The Promised Land?
Jews in the U.S.

Religion in America

Ashkenazi Jews Arrive

u German Jews: 1830-80 over 200,000 arrive

u Legacy of Napoleonic emancipation

u U.S. as land of Enlightenment principles

u German Ashkenazi swamp Sephardim, who look down on them

u In industrial cities; follow Germans to Midwest

u Spread out, with little community consciousness

u Self-conscious as Jews; identify with German culture

u Great social mobility: peddlers to merchants

Americanization of Judaism

u Reform Judaism

u Desire to “modernize” & “Americanize”

u Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati

u Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1873

u Vernacular; mixed sexes; organs and choirs

u No dietary laws or special outfits

u Equal women: bat mitzvah 1922; rabbis 1972

Tidal Wave, 1880-1920

u 2,250,000 immigrants, 73% from Russia

u Yiddish shetl culture in the Pale of Settlement

u Oppression & pogroms, 1880-1914

To New York and urban areas

u Yiddish culture transplanted

u Theater, publishing, arts, humor

u Poverty, exploitation in clothing trades

u Tension with German Jews

u Americanization

Three Branches of American Judaism

u Reform Judaism (now largest)

u Conservative Judaism, 1887 (formerly largest)

u Jewish law essential, but some laws adaptable

u Women rabbis since 1985

u Orthodox, 1890s

u Traditions and Jewish law cannot change

Rising Anti-Semitism

u Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY, denies Joseph Seligman a room, 1877

u Doors close, 1880-1920

u Excluded from social clubs, social registers, hotels, resorts

u Restrictive covenants in real estate

u Demand for immigration restriction

u Immigration Act, 1924

Social and political activism

u Political and social activism

u Radicalism

u Labor activism

u Democratic Party

u Philanthropy

u Support for black causes