History of the Jews in the United States

Grave of Jewish Confederate soldier near Clinton, Louisiana

During the American Civil War, approximately 3,000 Jews (out of around 150,000 Jews in the United States) fought on the Confederate side and 7,000 fought on the Union side.[28] Jews also played leadership roles on both sides, with nine Jewish generals serving in the Union Army, the most notable of whom were brigadier generals Edward Solomon (who attained the rank at the age of 29) and Frederick Knefker.[29][30] There were also twenty-one Jewish colonels who fought for the Union, including Marcus M. Spiegel of Ohio.[31] and Max Friedman, who commanded the 65th Pennsylvania Regiment, 5th Cavalry, known as Cameron's Dragoons or the Cameron Dragoons, which had a sizable number of German Jewish immigrants from Philadelphia in its ranks.[32] Several dozens of Jewish officers also fought for the Confederacy, most notably Colonel Abraham Charles Myers, a West Point graduate and quartermaster general of the Confederate Army.[33]

Judah P. Benjamin served as Secretary of State and acting Secretary of War of the Confederacy.

Several Jewish bankers played key roles in providing government financing for both sides of the Civil War: Speyer and Seligman family for the Union, and Emile Erlanger and Company for the Confederacy.[34]

In December 1862 Major General Ulysses S. Grant, angry at the illegal trade in smuggled cotton, issued General Order No. 11 expelling Jews from areas under his control in western Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky:

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled ... within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

Jews appealed to President Abraham Lincoln, who immediately ordered General Grant to rescind the order. Sarna notes that there was a "surge in many forms of anti-Jewish intolerance" at the time. Sarna, however, concludes that the long-term implications were highly favorable, for the episode:

also empowered Jews with the knowledge that they could fight back against bigotry and win, even against a prominent general. The overturning of Grant's order, especially on top of the victory in the chaplaincy affair, appreciably strengthened the Jewish community and increased its self-confidence. The successes also validated an activist Jewish communal policy that based claims to equality on American law and values, while relying on help from public officials to combat prejudice and defend Jews' minority rights.[35]

Jews also began to organize as a political group in the United States, especially in response to the United States reaction to the 1840 Damascus Blood Libel. The first Jewish member of the United States House of Representatives, Lewis Charles Levin, and Senator David Levy Yulee, were elected in 1845 (although Yulee converted to Episcopalianism the following year). Official government antisemitism continued, however, with New Hampshire only offering equality to Jews and Catholics in 1877,[36] the last state to do so.

Grant very much regretted his wartime order; he publicly apologized for it. When he became president in 1869, he set out to make amends. Sarna argues:

Eager to prove that he was above prejudice, Grant appointed more Jews to public office than had any of his predecessors and, in the name of human rights, he extended unprecedented support to persecuted Jews in Russia and Romania. Time and again, partly as a result of this enlarged vision of what it meant to be an American and partly in order to live down General Orders No. 11, Grant consciously worked to assist Jews and secure them equality. ... Through his appointments and policies, Grant rejected calls for a 'Christian nation' and embraced Jews as insiders in America, part of "we the people." During his administration, Jews achieved heightened status on the national scene, anti-Jewish prejudice declined, and Jews look forward optimistically to a liberal epoch characterized by sensitivity to human rights and interreligious cooperation.[37]

In the middle of the 19th century, a number of German Jews founded investment banking firms which later became mainstays of the industry. Most prominent Jewish banks in the United States were investment banks, rather than commercial banks.[38] Important banking firms included Goldman Sachs (founded by Samuel Sachs and Marcus Goldman), Kuhn Loeb (Solomon Loeb and Jacob Schiff), Lehman Brothers (Henry Lehman), Salomon Brothers, and Bache & Co. (founded by Jules Bache).[39] J. & W. Seligman & Co. was a large investment bank from the 1860s to the 1920s. By the 1930s, Jewish presence in private investment banking had diminished dramatically.[40]

In the nineteenth-century, Jews began settling throughout the American West. The majority were immigrants, with German Jews comprising most of the early nineteenth-century wave of Jewish immigration to the United States and therefore to the Western states and territories, while Eastern European Jews migrated in greater numbers and comprised most of the migratory westward wave at the close of the century.[41] Following the California Gold Rush of 1849, Jews established themselves prominently on the West Coast, with important settlements in Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and especially San Francisco, which became the second-largest Jewish city in the nation.[42]

