History of the Jews in the United States

The history of the Jews in the United States has been influenced by waves of immigration primarily from Europe, inspired by the social and economic opportunities of the United States of America and fueled by periods of anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews in Europe. The history of Jewish immigration therefore parallels that anti-Semitic repression in Europe. Antisemitism in the United States has always been less prevalent than in Europe.

Jews have been present in what is today the United States of America as early as the Colonial period of the 17th century, though they were small in numbers. The earliest Jewish communities were almost exclusively Sephardic Jewish immigrants of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry. [ [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Kahalsyn.html Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue ] ] [ [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/charleston/kah.htm Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue ] ] Until about 1830 the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina was the most numerous in North America. Large-scale Jewish immigration commenced in the 19th century, when many Ashkenazi Jews from Germany arrived in the United States, primarily becoming merchants and shop-owners. By 1880, there were approximately 250,000 Jews in the United States, many of them being the educated, and largely secular, Fact|date=August 2008 German Jews, although a minority population of the older Sephardic Jewish families remained influential.

Jewish immigration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s as a result of persecution in parts of Eastern Europe, with a distinct wave of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews arriving from the poor rural Jewish populations of the Russian Empire, the Pale of Settlement (modern Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova), and the Russian-controlled portions of the former Duchy of Warsaw [See also: History of the Jews in Poland]

Over two million Jews arrived between the late nineteenth century and 1924, when immigration restrictions increased due to the National Origins Quota of 1924 and Immigration Act of 1924. Most of these immigrants were Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe who settled in New York City and its immediate environs (New Jersey, etc.), establishing what became one of the world's major concentrations of Jewish population.

These newly-arrived Jews built support networks consisting of many small synagogues and Ashkenazi Jewish "Landsmannschaften" (German for "Territorial Associations") for Jews from the same town or village. Jewish American writers of the time urged assimilation and integration into the wider American culture, and Jews quickly became part of American life. 500,000 American Jews (or half of all Jewish males between 18 and 50) fought in World War II, and after the war Jewish families joined the new trend of suburbanization. There, Jews became increasingly assimilated as rising intermarriage rates combined with a trend towards secularization. At the same time, new centers of Jewish communities formed, as Jewish school enrollment more than doubled between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, while synagogue affiliation jumped from 20% in 1930 to 60% in 1960.

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 approximately a million Jews in the United States, at the end of the century, close to six 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 fifty percent.

By the year 1900 the 1.5 million Jews residing in the United States comprised the third-largest Jewish population in the world, behind those of Russia and Austria-Hungary. In the 1930s and arter World War II, large numbers of Jews came as refugees from Europe, and after 1980 Soviet Jews were able to emigrate from the Soviet Union.

The proportion of the Jewish population in the United States has measured 2-3% since 1900.

In the 21st century American Jews were widely diffused in major metropolitan areas in New York, South Florida, Philadelphia, California, New England, Ohio, and Illinois.

On a theological level, American Jews are divided into a number of Jewish denominations, of which the most numerous are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Conservative Judaism arose in America and Reform Judaism was popularized by American Jews.

Colonial era

In September, 1654, shortly before the Jewish New Year, twenty-three Jews of Dutch 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. Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Amsterdam, sought to bolster the position of the Dutch Reformed Church by trying to reduce religious competition from denominations such as Jews, Lutherans, Catholics and Quakers. He stated that Jews were "deceitful", "very repugnant", and "hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ". He warned in a subsequent letter that in "giving them liberty we cannot (then) refuse the Lutherans and Papists". However, religious plurality was already a legal-cultural tradition in New Amsterdam and in the Netherlands. His superiors at the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam overruled him in all matters of intolerance.

Sephardic Dutch Jews were also the early settlers of Newport (where the country's oldest surviving synagogue building stands), Savannah, Charleston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. [Information about the arrival of the Jews to what today is the United States: [http://www.jewishmag.com/79mag/usahistory2/usahistory2.htm 1] , [http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9218/9218.intro.html 2] , etc.]

There were only about 250 Jews living in North America in the 17th century. These faced a number of restrictions, including being banned from practicing law, medicine, and other professions. As late as 1790, one year before adoption of the Bill of Rights, several states had religious tests for holding public office, and Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and South Carolina still maintained established churches. Within a few years of the ratification of the Constitution, Delaware, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Georgia eliminated barriers that prevented Jews from voting, but these barriers did not fall for many decades in Rhode Island (1842), North Carolina (1868), and New Hampshire (1877). Despite these restrictions, which were often enforced unevenly, there were really too few Jews in 17th- and 18th-century America for anti-Semitism to become a significant social or political phenomenon at the time. And the evolution from toleration to full civil and political equality for Jews that followed the American Revolution helped ensure that anti-Semitism would never become official government policy, as it had in Europe.

Revolutionary era

By 1776 and the War of Independence, 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 traitorous 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. [ [http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=246 David Salisbury Franks] ]

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. [ [http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/0103137.html] [http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/mar/southernjews/index.html] and [http://www.lib.unc.edu/apop/] and [http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/2002/3445.html] .] Charleston had, until around 1830, the largest and wealthiest colony of Jews in North America [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=375&letter=C] .

