Welcome to the fruits of my Project Week labors. Whether ripe, rotten, or wrong, you will find a project consisting of analyses on written work and pictures from the nineteenth century that focus on the immigration of Jews to America during the nineteenth century.
Jews have, uniquely, held a constant presence in America. A haven away from rigid Puritan utopias and the wild expanses of the unknown continent of North America, New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) became the home of twenty-three wandering Sephardic Jews (Worth 14). Though restricted in their ability to abide by Judaism, they won greater freedom with time and their participation and fortune garnered through the American Revolution. Throughout the nineteenth century, waves of Ashkenazi Jews (Yiddish-speakers, before living in Eastern Europe and present-day Germany) progressed to America for economic benefit and religious liberty. There, they came into conflict with Sephardim (Ladino-speaking Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, containing Spain and Portugal) over language barriers and traditions (Epstein 46), and Northern Jews conflicted with Southern Jews over loyalty to the Union in the advent of the American Civil War (Worth 33). It is believed that around six thousand Jews served during this decisive time. The assassination of Tsar Alexander II in Russia, March 13, 1881, prompted a historic wave a Russian Jewish immigrants to call America home after a series of pogroms caused the deaths of hundreds of Jews and forced many to relocate (Epstein 12-13).
Most lived, before they could attain greater status economically, in crowded, famously filthy ghettos such as the Lower East Side in New York City. Working menial jobs as sweatshop workers for meager pay, most succeeded with dexterity in the daily struggle to survive, and provided for the next generation. Increasingly, these immigrants, so bewildered by the chaos and customs of America, became politically active (Epstein 123), and involved with charitable Jewish organizations to assist fellow Jewish immigrants in finding work and lodging (Epstein 40), fight the criminal statistics that were crippling their already belittled image (Arons xiii), and fund the efforts to establish a Jewish state in the then-Ottoman province of Palestine.
Eventually, Jews assimilated into American society. They moved out of the ghettos and into the bed-room communities, the West, and South, the better parts of town; anywhere else. They opened up their own businesses and obtained better pay. They did more than just distinguish themselves with their private existences, eccentric culture, Saturday Sabbath, and kosher diets. They, in specific Levi Strauss, designed jeans for miners during the California Gold Rush (Worth 29), they gave the American people bagels (Epstein 54), and published poetry about destitute factory and sweatshop conditions, such as the poet Rosenfeld (Epstein 236). They graced the movies and music industries, Wall Street, and even our nation's Capitol.
They became Americans, and they helped make America, for "out of many, one."
Jews have, uniquely, held a constant presence in America. A haven away from rigid Puritan utopias and the wild expanses of the unknown continent of North America, New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) became the home of twenty-three wandering Sephardic Jews (Worth 14). Though restricted in their ability to abide by Judaism, they won greater freedom with time and their participation and fortune garnered through the American Revolution. Throughout the nineteenth century, waves of Ashkenazi Jews (Yiddish-speakers, before living in Eastern Europe and present-day Germany) progressed to America for economic benefit and religious liberty. There, they came into conflict with Sephardim (Ladino-speaking Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, containing Spain and Portugal) over language barriers and traditions (Epstein 46), and Northern Jews conflicted with Southern Jews over loyalty to the Union in the advent of the American Civil War (Worth 33). It is believed that around six thousand Jews served during this decisive time. The assassination of Tsar Alexander II in Russia, March 13, 1881, prompted a historic wave a Russian Jewish immigrants to call America home after a series of pogroms caused the deaths of hundreds of Jews and forced many to relocate (Epstein 12-13).
Most lived, before they could attain greater status economically, in crowded, famously filthy ghettos such as the Lower East Side in New York City. Working menial jobs as sweatshop workers for meager pay, most succeeded with dexterity in the daily struggle to survive, and provided for the next generation. Increasingly, these immigrants, so bewildered by the chaos and customs of America, became politically active (Epstein 123), and involved with charitable Jewish organizations to assist fellow Jewish immigrants in finding work and lodging (Epstein 40), fight the criminal statistics that were crippling their already belittled image (Arons xiii), and fund the efforts to establish a Jewish state in the then-Ottoman province of Palestine.
Eventually, Jews assimilated into American society. They moved out of the ghettos and into the bed-room communities, the West, and South, the better parts of town; anywhere else. They opened up their own businesses and obtained better pay. They did more than just distinguish themselves with their private existences, eccentric culture, Saturday Sabbath, and kosher diets. They, in specific Levi Strauss, designed jeans for miners during the California Gold Rush (Worth 29), they gave the American people bagels (Epstein 54), and published poetry about destitute factory and sweatshop conditions, such as the poet Rosenfeld (Epstein 236). They graced the movies and music industries, Wall Street, and even our nation's Capitol.
They became Americans, and they helped make America, for "out of many, one."