Jewish community took the lead in opposing immigration restrictions, which remained in effect until 1965.

Modern times: Holocaust survivors, Mizrahi Jews, Soviet Jews, Israelis

About 100,000 German Jews did arrive in the 1930s, escaping Hitler’s persecution. During the Holocaust, less than 30,000 Jews a year reached the United States, and some were turned away due to immigration policies. Immediately after the Second World War, some Jewish refugees resettled in the United States, and another wave of Jewish refugees from Arab nations settled in the US after expulsion from their home countries. The last large wave of immigration came from the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, where approximately 150,000 Jews emigrated from. In modern times, many Israeli Jews have left Israel (particularly those with families living outside of the country), emigrating to the USA particularly but also other countries such as Australia, Canada, and the UK.

The 20th century

The twentieth century’s wave of immigration, followed by the Holocaust that destroyed most of the European Jewish community, made the United States the home of the largest Jewish population in the world during the 20th century. At the beginning of the century, there were around a million Jews in the United States, at the end of the century, around 6 million. Jewish growth slowed after the 1920s, when immigration fell due to new restrictions, and intermarriage and assimilation resulted in many of Jewish descent identifying more with their American than Jewish heritage. Currently, the intermarriage rate in the United States for Jews exceeds 50%.

Politics and civil rights

The German Jews were primarily Republicans. However the Yiddish-speaking Jews, many with experience with the Labor Bund in Eastern Europe, were leaders in the socialist and labor movements after 1910. They formed strong unions that played a major role in left-wing politics, and after 1936 in Democratic party politics. By the mid-20th century Jewish Congressmen from New York and Chicago gained important committee assignments through seniority, including Adolph J. Sabath and Emmanuel Celler, both Democrats. Republican Jacob Javits was a powerful Senator in the 1960s and 1970s. As of 2007, there are 13 Jewish senators, or 13% of the senate. Joe Lieberman was the first Jew to run for national office on a major party ticket when he was chosen as Al Gore's vice-presidential nominee in the 2000 presidential election.

Polls showed Jews gave 90% support to Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman in the elections of 1940, 1944 and 1948. They gave about a third of their vote to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. In 1960 Jews voted 83% for Catholic Democrat John F. Kennedy. In 1964, when the Republicans nominated arch-conservative Barry Goldwater, of Jewish descent, 90% of Jews voted for his opponent. ^[4]

Jews were highly visible as leaders of movements for civil rights for all Americans, including themselves and African Americans. Seymour Siegel argues the historic struggle against prejudice faced by Jewish people led to a natural sympathy for any people confronting discrimination. This further led Jews to discuss the relationship they had with African Americans. Jewish leaders spoke at the two iconic marches of the era. Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, appeared at the March on Washington on 28 August 1963, noting that "As Jews we bring to this great demonstration, in which thousands of us proudly participate, a twofold experience--one of the spirit and one of our history" ^[5] Two years later Abraham Joshua Heschel of the Jewish Theological Seminary marched in the front row of the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

Within Judaism, increasing involvement in the civil rights movement caused some tension. Rabbi Bernard Wienberger exemplified this point of view, warning that "northern liberal Jews" put at risk southern Jews who faced hostility from white southerners because of their northern counterparts. However, most known Jewish responses to the civil rights movement and black relations lean toward acceptance and against prejudice, as the disproportionate involvement of Jews in the movement would indicate. ^[6] Despite this history of participation, relations between African Americans and Jews have sometimes been strained by their close proximity and class differences, especially in New York and other urban areas.