Eisenberg, Kahn, and Toll (2009) emphasize the creative freedom Jews found in western society, unburdening them from past traditions and opening up new opportunities for entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and civic leadership. Regardless of origin, many early Jewish settlers worked as peddlers before establishing themselves as merchants.[43] Numerous entrepreneurs opened shop in large cities like San Francisco to service the mining industry, as well as in smaller communities like Deadwood, South Dakota and Bisbee, Arizona, which sprung up throughout the resource-rich West. The most popular specialty was clothing merchant, followed by the small-scale manufacturing and general retailing. For example, Levi Strauss (1829 – 1902) started as a wholesale dealer in with clothing, bedding, and notions; by 1873 he introduced the first blue jeans, an immediate hit for miners, and later, informal urban wear.[44] Everyone was a newcomer, and the Jews were generally accepted with few signs of discrimination, according to Eisenberg, Kahn, and Toll (2009).

Though many Jewish immigrants to the West found success as merchants, others worked as bankers, miners, freighters, ranchers, and farmers.[41] Otto Mears helped to build railroads across Colorado, while Solomon Bibo became the governor of the Acoma Pueblo Indians. Though these are by no means the only two Jewish immigrants to make names for themselves in the West, they help to showcase the wide variety of paths that Jewish settlers pursued. Organizations like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Baron Maurice de Hirsch's Jewish Agricultural Society served as a conduit for connecting Jewish newcomers arriving from Europe with settlements in the Upper Midwest, Southwest, and Far West. In other cases, family connections served as the primary network drawing more Jews to the West.[45]

Jeanette Abrams argues persuasively that Jewish women played a prominent role in the establishment of Jewish communities throughout the West.[46] For example, the first synagogue in Arizona, Tucson's Temple Emanu-El, was established by the local Hebrew Ladies Benevolent Society, as was the case for many synagogues in the West. Likewise, many Jewish activists and community leaders became prominent in municipal and state politics, winning election to public office with little attention paid to their Jewish identity. They set up Reform congregations and generally gave little support to Zionism down to the 1940s.[47]

In the 20th century, Metropolitan Los Angeles became the second-largest Jewish base in the United States. The most dramatic cast of newcomers there was in Hollywood, where Jewish producers were the dominant force in the film industry after 1920.[48]

None of the early migratory movements assumed the significance and volume of that from Russia and neighboring countries. Between the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century, there was a mass emigration of Jewish peoples from Eastern and Southern Europe.[49] During that period, 2.8 million European Jews immigrated to the United States, with 94% of them coming from Eastern Europe.[50] This emigration, mainly from diaspora communities in Russian Poland and other areas of the Russian Empire, began as far back as 1821, but did not become especially noteworthy until after German immigration fell off in 1870. Though nearly 50,000 Russian, Polish, Galician, and Romanian Jews went to the United States during the succeeding decade, it was not until the pogroms, anti-Jewish riots in Russia, of the early 1880s, that the immigration assumed extraordinary proportions. From Russia alone the emigration rose from an annual average of 4,100 in the decade 1871–80 to an annual average of 20,700 in the decade 1881–90. Antisemitism and official measures of persecution over the past century combined with the desire for economic freedom and opportunity have motivated a continuing flow of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Central Europe over the past century.

The Russian pogroms, beginning in 1900, forced large numbers of Jews to seek refuge in the U.S. Though most of these immigrants arrived on the Eastern seaboard, many came as part of the Galveston Movement, through which Jewish immigrants settled in Texas as well as the western states and territories.[51] In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition, thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly Yiddish papers and the many magazines.[52] Yiddish theater was very well attended and provided a training ground for performers and producers who moved to Hollywood in the 1920s.[53][54]

Repeated large-scale murderous pogroms in the late 19th and early 20th century increasingly angered American opinion.[55] The well-established German Jews in the United States, although they were not directly affected by the Russian pogroms, were well organized and convinced Washington to support the cause of Jews in Russia.[56][57] Led by Oscar Straus, Jacob Schiff, Mayer Sulzberger, and Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise, they organize protest meetings, issued publicity, and met with President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of State John Hay. Stuart E. Knee reports that in April, 1903, Roosevelt received 363 addresses, 107 letters, and 24 petitions signed by thousands of Christians leading public and church leaders—they all called on the Tsar to stop the persecution of Jews. Public rallies were held in scores of cities, topped off at Carnegie Hall in New York in May. The Tsar retreated a bit and fired one local official after the Kishinev pogrom, which Roosevelt explicitly denounced. But Roosevelt was mediating the war between Russia and Japan and could not publicly take sides. Therefore, Secretary Hay took the initiative in Washington. Finally Roosevelt forwarded a petition to the Tsar, who rejected it claiming the Jews were at fault. Roosevelt won Jewish support in his 1904 landslide reelection. The pogroms continued, as hundreds of thousands of Jews fled Russia, most heading for London or New York. With American public opinion turning against Russia, Congress officially denounced its policies in 1906. Roosevelt kept a low profile as did his new Secretary of State Elihu Root. In late 1906, Roosevelt appointed the first Jew to the cabinet: Oscar Straus, becoming Secretary of Commerce and Labor.[58][59]

