1.11r.M.7:
- THE JEWISH NEWS
Peg• Six
Friday, 'July 24, 194
The Story of the Jews in the United State
An Historical Analysis of Jewish Contributions to the
Development and Defense of America
The Country Grows
In the War of 1812 and in the Mexican War, as in
the Revolution, Jews were quick to offer their services.
During the War of 1812, Spanish Jews still formed a
considerable part of the American Jewish population;
many of them fought in the army, and others did signal
service in the navy. Once again privateers owned,
manned and commanded by Jews sailed under the
Stars and Stripes. At sea, two Jewish officers, Com-
modore Uriah P. Levy and Captain John Ordroneaux,
distinguished themselves.
Washington's Famous Letter
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On the other hand, Jews living in the Confeder
remained loyal to their states. David Levy, of Flori
who was the first Jew to sit in the United States
ate, resigned when his state seceded, to serve the So
A famous statesman of the day, Judah P. Benja
of Louisiana, also a member of the Senate, a gr
orator, who often debated against Daniel Webster,
resigned from the Senate. He became one of the gr
figures in the Confederacy, and Jefferson Davis m
him Secretary of State.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second installment
of "The Story of the Jews in the United States"
which The Jewish News is presenting with the kind
permission and in collaboration with the National
Jewish Welfare Board and the American Association
for Jewish Education.
The Jewish News is irrdebted also to the Union
American Hebrew Congregations for the photograr
which accompany this article.
This history will be concluded in the next
issue of The Jewish News. Additional copies of the
reprints will be available in limited quantities, and
the text is being made available to students in the
Detroit Jewish schools.
Readers of The Jewish News are advised to clip
these articles and to preserve the entire historical
record in a scrapbook for future reference.
In 1785, the population of the thirteen colonies
about three and a half million, of whom some
thousand were Jews. In 1840, the population of
United States had increased to seventeen million,
whom fifteen thousand were Jews. In 1880, just at
beginning of the great Russian-Jewish migration,
population of America was some fifty million, of wh
two hundred and fifty thousand were Jews. T
the population of the United States is close to
hundred and forty million, and almost five million
Jews, which is about 4% of the total population. Let
see how this remarkable increase came about.
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Jews From Eastern Europe
To Our Readers
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EXCERPT FROM WASHINGTON'S LETTER TO
HEBREW CONGREGATION OF NEWPORT, R. I.
There were Central European Jews among those
who trickled into Texas during and just before the
troubled days of the Lone Star State. A tide of immi-
gration from the many small German kingdoms and
dukedoms was beginning. The peasants and workers,
smarting under oppression, were leaving their homes
for the distant United States. They had heard of it as
a land of liberty and opportunity, and the boldest
among them threw off their bonds to sail for the land
of the free.
A good many of these people from Central Europe
made their way into the then wild and unsettled Texas.
Adolphus Stern was one of the first settlers of Nacog-
doches, in 1824. He fought against Santa Anna for the
freedom of the Lone Star State. Later he became a
member of the Lone Star Congress, and after that one
of the first representatives Texas sent to the U. S. Con-
gress. There were Jews with Sam Houston, and his
surgeon general was Moses Albert Levy. Still other
Jews fought with the American forces in the war with
Mexico.
More and more of the immigrants now were German
Jews, Jews from Holland, Jews from the Baltic States
and from Poland. These were poor people, hard work-
ing men and women, who left everything behind them
and journeyed to a strange land where they might be
free to live and work and worship God. They came in
small groups. Few of them lingered on the eastern
seaboard. Like many Yankees, they would take packs
on their backs and go peddling small necessities in the
newly settled middle west.
After a time, the Jewish peddler would be able to
replace his pack with a horse and wagon, in which he
would drive from town to town. Finally, he might find
a place where he could open a little shop and settle
down to make a new life with his family. As more
Jews arrived a community would be formed. The com-
munity would build a synagogue, start a school, and
educate the children.
Some of these Jews became great merchants; others
entered political life; but most left their mark on
America through their sons and grandsons.
There is hardly a town in the middle west that did
not have its one or two or three Jewish families. In
Cincinnati in 1824, not long after its founding, English
Jews founded the first synagogue, but the German Jews
soon out-numbered them; and in 1841 they formed their
own congregation. Soon other synagogues began to
spring up, in one city after another.
The New Jewish Immigration
In the year 1848, in many European countries, there
occurred revolutionary uprisings aimed at freedom and
social reform. Men everywhere threw up barricades,
and fought for their freedom. When in Germany one
such revolution was put down, Jews, along with other
persecuted soldiers of democracy, emigrated to America
by the thousands.