World War II and the Holocaust

In 1939 a Roper poll found that only thirty-nine percent of Americans felt that Jews should be treated like other people. Fifty-three percent believed that "Jews are different and should be restricted" and ten percent believed that Jews should be deported. [5] The United States’ tight immigration policies were not lifted during the Holocaust, news of which began to reach the United States in 1941 and 1942 and it has been estimated that 190 000 - 200 000 Jews could have been saved during the Second World War had it not been for bureaucratic obstacles to immigration deliberately created by Breckinridge Long and others.[6]

Rescue of the European Jewish population was not a priority for the US during the war, and the American Jewish community did not realize the severity of the Holocaust until late in the conflict. Despite strong public and political sentiment to the contrary, however, there were some who encouraged the U.S. government to help victims of Nazi genocide. In 1943, just before Yom Kippur, 400 rabbis marched in Washington, D.C. to draw attention to the plight of Holocaust victims. (See "The Day the Rabbis Marched.") A week later, Senator William Warren Barbour (R; New Jersey), one of a handful of politicians who met with the rabbis on the steps of the U.S.Capitol, proposed legislation that would have allowed as many as 100,000 victims of the Holocaust to emigrate temporarily to the United States. Barbour died six weeks after introducing the bill, and it was not passed. A parallel bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Samuel Dickstein (D; New York). This also failed to pass. ^[7] The US did not change its immigration policies until 1948.

Recent times

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American Jews continued to prosper throughout the late 20th century, and, with their success, increasingly assimilated into American culture, with high intermarriage rates resulting in either a falling or steady population rate at a time when the country was booming. Jews also began to move to the suburbs, with major population shifts from New York and the Northeast to Florida and California. New Jewish organizations were founded to accommodate an increasing range of Jewish worship and community activities, as well as geographic dispersal.

Politically, the Jewish population remained strongly liberal. The heavily Democratic pattern continued into the 21st century. In 2004 74% of Jews voted for Democrat John Kerry, a Catholic, and in 2006 87% voted for Democratic candidates for the House.^[8] By the 1990s Jews were becoming prominent in Congress and state governments throughout the country. Jews proved to be strong supporters of the American Civil Rights Movement. Since 1936 the great majority of Jews have been Democrats.

Antisemitism in the United States

Anti-Jewish sentiment started around the time of the Civil War, when General Ulysses Grant issued an order (quickly rescinded by President Lincoln) of expulsion against Jews from the portions of Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi under his control. (See General Order No. 11)

Antisemitism continued into the first half of 1900s. Jews were discriminated against in some employment, not allowed into some social clubs and resort areas, given a quota on enrollment at colleges, and not allowed to buy certain properties.

Antisemitism in America reached its peak during the interwar period. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, the antisemitic works of Henry Ford, and the radio speeches of Father Coughlin in the late 1930s indicated the strength of attacks on the Jewish community.

Antisemitism in the United States has rarely turned into physical violence against Jews. Some more notable cases of such violence include the attack of Irish workers and police on the funeral procession of Rabbi Jacob Joseph in New York City in 1902, lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, assassination of Alan Berg in 1984, and the Crown Heights riots of 1991.

Following the Second World War and the American Civil Rights Movement, anti-Jewish sentiment waned. Some members of the Black Nationalist Nation of Islam claimed that Jews were responsible for the exploitation of black labor, bringing alcohol and drugs into their communities, and unfair domination of the economy. Furthermore, according to Anti-Defamation League surveys begun in 1964, African Americans are significantly more likely than white Americans to hold antisemitic beliefs, although there is a strong correlation between education level and the rejection of antisemitic stereotypes for all races. However, black Americans of all education levels are nevertheless significantly more likely than whites of the same education level to be antisemitic. In the 1998 survey, blacks (34%) were nearly four times as likely as whites (9%) to fall into the most antisemitic category (those agreeing with at least 6 of 11 statements that were potentially or clearly antisemitic). Among blacks with no college education, 43% fell into the most anti-Semitic group (vs. 18% for the general population), which fell to 27% among blacks with some college education, and 18% among blacks with a four-year college degree (vs. 5% for the general population). ^[9]

The 2005 Anti-Defamation League survey includes data on Hispanic attitudes, with 29% being most antisemitic (vs. 9% for whites and 36% for blacks); being born in the United States helped alleviate this attitude: 35% of foreign-born Hispanics, but only 19% of those born in the US. ^[10]

Jewish contributions to the United States

Jews made major contributions to the cultural, scientific, political, and economic life of the United States. For example, 37% of all United States Nobel Prize winners in the 20th century were Jewish. For more information on famous Jews and their contribution to the United States, see List of Jewish Americans.