By 1924, 2 million Jews had arrived from Central and Eastern Europe. Anti-immigration feelings growing in the United States at this time resulted in the National Origins Quota of 1924, which severely restricted immigration from many regions, including Eastern Europe. The Jewish community took the lead in opposing immigration restrictions. In the 1930s they worked hard to allow in Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. They had very little success; the restrictions remained in effect until 1965, although temporary opportunities were given to refugees from Europe after 1945.[60]

The first Jews to settle in Chicago after its 1833 incorporation were Ashkenazi. In the late 1830s and early 1840s German Jews arrived in Chicago, mostly from Bavaria. Many Jews in Chicago became street peddlers or eventually opened stores, some of which grew to larger companies. In the early 20th century, a wave of Ashkenazi Jews arrived, fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe.[61]

In 1900, five of seven clothing merchants in Clarksburg, West Virginia, were Jewish, and into the 1930s the Jews here were primarily merchants. Because of the need to expand their synagogue, the Orthodox Jewish congregation merged with a smaller Reform group to form a compromise Conservative congregation in 1939, and Jewish community life in Clarksburg centered on this synagogue. The community, which reached a population peak of about three hundred in the mid-1950s, is still represented by about thirty families.[62]

The Jews of Wichita, Kansas, fashioned an ethnoreligious world that was distinct, vibrant, and tailored to their circumstances. They had migrated west with capital, credit, and know-how, and their family-based businesses were extensions of family businesses in the east. They distinguished themselves in educational, leadership, and civic positions. Predominantly German Jews through the 1880s, their remoteness and small numbers encouraged the practice of Reform Judaism. The arrival of conservative Jews from Eastern Europe after the 1880s brought tension into the Wichita Jewish community, but also stirred an ethnoreligious revival. The German Jews were well respected in the Wichita community, which facilitated the integration of the Eastern European newcomers. The Jewish community was characterized by a "dynamic tension" between tradition and modernization.[63]

The Jewish community in Oakland, California, is representative of many cities. Jews played a prominent role, and were among the pioneers of Oakland in the 1850s. In the early years, the Oakland Hebrew Benevolent Society, founded in 1862, was the religious, social, and charitable center of the community. The first synagogue, the First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland, was founded in 1875. The synagogue, also known as Temple Sinai, took over the religious and burial functions for the community. Jews from Poland predominated in the community, and most of them worked in some aspect of the clothing industry. David Solis-Cohen, the noted author,[64] was a leader in the Oakland Jewish community in the 1870s. In 1879 Oakland's growing Jewish community organized a second congregation, a strictly orthodox group, Poel Zedek. Women's religious organizations flourished, their charitable services extending to needy gentiles as well as Jews. Oakland Jewry was part of the greater San Francisco community, yet maintained its own character. In 1881 the First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland, elected Myer Solomon Levy as its rabbi. The London-born Levy practiced traditional Judaism. Oakland's Jews were pushed hard to excel in school, both secular and religious. Fannie Bernstein was the first Jew to graduate from the University of California at Berkeley, in 1883. First Hebrew Congregation sponsored a Sabbath school which had 75 children in 1887. Oakland Jewry was active in public affairs and charitable projects in the 1880s. Rabbi Myer S. Levy was chaplain to the state legislature in 1885. The Daughters of Israel Relief Society continued its good works both inside and outside the Jewish community. Beth Jacob, the traditional congregation of Old World Polish Jews, continued its separate religious practices while it maintained friendly relations with the members of the first Hebrew Congregation. Able social and political leadership came from David Samuel Hirshberg. Until 1886 he was an officer in the Grand Lodge of B'nai B'rith. He served as Under Sheriff of Alameda County in 1883 and was active in Democratic party affairs. In 1885 he was appointed Chief Clerk of the U.S. Mint in San Francisco. As a politician, he had detractors who accused him of using his position in B'nai B'rith to foster his political career. When refugees from the fire-stricken, poorer Jewish quarter of San Francisco came to Oakland, the synagogue provided immediate aid. Food and clothing were given to the needy and 350 people were given a place to sleep. For about a week the synagogue fed up to 500 people three times a day. A large part of the expenses were paid by the Jewish Ladies' organization of the synagogue.[65]

