Three Waves of
Immigration
Sephardic, German,
and Eastern European immigrants each contributed to the formation of American
Jewry.
By Joellyn Wallen Zollman
Today, America's Jewish community is largely Ashkenazic,
meaning it is made up of Jews who trace their ancestry to Germany and Eastern
Europe. However, the first Jews to arrive in what would become the United
States were Sephardic--tracing their ancestry to Spain and Portugal. The
following article looks at the three major waves of Sephardic and Ashkenazic
immigration to America.
Historians have traditionally divided American Jewish
immigration into three periods: Sephardic, German, and Eastern European. While
the case can be made that during each period, immigrants were not solely of any
one origin (Some Germans came during the "Sephardic" period and some
Eastern Europeans arrived during the "German" era, for example), the
fact remains that the dominant immigrant group influenced the character of the
American Jewish community.
The first group of Sephardic settlers arrived in New
Amsterdam in 1654 from Brazil. For several decades afterward, adventurous
Sephardic and Ashkenazic merchants established homes in American colonial
ports, including Newport, R.I., New Amsterdam (later New York), Philadelphia,
Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga.
While the Ashkenazim outnumbered the Sephardim by 1730, the
character of the American Jewish community remained Sephardic through the
American Revolution. Colonial American synagogues adhered to Sephardic ritual
customs and administered all aspects of Jewish religious life. The synagogue
did not, however, attempt to govern the economic activities of its (mostly
mercantile) members. This was a departure from the Old World, where synagogues
in places like Amsterdam, London, and Recife, taxed commercial transactions,
regulated Jewish publications, and punished members for lapses in individual or
commercial morality. In this manner, colonial synagogues set a precedent of
compartmentalization--a division between Jewish and worldly domains--in
American Jewish life.
Colonial American Sephardic synagogues also sought to
combine modern notions of aesthetics with traditional Judaism, creating
congregations that were rational and refined. Synagogues established rules of
order so that services and meetings proceeded with the proper amount of
deference and decorum. For example, colonial synagogues assigned seats for male
and female members so that everyone knew their place in the congregation. This
not only eliminated shuffling and bickering over seating each week, but also
established a sort of congregational hierarchy in which the best seats went to
the most prestigious congregational families (who, in turn, paid the highest
dues). (In Europe, so few women attended services that there was no need to
designate seats; American women, in contrast, regularly attended religious
services.)
This theme--the reconciliation of modern manners with Jewish
tradition--would also occupy subsequent waves of Jewish immigrants as Germans
and Eastern Europeans struggled to build the Reform and Conservative movements
in America.
The Germans
German Jews began to come to America in significant numbers
in the 1840s. Jews left Germany because of persecution, restrictive laws,
economic hardship, and the failure of movements--widely supported by German Jews
--advocating revolution and reform there. They looked to America as an antidote
to these ills--a place of economic and social opportunity.
Some 250,000 German-speaking Jews came to America by the
outbreak of World War I. This sizeable immigrant community expanded American
Jewish geography by establishing themselves in smaller cities and towns in the
Midwest, West, and the South. German Jewish immigrants often started out as
peddlers and settled in one of the towns on their route, starting a small store
there. This dispersion helped to establish American Judaism as a national
faith.
If German Jews had one city of their own invention, it was
Cincinnati. German immigrants flocked to this area, which was considered a
gateway to trade in the Midwest and West. Cincinnati became the seat of
American Reform Judaism, home to the movement's first American leader, Issac
Mayer Wise (an immigrant from Bohemia), and its newspaper and seminary.
In addition to promoting Reform Judaism in America, German
Jewish immigrants created institutions as significant and longstanding as B'nai
B'rith, the American Jewish Committee, and the National Council of Jewish
Women.
The Eastern Europeans
Eastern European Jews began to immigrate to the United
States in large numbers after 1880. Pushed out of Europe by overpopulation,
oppressive legislation and poverty, they were pulled toward America by the
prospect of financial and social advancement. Between 1880 and the onset of
restrictive immigration quotas in 1924, over 2 million Jews from Russia,
Austria-Hungary, and Romania came to America. Once again, the character of
American Jewry was transformed, as the Eastern Europeans became the majority.
The immigrants tended to settle in the poorer neighborhoods
of major cities. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Chicago, for
example, all featured Jewish sections by the turn of the 20th century. Living
conditions in these neighborhoods were often cramped and squalid. The
immigrants found work in factories, especially in the garment industry, but
also in cigar manufacturing, food production, and construction. Jewish workers
supported the labor movement's struggle for better working conditions. Yiddish
culture, in the form of drama, journalism, and prose, flourished in American Jewish
immigrant neighborhoods, and the plight of the immigrant worker was a common
cultural theme.
The Eastern European Jews also brought with them certain
ideological principles that would influence American Jewry. Many of the workers
supported socialism or communism as a means of securing economic and social
equality. In this manner, the Eastern Europeans established a strong link
between American Jews and liberal politics.
In addition, Eastern Europeans brought with them
unprecedented support for Jewish nationalism. They educated the American Jewish
community on this topic, even if they did not appear among its early leaders.
(Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah, credited her immigrant night school
students for her introduction to the fundamentals of Zionism…)
Finally, Eastern European Jews ensured a more religiously
diverse American Jewish population. The Eastern Europeans did not, for the most
part, feel comfortable with Reform Judaism. Their insistence on maintaining
tradition, albeit in a modern context, contributed to the establishment of
Conservative Judaism and infused Orthodox Judaism with new energy and
purpose.
Large-scale Jewish immigration to the United States ended in
1924. Still, the contemporary American Jewish community remains very much a
product of these founding groups.
Joellyn Wallen Zollman was the History & Community
editor of MyJewishLearning.com.
