Jews Living in America in the 1920's

These “newcomers” did not deserve to come here and steal their jobs. Mike Trudic’s account from his childhood referred to his father’s hunt in America to desperately find work, “At the end of a week he was taken ill and died. It said he died of a broken heart”(Mike, 188). There were just too many workers and not enough jobs to be filled. Another first hand source provided by Rose Cohen, called Out of the Shadow, depicts the story of a jewish girl in New York and the experiences her family goes through in order to reach a sustainable lifestyle. The struggles included descriptions of harsh working conditions and anti-semitism, which created difficulty for immigrants who were trying to assimilate into the American culture.

Throughout the history of America, there has always been a influx of Jews from Europe. Even though Emma Lazarus wrote her poem after the massive immigration of German Jews to America, her poem can be used to describe the Jewish Immigrants. Many German Jews arrived in New York " tired ... poor... [and] yearning to breathe free." While New York City was still a hub for German Jewish immigrants, some had also moved to Atlanta and more Western states. Several of the German Jewish families who immigrated to America will forever have their names etched into her history, through their central role as entrepreneurs in America's expanding clothing industry. They began from humble careers and worked their way up the proverbial food chain. Once

“The experience of the Jewish families in the United States over the last century has been one of acculturation and accommodation to the norms and the values of the American society.” (“Jewish American Family” 2). At the same time, Anti-Semitism in America reached its peak during the interwar period between the 1940s and 1960s. The self-hating Jew appeared as a phenomenon of the Depression and the 1940s. At that time, almost all of the Jewish American writers simply presented realistic portrayals of their fellow immigrants or their parents’ generation. Later, some other Americans, partial to Anti-Semitism, found confirmation of negative stereotypes in the new Jewish American Literature. Indeed, some parent-hating or self-hating Jewish American writers of the second or the third generation consciously reinforced negative stereotypes with satire and a selective realism. Philip Roth, whose portrayal of the tensions between these figures borders on self-hatred and an almost Anti-Semitic view of the Jewish family in America, is a great example of this phenomenon. In his book, Portnoy’s Complaint, Roth touched on the assimilation experiences of American Jews, their relationship to Israeli Jews, and his experience as inherent in being the son of a Jewish family which led him to be self-hating Jew to escape from the harsh reality.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in New York City before September 11th, 2001. On 1911, approximately 140 to 147 people died in the fire which held no mercy for them. The day of the fire is commonly known as “The day it rained children”. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, hired immigrated women who were young, poor, barely educated, and spoke very little English. These women were overworked and very underpaid, and yet they could do nothing because they needed the money. Many Eastern European Jews were exposed to the revolutionary ferment in Russia and they brought a strong sense of justice and political will for the skirmish for social change in the United States.

During the 1920s, the United States was a tense era. The influx of immigrants caused fear and bigotry, especially towards the Roman Catholic religion (Holsinger, 1968). The citizens of the State of Oregon labeled immigrants as un-American, claiming that the immigrants would inject unpatriotic practices into the culture. The citizenry professed to protect American principles of the time and intended to pass on their values to the youth through public school education. Their goal was to provide parallel education to all children, thus controlling the content taught. Furthermore, Oregon was under the watchful eye of the powerful Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which enforced radical patriotism.

How can we explain the lack of negative German-American stories in Burlington, Iowa newspapers during the First World War? Between 1840 and 1870, high immigration years in America, railroad and land companies advertised in east coast newspapers in hopes of enticing European immigrants to the Midwest. Images and promises of rich, productive farmland, in the decade following 1870, led to the immigration of nearly 2.1 million German-speaking people to America’s heartland. Cities of Davenport and Burlington, settled along the Mississippi River, had two of the largest German-speaking populations in the state.

Throughout the past 200 years the black community has made advancements towards social equality, and I think they never will get there.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” (Brainy Quote, 2016). The inspiring pome that graces the Statue of Liberty was written by a Jewish poet Emma Lazarus, a decedent of the first Jews to arrive in North American colonies in the 1650s. For centuries Jewish people have lived in many places far from there ancestral home in the Middle East, always searching for a home. Like many religious minorities Jews saw America as a special place where they could be a part of creating something new and embraced the opportunity. Today there are around 6 million Jews living in the United States but three centuries ago in colonial America there were only around 300. The fate of these early American Jews was as fragile

The history of Jews in the United States of America is a long and arduous one. This relationship began in the first week of September 1654, when 23 Jewish immigrants landed at New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony ( Now known as Manhattan), and was immediacy ask to leave by the then governor Peter Stuyvesant, for as he said they should not be allowed to infest the new colony,(Schappes 9). The Jews immigrants refused and was later granted permission by the Dutch West India Company to stay , travel and trade. However, the major migration of Jews to the United States of America took place in three waves mainly known as the German period of immigrants1850-1870,

Assimilation: Making America Home gives in detail how the Jewish Americans started out in the beginning to becoming American. The Jews

Most immigrants to america were coming during the late 19th and early 20th century for the most obvious reason, opportunity. Industrialization both in manufacturing and agriculture meant that there were jobs in america. There was so much work in fact that companies used labor recruiters who went to europe to advertise opportunities. The lower east side of manhattan became the magnet for waves of immigrants, first germans, then eastern european jews and Italians. Immigrants flocked to the United States from all over the world in this time period. Millions of Europeans moved to the United States where they drove the growth of cities and manned the rapid industrialization that was taking place. What prolonged the social and economic growth of

Arthur Miller’s Focus (1945) is a revolutionary work that highlights racism, especially anti-Semitism, in America. Written during the last year of the Second World War, Focus is a groundbreaking work in every sense of the word inasmuch as it is the first literary work that deals directly with anti-Semitism in the United States. Statistically speaking, there were two main waves of Jewish immigrants to the United States between 1820 and 1920. According to Susan Haberle, “the first group of Jewish people came from Germany, Austria, and Hungary. These immigrant left to seek a better life” (Haberle 6). The second group was the biggest wave; they came between 1880 and 1920: “these immigrants came from Poland, Romania, Russia, and other eastern

Anzia Yezierska’s personal immigrant narrative began in Russian Poland. She was born around 1885, and immigrated to America with her family when she was 15 years old. Yezierska’s family were Jews who escaped from the anti-Semitic government that was in control of Russia at that time. They settled in New York’s Lower East Side, along with millions of East European Jews who fled to the United States ("Anzia" 28:332).

During the late 1930s World War 2 was in process at the time. North America and its allies were unaware of the full extent of Hitler’s actions. Due to the anti-sematic feelings present in Canada at the time, many Jewish immigrants were denied entry into the country. Not until the late 1940’s that Canadians realized the extent of Hitler’s actions toward the Jewish population.

The spine chilling experiences Jewish individuals faced during the holocaust are conveyed well in the short story “The Shawl” as the author, Cynthia Ozick illustrates the horrific battle of motherhood and strife for survival they faced. Rosa, Ozick’s main character experiences an internal battle of nurturing her infant Magda and following her motherly instincts or fighting for her own survival. Magda another crucial character grips onto the ropes of life through the threads of the shawl but when she loses her shawl she loses her life showing the harsh realities of the concentration camps. Through the use of symbolism and carefully orchestrated imagery Ozick brings to life the unspeakable struggles the Jewish faced to survive in the midst