Because of the Code Noir, Jews were excluded from the French territory of Louisiana until 1803. Abraham Cohen Labatt, a Sephardic Jew from South Carolina, helped found the first Jewish congregation in Louisiana in the 1830s. Leon Godchaux, a Jewish immigrant from Lorraine, opened a clothing business in 1844. Isidore Newman established the Maison Blanche store on Canal Street. In 1870, the city's elite German Jews founded Temple Sinai, the first synagogue in New Orleans founded as a Reform congregation. Most Jews in New Orleans were loyal supporters of the Confederacy but Orthodox Eastern European Jews never outnumbered the Reform "German Uptown" Jews. Elizabeth D. A. Cohen was the first female physician in Louisiana. Leon C. Weiss became Governor Huey Long's favorite architect, and designed the new state capitol in Baton Rouge. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, only about 70% of the city's pre-Katrina Jewish population had returned.[66]

Jews have been living in Maine for 200 years, with significant Jewish communities in Bangor as early as the 1840s and in Portland since the 1880s. The arrival of Susman Abrams in 1785 was followed by a history of immigration and settlement that parallels the history of Jewish immigration to the United States. What initially brought people to these various towns around Maine was the promise of work, often linked with opportunities that supported Maine's shipbuilding, lumber and mill industries.

In 1654, the first group of Jews came as refugees from Recife, Brazil to New Amsterdam, which became New York City. Over the years, German, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews continued to arrive, playing an important part in the city's history and cultural life. In the late 1800s and early 20th century, a wave of Ashkenazi Jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe came to the city, bringing New York's Jewish population to over 1 million in 1910, the world's largest Jewish population in any city at that time.[67]

Jews formed a community in San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, 1848–55.[68][69] Levi Strauss, founder of the first company to manufacture blue jeans (Levi Strauss & Co.),[70] and Harvey Milk, LGBT rights activist and politician,[71] were famous Jewish San Franciscans.

In the period between 1934 and 1943, the Congress, the Roosevelt Administration, and public opinion expressed concern about the fate of Jews in Europe but consistently refused to permit large-scale immigration of Jewish refugees. In a report issued by the State Department, Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat noted that the United States accepted only 21,000 refugees from Europe and did not significantly raise or even fill its restrictive quotas, accepting far fewer Jews per capita than many of the neutral European countries and fewer in absolute terms than Switzerland.

According to David Wyman, "The United States and its Allies were willing to attempt almost nothing to save the Jews."[99]

U.S. opposition to immigration in general in the late 1930s was motivated by the grave economic pressures, the high unemployment rate, and social frustration and disillusionment. The U.S. refusal to support specifically Jewish immigration, however, stemmed from something else, namely antisemitism, which had increased in the late 1930s and continued to rise in the 1940s. It was an important ingredient in America's negative response to Jewish refugees.[100]

The SS St. Louis sailed from Germany in May 1939 carrying 936 (mainly German) Jewish refugees. On 4 June 1939, it was also refused permission to unload on orders of President Roosevelt as the ship waited in the Caribbean Sea between Florida and Cuba. Initially, Roosevelt showed limited willingness to take in some of those on board. But the Immigration Act of 1924 made that illegal and public opinion was strongly opposed. The ship returned to Europe. 620 of the passengers were eventually accepted in continental Europe, of these only 365 survived the Holocaust.

A synagogue on West Twenty-Third Street in New York City remained open 24 hours on D-Day for special services and prayer.