They reached the United States at just about the
time gold was discovered in California, and the bolder
and hardier among them set out to cross the continent.
Jews were among those who plodded wearily along the
Oregon trail, some on foot, some on mules, some riding
In the lumbering covered wagons with their wives and
children. Others traded with the Indians along the
desolate valley of the Platte River, and still others
could be found at Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger, wait-
ing patiently until there might be gathered together
ten males of Israel to hold formal worship. Often, in-
stead of trading with the Indians, they had to fight them
from behind the circles of covered wagons, side by side
with. other pioneers. Many trudged into Salt Lake City
to live beside the Mormons. At last, a group of Jews
reached the Pacific, and in the year of 1849, a handful
collected in a tent to observe what has gone down in
the record as the first Yom Kippur service to be held in
San Francisco. The following year, two congregations
were organized in that town—one by German Jews, and
another by English and Polish Jews. In 1852, two Jews
were elected by their fellow citizens to the State Legis-
lature.
That part of Europe which stretches between
Baltic and the Black Seas was more thickly popula
by Jews than any other area of the world. Jews of
region, most of whom lived in the old Russian Emp
were extremely poor and endlessly persecuted. Dur
the hundreds of years they had been living there,
were denied every ordinary human right. Economic
they were permitted to keep themselves alive, but
were permitted little more. They sustained this •
as their ancestors had done before them; they to
their hearts and minds to their religion and their
tory. They studied these deeply, and they became
most learned Jewish community in the world.
But in 1881, their lot became heavier than even
could bear. The people of Russia were beginning
murmur against the tyranny of the Czar. To div
their attention, the Czar's bureaucrats undertook
direct the anger of the people against the Jews,
There were many similar happenings, but of most
of them, no records remain. It is sufficient to say that
wherever the tide of the American frontier rolled, Jews
were to be found among the first pioneers, working and
building a free America.
The Civil War
later Hitler did even more wickedly and cruelly.
Czar's officers organized pogroms in which thousa
of Jews were murdered.
Seeking to escape with their lives, many Je
turned to America. Not too much news and info
tion had come to the lonely villages where they liv
American history is a record of struggle for liberty
and justice. One tragic phase of the struggle was the
Civil War, when the nation was divided, when brother
fought brother in a conflict as bloody and terrible as
man had known up to that time. Yet it may be said
that those wno fought both for the North and for the
South considered themselves to be fighting for free-
dom—the Northerners for the freedom of the Union
from slavery; the Southerners for the sovereign rights
of their states.
but for some time past, the bolder among them
broken away to the land of the free, and during th
years letters and gifts had built a legend of Ameri
A strange and wonderful place was the United Stat
where all could live as free men, with equal righ
where Jews could send their children to public sch
Like other Americans, Jews, too, were divided. The
Jewish historian Simon Wolf lists 6,000 Jews who
served in the Union armies and 1,200 who served with
and earn bread in peace, without fear or want.
They began to emigrate to America.
At first, they moved slowly; a few hundred ventur
Jewish Population in United States
This map shows
percentage
distribution of Je
in different sec
of this country.
umacs
asE2 1% To 2.99%
MI 3% 44so-ovim
the armies of the South. Those he was definitely able
to trace but there were many others whom he had no
way of discovering. Yet even out of a total Jewish '
population of some 200,000, 7,500 is a very large per-
centage. To go on with statistics, we find that four
Jews were promoted to the rank of general in the
Union Army, seven were awarded the Congressional
medal of honor for distinguished gallantry, 316 were
wounded, 336 were killed in action, and 53 were cap-
tured—all these on the Union side.
If we go back to the beginnings of this fight against
slavery, we find that three members of John Brown's
little band were Jewish. The great majority of the
Jews of America were among those who had long
spoken out against slavery.
--Courtesy Jewish Publicat
Society of America and
of American Hebrew Con
gations.
*
on the long, - difficult journey, then a few thousan
the -men went by themselves and then sent for the
wives and children. Each wave of them wrote ba
glowing accounts of "the happy land," and the ne
spread like wildfire. The thousands became tens
thousands. They went, not as so many other emigran
who planned to make a fortune and then return to
old country, but to find a new home to live in and
for. These Jewish immigrants burned all bridges
hind them; they committed themselves to Americ
body and heart and souL
The migration grew. Poor and rich, they cam
learned and unlearned, old and young. For five ye
beginning with 1904, more than one hundred tho
of them came to America each year.
Read Next ''',Veek.'s Issue of The Jewish News for the Third Installment of this Historical Article
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