Jewish Immigration to America Sephardic, German, and Eastern European immigrants each contributed to the formation of American Jewry. Today, America's Jewish community is largely Ashkenazic, meaning it is made up of Jews who trace their ancestry to Germany and Eastern Europe. We Also Recommend 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. The Sephardim The first group of Sephardic settlers arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654 from Brazil. Poster from World War I While the Ashkenazim outnumbered the Sephardim by 1730, the character of the American Jewish community remained Sephardic through the American Revolution. Did you like this article? Please consider making a donation today.
Ireland Park Foundation - Toronto Irish Famine Memorial For Torontonians, the influx of 38,560 refugees from the famine to their city in 1847 challenged public officials and strained local resources in what would amount to the greatest civic crisis in the young city’s history. The spring and summer of “Black ’47” would leave an indelible set of images regarding the nature and character of “the Irish.” In the summer of 1847, the Toronto waterfront witnessed one of the greatest human tragedies in the history of the city. Between May and October of that year, more than 38,000 Irish Famine migrants arrived from Ireland at a time when the city’s population was just 20,000 people. On July 9, 1847, the Toronto Mirror newspaper reported: “The state of the emigrants daily becomes worse and worse. The sympathetic views of the Toronto Mirror towards the suffering of the Irish Famine migrants were widely shared by the inhabitants of the city.
Victoria County - Indianola Database The port of Indianola was founded in August 1846 by Sam Addsion White and William M. Cook. During the period between 1844 and 1886 , Indianola grew from a plague-infested immigrant camp to a cosmopolitan port city. Two major hurricanes dealt serious and fatal results and after the second one in August 1886, the survivors left the port and moved inland and Indianola became a ghost town. The birth of Indianola was the direct result of calamitous difficulties encountered by early immigrants from Germany who were brought to the shores of the Republic of Texas. Since there were fewer rivers to cross going west, Indianola proved to be a favored point of landing for the Germans who were headed for the Texas "Hill Country". Since 1820 the immigration laws stated that the ship's manifest (passenger lists) were turned over to the port officials at the port where the ship FIRST made port. (The following article first appeared in STIRPES, Volume XXV March 1985 and is an excerpt of that article. W.
Education Albert Einstein: Physicist and Pacifist Universally recognized as the physicist whose radical theories proposed completely new ways of thinking about space, time, and gravitation, Albert Einstein is perhaps lesser known for another important role he served during his lifetime as a pacifist (a person opposed to war). By the time the German-born physicist was thirty, his theory of relativity and work in quantum mechanics had set off a revolution in physics, marking the beginning of the Nuclear Age. Taking a Closer Look A native of Hungary, Lucien Aigner was also a recent refugee from Nazism when he made this portrait of Albert Einstein during a 1940 interview at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Listen to Einstein explain E=mc², read his letter to President Roosevelt, learn more about the Nuclear Age, and click on other related sites at the following exhibition Web site:
Irish Immigration At the beginning of the 19th century the dominant industry of Ireland was agriculture. Large areas of this land was under the control of landowners living in England. Much of this land was rented to small farmers who, because of a lack of capital, farmed with antiquated implements and used backward methods. The average wage for farm labourers in Ireland was eight pence a day. In 1816 around 6,000 Irish people sailed for America. In October 1845 a serious blight began among the Irish potatoes, ruining about three-quarters of the country's crop. The Irish Famine stimulated a desire to emigrate. A census carried out in 1850 revealed that there were 961,719 people in the United States that had been born in Ireland. Thousands of Irish labourers worked on building the railroads in the United States. Other Irish immigrants became coalminers in Pennsylvania. The Irish tended to support the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party. Several Irish settlers became successful businessmen.
Pacific Link: The KQED Asian Education Initiative: History: Angel Island From 1910 to 1940, tens of thousands of immigrants entered the West Coast of the United States through the Angel Island Immigration Station. Located in San Francisco's North Bay, not far from Alcatraz Island, the buildings were nearly forgotten and their history almost lost, until one day in 1970, when Alexander Weiss, a California State Park Ranger, re-discovered the treasure they held. His chance discovery began the long journey to save the immigration station, and ultimately, to save the stories hidden within it, and to help us remember its sad, but important role in American history. The exact number of immigrants who passed through Angel Island is unknown. Of those who arrived at Angel Island, it is estimated that anywhere from 11 percent to 30 percent were ultimately deported, whereas the deportation rate for the East Coast was only 1 percent to 2 percent. For more information, see the following sites:
The Jewish Americans . Assimilation: Making America Home Migration: The Diaspora in America Assimilation: Making America Home The Pursuit of Economic Opportunity Doing Well and Doing Good: Education and Philanthropy Anti-Semitism in America Jews on Field and Stage: Sports and the Arts America's Response to the Holocaust A Jewish Homeland Political Activism Being Jewish in Modern America Home | Jewish Life in America | Watch Video | Share Your Story | For Educators | Resources | About the Film | Contact Us THE JEWISH AMERICANS is a production of JTN Productions; WETA Washington, D.C.; and David Grubin Productions, Inc. in association with Thirteen/WNET New York.