The United States' tight immigration policies were not lifted during the Holocaust, news of which began to reach the United States in 1941 and 1942 and it has been estimated that 190,000–200,000 Jews could have been saved during the Second World War had it not been for bureaucratic obstacles to immigration deliberately created by Breckinridge Long and others.[101]

Asylum of the European Jewish population was not a priority for the U.S. during the war, and the American Jewish community did not realize the severity of the Holocaust until late in the conflict. This is in part because the Nazis did not allow Jews to leave Occupied Europe or Germany during this time.[102]

During the World War II period the American Jewish community was bitterly and deeply divided, and was unable to form a common front. Most Eastern European Jews favored Zionism, which saw a return to their homeland as the only solution; this had the effect of diverting attention from the horrors in Nazi Germany. German Jews were alarmed at the Nazis but were disdainful of Zionism. Proponents of a Jewish state and Jewish army agitated, but many leaders were so fearful of an antisemitic backlash inside the U.S. that they demanded that all Jews keep a low public profile. One important development was the sudden conversion of most (but not all) Jewish leaders to Zionism late in the war.[103]

The Holocaust was largely ignored by American media as it was happening.[104] Why that was is illuminated by the anti-Zionist position taken by Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, during World War II.[105] Committed to classical Reform Judaism, which defined Judaism as a religious faith and not as a people, Sulzberger insisted that as an American he saw European Jews as part of a refugee problem, not separate from it. As publisher of the nation's most influential newspaper, The New York Times, he permitted only a handful of editorials during the war on the extermination of the Jews. He supported the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. Even after it became known that the Nazis had singled out the Jews for destruction, Sulzberger held that all refugees had suffered. He opposed the creation of Israel. In effect, he muted the enormous potential influence of the Times by keeping issues of concern regarding Jews off the editorial page and burying stories about Nazi atrocities against Jews in short items deep inside the paper. In time he grew increasingly out of step with the American Jewish community by his persistent refusal to recognize Jews as a people and despite obvious flaws in his view of American democracy.[106]

While Jews owned few prestigious newspapers other than the New York Times, they had a major presence in Hollywood and in network radio. Hollywood films and radio with few exceptions avoided questioning Nazi persecution of Europe's Jews prior to Pearl Harbor. Jewish studio executives did not want to be accused of advocating Jewish propaganda by making films with overtly antifascist themes. Indeed, they were pressured by such organizations as the Anti-Defamation League and by national Jewish leaders to avoid such themes lest American Jews suffer an antisemitic backlash.[107]

Despite strong public and political sentiment to the contrary, however, there were some who encouraged the U.S. government to help victims of Nazi genocide. In 1943, just before Yom Kippur, 400, mostly Orthodox, rabbis marched in Washington to draw attention to the plight of Holocaust victims. A week later, Senator William Warren Barbour (R; New Jersey), one of a handful of politicians who met with the rabbis on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, proposed legislation that would have allowed as many as 100,000 victims of the Holocaust to emigrate temporarily to the United States. Barbour died six weeks after introducing the bill, and it was not passed. A parallel bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Samuel Dickstein (D; New York). This also failed to pass.[108]

During the Holocaust, fewer than 30,000 Jews a year reached the United States, and some were turned away due to immigration policies. The U.S. did not change its immigration policies until 1948.

As of 2021, laws requiring teaching of the Holocaust are on the books in 16 U.S. states.[109]

The Holocaust had a profound impact on the community in the United States, especially after 1960, as Jews tried to comprehend what had happened, and especially to commemorate and grapple with it when looking to the future.[110] Abraham Joshua Heschel summarized this dilemma when he attempted to understand Auschwitz: "To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair, to sense a ray [of] God's radiance in the jungles of history."[111]

American Jews voted 90% against the Republicans and supported Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman in the elections of 1940, 1944 and 1948,[114] despite both party platforms supporting the creation of a Jewish state in the latter two elections.[115] During the 1952 and 1956 elections, they voted 60% or more for Democrat Adlai Stevenson, while General Eisenhower garnered 40% for his reelection; the best showing to date for the Republicans since Harding's 43% in 1920.[114] In 1960, 83% voted for Democrat John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, against Richard Nixon, and in 1964, 90% of American Jews voted for Lyndon Johnson; his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, was raised Episcopalian but his paternal grandparents were Jewish.[116] Hubert Humphrey garnered 81% of the Jewish vote in the 1968 elections, in his losing bid for president against Richard Nixon; such a high level of Jewish support has not been seen since.[114][117]

During the Nixon re-election campaign of 1972, Jewish voters were apprehensive about George McGovern and only favored the Democrat by 65%, while Nixon more than doubled Republican Jewish support to 35%. In the election of 1976, Jewish voters supported Democrat Jimmy Carter by 71% over incumbent president Gerald Ford's 27%, but in 1980 they abandoned Carter, leaving him with only 45% support, while Republican winner, Ronald Reagan, garnered 39%, and 14% went to independent John Anderson.[114]