Bibliography

• Cutler, Irving. The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb. (1996)
• Davis S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies; "A Thanksgiving Day when Jews Mourned.", copyright 2005. accessed 7 September 2006.
• Diner, Hasia. The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000 (2004) online
• Diner, Hasia. Her Works Praise Her: A History of Jewish Women in America from Colonial Times to the Present (2002) online
• Feingold, Henry L. Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present (1974) online
• Feingold, Henry L. A Time for Searching: Entering the Mainstream: 1920-1945. Vol. 4 of The Jewish People in America. (1992)
• Howe, Irving. World of Our Fathers. (1976)
• Hyman, Paula E., and Deborah Dash Moore, eds. Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, 2 vol. (1997).
• Kaplan, Dana Evan, ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism (2005)
• Karp, Abraham, ed. The Jews in America: A Treasury of Art and Literature. Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, (1994)
• Moore, Deborah Dash. GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (2006)
• Moore, Deborah Dash. At Home in America: Second Generation New York Jews. (1981).
• Morowska, Ewa. Insecure Prosperity: Small-Town Jews in Industrial America, 1890-1940 (1996)
• Neu, Irene D. "The Jewish Businesswoman in America." American Jewish Historical Quarterly 66 (1976-1977): 137-153.
• New York Times (NYT), October 15, 1943; p. 21; "Moves for Admission of 100,000 Refugees - Barbour Offers Resolution for Entry of Racial Victims"; accessed December 12, 2006 (There may be a charge for this article if accessed online.)
• Sarna, Jonathan D. American Judaism Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-300-10197-X
• Shapiro, Edward S. A Time for Healing: American Jewry Since World War II. Vol. 5 of The Jewish People in America. (1992).
• Sorin, Gerald. A Time for Building: The Third Migration, 1880-1920. Vol. 3 of The Jewish People in America. (1992).

Primary sources

• Salo Wittmayer Baron and Joseph L. Blau, eds. The Jews of the United States, 1790-1840: A Documentary History. 3 vol.(1963) online
• Howe, Irving and Kenneth Libo, eds. How We Lived, 1880-1930: A Documentary History of Immigrant Jews in America (1979) online
• Marcus, Jacob Rader, ed. The Jew in the American World: A Source Book (1996.)
• Staub, Michael E. ed. The Jewish 1960s: An American Sourcebook University Press of New England, 2004; 371 pp. ISBN 1-58465-417-1 online review

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Links and references

• online Jewish encyclopedia
• American Jewish Historical Society
• [http://www.dinur.org/resources/resourceCategoryDisplay.aspx?categoryid=804&rsid=478 Resources > Jewish communities > America > Northern America] The Jewish History Resource Center, Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Jewish Virtual Library Thousands of articles on Jewish history
• My Jewish Learning Extensive American Jewish history
• Old Jewish Cemetery, Chambersburg PA
• Jews in the Civil War
• Jews in the Wild West
• Western Jewish History Center, Berkeley, California
• Jews in the New Wilderness
• Davis S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, "A Thanksgiving Day when Jews Mourned," copyright 2005. Accessed 7 September 2006.
• PBS film on Black-Jewish relations
• American Jewish Legacy

See also

• Culture of New York City
• History of the Brenham Jewish Community
• History of the Galveston Jewish Community
• Jewish Americans
• Jewish American literature
• List of Jewish Americans
• Hebrew Printing in America (ISBN 1-59975-685-4)
• From Swastika to Jim Crow- a documentary about Jews in the American South

•  • [ e] History of the Jews in North America
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