In the Wake of Dark Passage Dr. Stewart Donovan St.Thomas University The epic tale of the Irish arrival and settlement in the Province of New Brunswick has, until very recently, been an unknown and an untold story—their history, in all its complexity, pain and triumph, has been largely a hidden one. Just as the Irish writer and nationalist, Daniel Corkery, once spoke and wrote of a hidden Ireland, so Canadians can read and talk of a hidden New Brunswick. And what was largely hidden for almost a century belonged in custom, memory, religion, ceremony, and ethnicity, to Ireland. Though the Irish have been in New Brunswick since its beginnings as a colony, their story is primarily a tale of the nineteenth century, a narrative that begins with the Napoleonic Wars and the settlement that arose and was encouraged by that conflict. Read the full essay. Download Essay
Angel Island: Immigrant Journeys of Chinese-Americans Like people of other ethnicities, the Chinese immigrated to the United States for better lives. Before 1900, their work included farming, mining and building railroads. Men sent money home to their families in China. But American laborers resented the Chinese because the latter were willing to work for cheap wages. Stiff immigration laws were passed. From 1910-1940, Chinese immigrants were detained and interrogated at Angel Island immigration station in San Francisco Bay. Men and women were housed separately. The immigrants expressed their fears and frustrations through messages and poems written or carved into barrack walls. Immigrants were detained weeks, months, sometimes even years. A 1940 fire destroyed the Angel Island administration building, so the U.S. government abandoned the immigration station. Many years have passed. At Angel Island, a museum has been established in the old barracks, re- creating one of the living areas for Chinese detainees.
Polish/Russian - The Lower East Side - Immigration…- Classroom Presentation The Lower East Side When a new Jewish immigrant first set foot on the Lower East Side, he or she stepped into a Jewish world. The earliest Eastern European Jews to settle there had quickly established synagogues, mutual-aid societies, libraries, and stores. Every major institution, from the bank to the grocery store to the social club to the neighborhood bookmaker, was Jewish-owned or Jewish-run, and everyone a Jewish immigrant might speak to in the course of daily business would likely be Jewish. For all the comfort that this shared heritage brought, however, the Lower East Side was still a very difficult place to live--and a crowded one. I have found in three rooms father, mother, twelve children, and six boarders. This congestion brought with it many hazards, along with many annoyances. The Lower East Side could certainly be frightening, dangerous, noisy, and cramped. Facing Barriers Most of the new Jewish immigrants faced unique challenges in their search for work.
German Immigration Francis Daniel Pastorius was a lawyer in Krefeld but because of his religious beliefs was forced to leave the country in 1683. Pastorius arranged for twelve other Quaker families from Krefeld to sail to America on a ship called the Concord. Pastorius and his followers established Germantown, the first permanent settlement of German immigrants in America. Germantown concentrated on producing cloth and sold considerable quantities to New York and Boston. German emigration to America did not take place in any significant numbers until the beginning of the 18th century. By 1711 the British government had spent £100,000 transporting Germans to America. Some moved on from New York to Pennsylvania. In 1829, Gottfried Duden, a German visitor to America, published his book, Report of a Journey to the Western States of North America. The failed German revolution in 1848 also stimulated emigration. Others left because they feared constant political turmoil in Germany.
GALVESTON MOVEMENT GALVESTON MOVEMENT. The Galveston Movement operated between 1907 and 1914 to divert Jews fleeing the pogroms of Russia and eastern Europe away from congested communities of the Atlantic coast to the interior of the United States. The Jewish Immigrants' Information Bureau directed the movement as a means of preventing an anticipated wave of anti-Semitism on the Eastern seaboard, which might lead to immigration restrictions. Several benevolent groups tried to find a southern port of entry to disperse the burgeoning population. The bureau considered three ports. Groundwork for the Galveston Movement was shared by several Jewish organizations in America and Europe. The first refugees-fifty-four men and two women-arrived on the steamship Cassel in early July 1907. The members of the first group were distributed among cities and communities throughout the western states and as far north as Fargo, North Dakota.