During the Reagan re-election campaign of 1984, the Jews returned home to the Democratic Party, giving Reagan only 31% compared to 67% for Democrat Walter Mondale. The same 2–1 pattern reappeared in 1988 as Democrat Michael Dukakis had 64%, while victorious George Bush polled 35%. Bush's Jewish support collapsed during his re-election in 1992, to just 11%, with 80% voting for Bill Clinton and 9% going to independent Ross Perot. Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 maintained high Jewish support at 78%, with 16% supporting Bob Dole and 3% supporting Perot.[114]

In the 2000 US Presidential Election, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, was chosen by Al Gore to be his running mate and the vice presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, marking the first time in history that a practicing Jew was included on a major party's presidential ticket.[118]

Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire Democratic primary on February 9, 2016, by 22.4% of the vote (60.4% to Hillary Clinton's 38.0%); he received strong support from voters who considered it important to nominate a candidate who is "honest and trustworthy."[119][120] This made him the first Jewish American to win a U.S. presidential primary.[121][122](Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, was the first winner of Jewish heritage, but was a Christian).[122]

Historians believe American Jewish history has been characterized by an unparalleled degree of freedom, acceptance, and prosperity that has made it possible for Jews to bring together their ethnic identities with the demands of national citizenship far more effortlessly than Jews in Europe.[123] American Jewish exceptionalism differentiates Jews from other American ethnic groups by means of educational and economic attainments and, indeed, by virtue of Jewish values, including a devotion to political liberalism. Historian Marc Dollinger has found that for the last century the most secular Jews have tended toward the most liberal or even leftist political views, while more religious Jews are politically more conservative. Modern Orthodox Jews have been less active in political movements than Reform Jews. They vote Republican more often than less traditional Jews. In contemporary political debate, strong Orthodox support for various school voucher initiatives undermines the exceptionalist belief that the Jewish community seeks a high and impenetrable barrier between church and state.[124]

Most of the discussions of American Exceptionalism refer to the nation as a whole. However, there have been discussions of how American Exceptionalism has applied to specific subgroups, especially minorities. Scholars comparing the record of persecution and extinction of Jews in Europe and the Middle East with the highly favorable circumstances in the United States, debate to what extent the American treatment of Jews has been unique in world history, and how much it has become a model of pluralism at least in regards to this group.[124][125][126]

With its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel became the focal point of American Jewish life and philanthropy, as well as the symbol around which American Jews united.[113]

The Six-Day War of June 1967 marked a turning point in the lives of many 1960s-era Jews. The paralyzing fear of a "second Holocaust" followed by tiny Israel's seemingly miraculous victory over the combined Arab armies arrayed to destroy it struck deep emotional chords among American Jews. Their financial support for Israel rose sharply in the war's wake, and more of them than ever before chose in those years to make Israel their permanent home.[113]

A lively internal debate commenced, following the Six-Day War. The American Jewish community was divided over whether they agreed with the Israeli response; the great majority came to accept the war as necessary. A tension existed especially for leftist Jews, between their liberal ideology and Zionist backing in the midst of this conflict. This deliberation about the Six-Day War showed the depth and complexity of Jewish responses to the varied events of the 1960s.[127]

Jews proved to be strong supporters of the American Civil Rights Movement. Jews were highly visible as leaders of movements for civil rights for all Americans, including themselves and African Americans. Seymour Siegel argues the historic struggle against prejudice faced by Jewish people led to a natural sympathy for any people confronting discrimination. This further led Jews to discuss the relationship they had with African Americans. Jewish leaders spoke at the two iconic marches of the era. Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, appeared at the March on Washington on 28 August 1963, noting that "As Jews we bring to this great demonstration, in which thousands of us proudly participate, a twofold experience--one of the spirit and one of our history"[128] Two years later Abraham Joshua Heschel of the Jewish Theological Seminary marched in the front row of the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

Within Judaism, increasing involvement in the civil rights movement caused some tension. Rabbi Bernard Wienberger exemplified this point of view, warning that "northern liberal Jews" put at risk southern Jews who faced hostility from white southerners because of their northern counterparts. However, most known Jewish responses to the civil rights movement and black relations lean toward acceptance and against prejudice, as the disproportionate involvement of Jews in the movement would indicate.[127] Despite this history of participation, relations between African Americans and Jews have sometimes been strained by their close proximity and class differences, especially in New York and other urban areas.

In its modern form, the Jewish feminist movement can be traced to the early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, who has focused on feminism in Reform Judaism, the main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the exclusion from the all-male prayer group or minyan, the exemption from positive time-bound mitzvot, and women's inability to function as witnesses, and to initiate divorce.[129] Sally Priesand was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on June 3, 1972, at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, thus becoming America's first female rabbi ordained by a rabbinical seminary, and the second formally ordained female rabbi in Jewish history, after Regina Jonas.[130][131][132]

The last large wave of immigration came from the Soviet Union after 1988, in response to heavy political pressure from the U.S. government. After the 1967 Six-Day War and the liberalization tide in Eastern Europe in 1968, Soviet policy became more restrictive. Jews were denied educational and vocational opportunities. These restrictive policies led to the emergence of a new political group—the 'refuseniks'—whose main goal was emigrating. The refuseniks (Jews who were refused exit visas) attracted the attention of the West, particularly the United States, and became an important factor influencing economic and trade relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The 1975 Jackson Amendment to the Trade Reform Act linked granting the USSR 'most favored nation' status to liberalization of Soviet emigration laws.[133]

Beginning in 1967 the Soviet Union allowed some Jewish citizens to leave for family reunification in Israel. Due to the break in diplomatic relations between Israel and the USSR, most émigrés traveled to Vienna, Austria, or Budapest, Hungary, from where they were then flown to Israel. After 1976 the majority of émigrés who left on visas for Israel 'dropped out' in Vienna and chose to resettle in the West. Several American Jewish organizations helped them obtain visas and aided their resettlement in the United States and other countries. However Israel wanted them and tried to prevent Soviet Jewish émigrés from resettling in the United States after having committed to immigrating to Israel. Israeli officials pressured American Jewish organizations to desist from aiding Russian Jews who wanted to resettle in the United States. Initially, American Jews resisted Israeli efforts. Following Mikhail Gorbachev's decision in the late 1980s to allow free emigration for Soviet Jews, the American Jewish community agreed to a quota on Soviet Jewish refugees in the U.S., which resulted in most Soviet Jewish émigrés settling in Israel.[134]

The Russian Jewish population in the United States is the second only to the population of Russian Jews in Israel. According to RINA, there is a core Russian-Jewish population of 350,000 in the U.S. The enlarged Russian Jewish population in the U.S. is estimated to be 700,000.[135] Some 100,000 Ashkenazi and Bukharian Jews emigrated to the United States.[136] Large pockets of Russian-Jewish Communities include Brooklyn, New York, specifically Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay, and in the Sunny Isles Beach neighborhood of South Florida. Another large pocket of Russian Jewish residence is Northeast Philadelphia and surrounding Bucks and Montgomery Counties, as well as Northern New Jersey.

Reform Jews, predominantly German, became Nashville's largest and most influential Jewish community in the first half of the 20th century; they enjoyed good relations with the Orthodox and Conservative congregations. Some German Jewish refugees resettled in Nashville from 1935 to 1939, helped by prominent Nashville families. Both the Orthodox and Conservative congregations had relocated their synagogues to the suburbs by 1949, and the entire Jewish community had shifted southwest by about five miles. Although subtle social discrimination existed, Nashville's Jews enjoyed the respect of the larger community. Public acceptance, however, required complicity in racial segregation. The Observer, Nashville's Jewish newspaper, tried to find a middle ground between assimilation and particularism, but after years of calling for group solidarity, accepted that the Jewish community was pluralistic.[137]

About 32,000 Jews reside in the Palm Springs area, reports the United Jewish Congress of the Desert. The world-famous desert resort community has been widely known for its Hollywood celebrities. Philadelphia publisher Walter Annenberg opened the Tamarisk Country Club in 1946, after being refused membership in the Los Angeles Lakeside country club. But his connections with Hollywood and corporations alike made his country club a success, and made it a policy to allow Jews and all people, regardless of race and religion, to have access to his facility.

Many elderly American Jews from the East coast and the Los Angeles metropolitan area, come to retire in the warm climates such as the Coachella Valley, favoring in golf course and mobile home communities. By the 1990s they were a large component of demography in the desert resort. There are 12 Jewish places of worship, including a Jewish community center in Palm Desert, where an estimated 20–25 percent of the population are of Jewish descent.