19th century

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).

Jewish Texans have been a part of Texas History since the first European explorers arrived in the 1500s. [http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/publications/texansoneandall/jewish.htm] 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. [http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/publications/texansoneandall/jewish.htm]

By 1840, Jews constituted a tiny, but nonetheless stable, middle-class minority of about 15,000 out of the 17 million Americans counted by the U.S. Census. Jews intermarried rather freely with non-Jews, continuing a trend that had begun at least a century earlier. However, as immigration increased the Jewish population to 50,000 by 1848, negative stereotypes of Jews in newspapers, literature, drama, art, and popular culture grew more commonplace and physical attacks became more frequent.

During the 19th century, (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.

Civil War

During the American Civil War, approximately 6,000-8,000 Jews (out of around 150,000 Jews in the United States) fought on the Confederate side and 4,000 fought on the Union side. [ [http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/Fw00/3363.html The Jewish Confederates ] ] Jews also played leadership roles on both sides, with nine Jewish generals and 21 Jewish colonels participating in the War. Judah P. Benjamin, a non-observant Jew, served as Secretary of State and acting Secretary of War of the Confederacy.

By the time of the Civil War, tensions over race and immigration, as well as economic competition between Jews and non-Jews, combined to produce the worst outbreak of anti-Semitism to that date. Americans on both sides of the slavery issue denounced Jews as disloyal war profiteers, and accused them of driving Christians out of business and of aiding and abetting the enemy.

Major General Ulysses S. Grant was influenced by these sentiments and issued General Order No. 11 expelling Jews from areas under his control in western Tennessee:

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled …within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

This order was quickly rescinded by President Abraham Lincoln but not until it had been enforced in a number of towns.cite web |first=Gustavo |last=Perednik |title=Judeophobia - History and analysis of Antisemitism, Jew-Hate and anti-"Zionism" |url=http://www.zionism-israel.com/his/judeophobia11.htm]

Grant later issued an order "that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the road southward." His aide, Colonel John V. DuBois, ordered "all cotton speculators, Jews, and all vagabonds with no honest means of support", to leave the district. "The Israelites especially should be kept out…they are such an intolerable nuisance."

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)."

1880-1925

Immigration of Ashkenazi Jews

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 Russian Empire, 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 1880s, 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.

Progressive movement

World War I

As early as 1914, the American Jewish community mobilized its resources to assist the victims of the European war. Cooperating to a degree not previously seen, the various factions of the American Jewish community—native-born and immigrant, Reform, Orthodox, secular, and socialist—coalesced to form what eventually became known as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. All told, American Jews raised 63 million dollars in relief funds during the war years and became more immersed in European Jewish affairs than ever before.

Refugees from Nazi Germany

In the years before and during World War II the United States Congress, the Roosevelt Administration, and public opinion expressed concern about the fate of Jews in Europe but consistently refused to permit immigration of Jewish refugees.

In a report issued by the State Department, Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat noted that the United States accepted only 21,000 refugees from Europe and did not significantly raise or even fill its restrictive quotas, accepting far fewer Jews per capita than many of the neutral European countries and fewer in absolute terms than Switzerland.

According to David Wyman, "The United States and its Allies were willing to attempt almost nothing to save the Jews." [David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (New York, 1984), p. 5.] + There is some debate as to whether U.S. policies were generally targeted against all immigrants or specifically against Jews in particular. Wyman characterized Breckenridge Long as a nativist, more anti-immigrant than just anti-semitic. U.S. opposition to immigration in general in the late 1930s was motivated by the grave economic pressures, the high unemployment rate, and social frustration and disillusionment. The U.S. refusal to support specifically Jewish immigration, however, stemmed from something else, namely antisemitism, which had increased in the late 1930s and continued to rise in the 1940s. It was an important ingredient in America's negative response to Jewish refugees. [cite book |author=Charles Stember, ed. |title=Jews in the Mind of America |year=1966 |pages=pp. 53-62]

About 100,000 German Jews did arrive in the 1930s, escaping Hitler’s persecution.

SS St. Louis

The Nazis were aware of rising western antisemitism and so the German Propaganda Ministry and the Nazi party conceived of a propaganda exercise which would demonstrate that Germany was not alone in its territorial, exclusionary hostility to Jews as a permanent minority within the political economy of their state. They (German propagandists) wanted to demonstrate that the “civilized” world agreed with their assertion that Jews constituted a continuing, “hidden-hand” of influence on national and economic affairs. They wanted to demonstrate that no other Western country or people would receive them as refugees. Firstly it would appear that the Nazis were allowing the Jewish refugees a new life in Havana. With no one allowing the passengers entry they would be in no position, in the future, to morally object when Germany dealt with their 'problem' Jewish population. The SS St. Louis sailed out of Hamburg into the Atlantic Ocean in May 1939 carrying one non-Jewish and 936 (mainly German) Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution just before World War II. [cite press release |title=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum completes ten-year search to uncover the fates of St. Louis passengers |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=2006-10-06 |url=http://www.ushmm.org/museum/press/archives/detail.php?category=07-general&content=2006-10-06 |accessdate=2007-07-17 ] Rosen, p. 563.] On 4 June 1939, having failed to obtain permission to disembark passengers in Cuba, the "St. Louis" was also refused permission to unload on orders of President Roosevelt as the ship waited in the Caribbean Sea between Florida and Cuba. Initially, Roosevelt showed limited willingness to take in some of those on board despite the Immigration Act of 1924, but vehement opposition came from Roosevelt's Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, and from Southern Democrats — some of whom went so far as to threaten to withhold their support of Roosevelt in the 1940 Presidential election if this occurred.

