American Jewish History: A JPS Guide

4. 1881–1913: The Great Wave

4 1881–1913 The Great Wave 4 AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY It began with a trickle. The first Ashkenazic Jews from Eastern Europe arrived in America well before the end of the 18th century. Polish-born Haym Salomon, who helped to finance the American Revolution, was one of the better-known Ashkenazim. Those few Ashkenazic Jews who arrived in the 18th and early 19th centuries quickly adopted the rituals and customs of the Sephardic elite who preceded them. Through most of the 19th century, the relatively small numbers of Eastern European arrivals kept a low profile as they were absorbed into the mainstream American Jewish scene, which was dominated at first by the original Sephardic settlers and later by their German successors. A Transatlantic Cargo of Old Hatred As Jews grew in number and prominence in America following the Civil War, ageold stereotypes and hatreds began to flare up against them, fanned in part by a growing influx of European Christian immigrants who brought deep-seated antiJewish feelings across the Atlantic. At a time when American Jews were making 84 Anti-Semitic Cartoon of Jews at the Beach Satiric cartoon that appeared in the British magazine Punch on May 11, 1881, with the caption “A Hint to the Hebrews: How They May Make Themselves Independent of the Watering Place Hotels.” Note the flag on one balcony of the floating “Hotel de Jerusalem” that reads: “On his return from Florida this floor will be occupied by Isaacs the Hatter.” Library of Congress 85 1881–1913:THE GREAT WAVE unprecedented advances in their personal and economic lives, they began to face housing covenants, employment bias, and even violence. Major universities, including Harvard and Columbia, introduced quota systems limiting the number of Jewish students. While politicians and clergy denounced the discrimination, Jews throughout the country found themselves barred from jobs in major industries , hotels, social clubs, and private schools. “Hebrew patronage not solicited” was a polite way of announcing that Jews were not welcome. Financier Joseph Seligman’s embarrassing experience at the Grand Hotel in 1877 was the public manifestation of the personal experiences of many Jews. Reform rabbi Gustav Gottheil wrote that “when the Jew attempts to … mix freely with his neighbors, he is repelled and unceremoniously shown back to his own tribe; and if he keeps there, he is accused of hereditary and ancestral pride.”1 Often, Jewish economic success was rooted in familial and social connections where trust was a major factor. It was that informal network that had allowed impoverished young immigrants from Germany to obtain loans, merchandise, and advice to begin their business careers in America as peddlers. Nonetheless, it was a time of important accomplishments for the Jews of America. They expanded their religious, social, and communal organizations even as they found ways to bypass the economic discrimination against them from financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies. By 1880, the United States was crisscrossed by a network of synagogues (mostly Reform), Jewish social clubs, self-help agencies, and newspapers. Shifts and Tremors in Europe In that bifurcated atmosphere of acceptance and rejection, the American Jewish community was about to face dramatic upheaval, triggered by events far across the ocean. In 1880, about 3 percent of the world’s Jews were in the United States, while nearly 75 percent lived in—or, to be more specific, were confined to—a section of Eastern Europe known as the Pale of Settlement. For most of their history in Europe, Jews had been considered a people apart. Separated at first by religion, they were marginalized, subject to religious intolerance, persecution, and discrimination. As the most visible non-Christian group in Europe, they were looked upon with suspicion and hatred wherever they settled. Over the years, Jews had been expelled from one European country after another, while others restricted them to ghettos. Yet things were improving somewhat for Western European Jews. Beginning with the French Revolution in 1789, a wave of freedom and enlightenment had descended upon the people of Western Europe. For Jews it was an impossible dream come true. The confining spirit of the ghetto was broken, and Jews could, for the first time, look forward to attaining rights of citizenship in the countries where they had lived for so long. Jews in the liberated countries could enter professions that were previously closed to them. They could attend public schools and gain admission to universities. Meanwhile, their...