Palm Springs has the annual "Winter Festival of Lights" parade, which began as a separate parade to celebrate Chanukah in the 1960s. Over time, that and the Christmas-themed parade merged into the one celebrating the season's lights of menorahs, Christmas trees and the calendar new year.[138][139]

After 1945 many northeastern Jews moved to Florida, especially to Miami, Miami Beach, and nearby cities. They found familiar foods and better weather, and founded more open, less tradition-bound communities, where greater materialism and more leisure-oriented, less disciplined Judaism developed. Many relaxed their religiosity and attended services only during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. In South Florida synagogue affiliation, Jewish community center membership, and per capita contributions to the United Jewish Appeal and the Jewish Federation are among the lowest of any Jewish community in the United States.[140][141]

The development of Jewish (particularly Orthodox) student life at Princeton University improved rapidly since the end of World War II, when Jewish students were few and isolated. In 1958 Jewish students were more numerous; they protested against the Bicker system of eating club member selection. In 1961 Yavneh House was established as Princeton's first kosher kitchen. In 1971 Stevenson Hall opened as a university-managed kosher eating facility in the midst of the older private eating clubs. Jewish student initiative and Princeton administration openness deserve credit for this progress.[142]

An estimated 20-25 percent of the population of this affluent Los Angeles suburb is Jewish,[143] and about 20 percent is Persian.[144] About a quarter of the membership of Sinai Temple, a prominent synagogue in nearby Westwood, is Persian Jews.[144]

As of 2016, New York state has an estimated Jewish population of about 1.8 million;[145][146] of these 1.1 million live in New York City.[147]

Social historians analyze the American population in terms of class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, region and urbanism. Jewish scholars generally emphasize ethnicity.[162] First, it reflects the suppression of the term "Jewish race," a contested but fairly common usage right into the 1930s and its replacement by the more acceptable "ethnic" usage. Second, it reflects a post-religious evaluation of American Jewish identity, in which "Jewishness" (rather than "Judaism") is taken to be more inclusive, embracing the secularized as well as the religious experiences of Jews.[163]

Korelitz (1996) shows how American Jews during the late 19th and early 20th centuries abandoned a racial definition of Jewishness in favor of one that embraced ethnicity and culture. The key to understanding this transition from a racial self-definition to a cultural or ethnic one can be found in the Menorah Journal between 1915 and 1925. During this time contributors to the Menorah promoted a cultural, rather than a racial, religious, or other view of Jewishness as a means to define Jews in a world that threatened to overwhelm and absorb Jewish uniqueness. The journal represented the ideals of the menorah movement established by Horace Kallen and others to promote a revival in Jewish cultural identity and combat the idea of race as a means to define or identify peoples.[164]

Siporin (1990) uses the family folklore of "ethnic" Jews to their collective history and its transformation into an historical art form. They tell us how Jews have survived being uprooted and transformed. Many immigrant narratives bear a theme of the arbitrary nature of fate and the reduced state of immigrants in a new culture. By contrast, ethnic family narratives tend to show the ethnic more in charge of his life, and perhaps in danger of losing his Jewishness altogether. Some stories show how a family member successfully negotiated the conflict between ethnic and American identities.[165]

After 1960 memories of the Holocaust, together with the Six-Day War in 1967 that resulted in the survival of Israel had major impacts on fashioning Jewish ethnic identity. The Shoah provided Jews with a rationale for their ethnic distinction at a time when other minorities were asserting their own.[166]

The University of Pittsburgh houses and has made available a collection of audio interviews produced by the NCJW. Over one hundred audio interviews produced by the Pittsburgh Chapter of NCJW are available online. Those interviewed describe their interactions and affiliations with historical events such as emigration, synagogue events, professional activities and other topics with which they were personally involved. These interviews also include information about personal life events, episodes of discrimination against Jews, moving from Europe to America, meeting Enrico Caruso, Robert Oppenheimer, Jonas Salk and other historical figures. Others that were interviewed came to America but were born elsewhere. Jews from Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Hungary, India, Israel, Korea, Poland, and other countries describe their experiences.[191]

Other collections and archives can be found at:

• Guide to the National Council of Jewish Women Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute
• National Council of Jewish Women, Indianapolis Section, Archives
• National Council of Jewish Women Records at the Library of Congress
• A Guide to the National Council of Jewish Women, San Antonio Section, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries (UTSA Libraries) Special Collections.
• National Council of Jewish Women, New York Section at the American Jewish Historical Society in New York

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• Abramovitch, Ilana and Galvin, Sean, eds. Jews of Brooklyn. (2002). 400 pp.
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• Dollinger, Marc. Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America. (2000). 296 pp.
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  • The Colonial and Early National Periods, 1654-1840., vol. 1 (1998). 486 pp.
  • Central European Jews in America, 1840-1880: Migration and Advancement. vol. 2. (1998). 392 pp.
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