World War II and the Holocaust

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. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/peopleevents/pandeAMEX90.html]

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. [Davis S. Wyman Institute; New York Times (NYT)]

During the Holocaust, less than 30,000 Jews a year reached the United States, and some were turned away due to immigration policies. The US did not change its immigration policies until 1948.

Postwar

Having never been subjected to the Holocaust, the United States stood after the Second World War as the largest, richest, and healthiest center of Judaism in the world. Smaller Jewish communities turned increasingly to American Jewry for guidance and support. cite web |title=The American Jewish Experience in the Twentieth Century: Antisemitism and Assimilation |author=Jonathan D. Sarna and Jonathan Golden |url=http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/jewishexpb.htm]

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.

Creation of the State of Israel

With its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel became the focal point of American Jewish life and philanthropy, as well as the symbol around which American Jews united.

ix-Day War

The Six-Day War of June 1967 marked a turning point in the lives of many 1960s-era Jews. The paralyzing fear of a "second Holocaust" followed by tiny Israel's seemingly miraculous victory over the combined Arab armies arrayed to destroy it struck deep emotional chords among American Jews. Their financial support for Israel rose sharply in the war's wake, and more of them than ever before chose in those years to make Israel their permanent home.

A lively internal debate commenced, following the Six-Day War. The American Jewish community was divided over whether or not they agreed with the Israeli response; the great majority came to accept the war as necessary. A tension existed especially for leftist Jews, between their liberal ideology and (rightist) Zionist backing in the midst of this conflict. This deliberation about the Six-Day War showed the depth and complexity of Jewish responses to the varied events of the 1960s. [Staub (2004)]

Civil rights

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" [ Staub (2004) p. 90] 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. [ Staub (2004)] 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.

Jewish feminism

In its modern form, the Jewish feminist movement can be traced to the early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, who has focused on feminism in Reform Judaism, the main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the exclusion from the all-male prayer group or "minyan", the exemption from positive time-bound "mitzvot", and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce.Plaskow, Judith. "Jewish Feminist Thought" in Frank, Daniel H. & Leaman, Oliver. "History of Jewish Philosophy", Routledge, first published 1997; this edition 2003.]

Immigration from Warsaw Pact countries

The last large wave of immigration came from the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, from where approximately 150,000 Jews emigrated. 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 collapse of the USSR brought about a hundred thousand Ashkenazi and Bukharian Jews to the US.

Current situation

American Jews continued to prosper throughout the late 20th century, and, with their success, have become 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.

Demographically, the community is stagnant. It has not grown appreciably since 1960, comprises a smaller percentage of America's total population than it had in 1920, and seems likely to witness an actual decline in numbers in the decades ahead.

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. Since 1936 the great majority of Jews have been Democrats. In 2004 74% of Jews voted for Democrat John Kerry, a Catholic, and in 2006 87% voted for Democratic candidates for the House. [ From national exit polls, [http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html] and [http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html] ] 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.

Antisemitism in the United States

Anti-Jewish sentiment started around the time of the American Civil War, when General Ulysses S. Grant issued an order (quickly rescinded by President Abraham 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). [Anti-Defamation League Survey [http://www.adl.org/antisemitism_survey/survey_print.asp] .]

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. [Anti-Defamation League Survey [http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/4680_12.htm] .]

Notes and references

ee also

*List of Jewish Americans

Bibliography

* Cutler, Irving. "The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb." (1996)
* [http://www.wymaninstitute.org Davis S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies] ; [http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-11-thanksg.php "A Thanksgiving Day when Jews Mourned."] , copyright 2005. accessed 7 September 2006.
* Diner, Hasia. "The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000" [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106251087 (2004) online]
* Diner, Hasia. "Her Works Praise Her: A History of Jewish Women in America from Colonial Times to the Present" [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100925449 (2002) online]
* Feingold, Henry L. "Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present" [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=40909966 (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.
* [http://www.nyt.com New York Times (NYT)] , October 15, 1943; p. 21; [http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0712F83F5C167B93C7A8178BD95F478485F9 "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." [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100716390 3 vol.(1963) online]
* Howe, Irving and Kenneth Libo, eds. "How We Lived, 1880-1930: A Documentary History of Immigrant Jews in America" [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=3069092 (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 [http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=314001162310076 online review]

External links and references

* [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/index.jsp online Jewish encyclopedia]
* [http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/index.cfm American Jewish Historical Society - Chapters in American Jewish History]
* [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=39775 Presidential speech (Ronald Reagan, 1984) describing Jewish military service at 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing]