THE JEWISH NEWS
Page Twelve
Friday, July 31, 1942
The Story of the Jews in the United States
An Historical Analysis of Jewith Contributions to the
Development and Defense of America
The Jews in Our Time
Adjustment to America
OMING as they did, so quickly, in such great
numbers, these children of starvation were faced
C
with problems that had never troubled the Spanish
and German Jews whose immigration was slow and
leisurely, who could hence establish themselves first
and then lend a helping hand to the newcomers. But
the Jews from Eastern Europe had less chance to
adjust themselves; scarcely had a hundred landed,
thr a thousand more came. Speaking a foreign lan-
guage, limited in experience and contacts, these men
Concluding Installment
The post-war period in America was a golden era.
It saw great industrial expansion and a generally high
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third and final
installment of "The Story of the Jews in the
United States" presented by The Jewish News in
collaboration with the National Jewish Welfare.
Board and the American Association for Jewish
Education.
level of prosperity. To this economic development and
expansion. Jews as individuals made important contri-
butions. To Americans, this high standard of living
The Jewish News is indebted to the Institutional
Synagogue of New York for photographs which
accompany this installment.
Readers who have missed one or both of the
previous installments of this fascinating history may
obtain reprints from The Jewish News office, 2114
Penobscot Bldg.
and corner of the land. Their communities are dynamic
parts of American culture. They have built their syn-
agogues, their schools, their charities, their fraternal
and philanthropic organizations. Their part in the
building of America led to common sympathy and
mutual understanding between themselves and their
fellow Americans.
This, broadly speaking, is the relatively secure and
peaceful situation in which they found themselves at
COLONEL ISAAC FRANKS
WAS AIDE-DE-CAMP TO
06N. 6.E0R&E WASHINC, TON
AND SERVED WITH
DISTINCTION THROU&HOUT
---
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THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR-
the outbreak of the first World War.
and women could not go off each by himself. They
naturally felt safer together in the great settlement
which formed the "ghetto . ' of New York's east side
and
Chicago's west side, among their fellows who
could understand their language and help them in
their difficulties.
/ To keep themselves alive, they found employment
in the garment trades, factories and sweatshops. They
ISRAEL
JACOBS
struggled and slaved and sweated. In a way. their
privations were as heavy as those of the pioneers of
the wilderness. True, they found in Ainerica freedom
to earn their bread in peace; but America was not the
tsolchers under the Stars and Stripes.
•
• •
r
To Jews in America, their country and its ideals are
precious because they never took them for granted.
For them they embody the Promised Land, the actu-
tility of freedom, of security and of growth.
The eikrlier immigration has produced many loyal
.
kcaraNz w "-Wr
fended their freedom and their way of life with their
blood and now leaned back , to enjoy the fruits of the
battle.
But the battle for freedom and economic security
must be won anew by each generation, and it is not
always a battle of guns and armor. Sometimes it must
be fought on the home front, such as the battle of the
depression which followed the prosperity period of the
1920's.
True to its ideals, America solved the problems of
the depression in its own characteristic. manner, typified
by the fact that the 1930's, a time of severe stringency
and suffering, saw tremendous advances in social leg-
islation and other measures leading to greater economic
democracy. How unlike the solutions sought by some
European governments faced with similar problems.
Not democracy, but totalitarianism, not greater oppor-
tunity for the average man, but suppression was the
order of the day. Not freedom and equality, but fear
built on oppression, prejudice and racial strife was
fostered by Nazism and Facism.
Necessarily, the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party
to power in Germany had its reflection on the American
scene, especially since the Nazis deliberately spread
their race theories and planned anti-Semitic campaigns
as a screen to hide the Hitler conspiracy against the
peace and freedom of the world. Jews, being in the
first line of attack, were perhaps the first to realize
_ that Nazi anti-Semitism was in reality not an attack
upon Jews alone, but on all democratic society. It was
therefore natural that in the face of these totalitarian'
attacks upon democratic society, American Jews were
among the most effective preachers and defenders of
the democratic system.
WAS THE
FIRST JEWISH
MEMBER Or
CONGRESS-
PENNSYLVANIA
1791-93
]and of milk and honey that they had dreamed of in
Europe—it was a land that demanded much. Like
earlier immigrants; the Jews from Eastern Europe had
to fight their way with little help. When a ruthless
Germany launched the First World War, more than a
fifth of a million of them were counted among the
seemed a just reward of victory. Americans had de-
;Vlore than 200,000 Jews were in the American armed
forces during the first World War. The armies of
Napoleon were smaller. The forces Washington corn-
manded in the American Revolution never exceeded
30,000. Some of the greatest engagements in the Civil
War were fought with less than 200,000 men as the
total for both sides. The number is well worth contem-
plation. It means that, after two thousand years of
persecution, a fifth of a million Jews stood up to fight
in the cause of the greatest democracy the world had
ever known. Indeed, these Jews in the armed forces
of their country numbered more than the total Jewish
population of the United States during the Civil War.
Half of them were in the infantry, although the
infantry numbered less than half of the total forces.
Ten thousand Jews were commissioned officers. Almost
three thousand Jews died in service, and thousands
more wete wounded in battle. Very few bodies were
returned to the United States for burial.
They did their duty—no more, no less than any
other American in the service. They received eleven
hundred citations for valor, three Jews were' decorated
A
VOLUNTEER CORPS or
INFANTRY COMPOSED CHIEFLY
Of JEWS UNDER THE COMMAND,
OF CAPTAIN LUSHIN6TON WAS
I ORiANIZED IN 1779 TO R6HT
FOR AMERICAN ISDETEHDENCE
The Nazi drive for power inevitably led to World
War II and today Americans once more are engaged in
a war to defend their heritage and a world order which
will vouchsafe to all men the Four Freedoms set forth
by President Roosevelt—freedom from fear, freedom
from want, freedom of worship and freedom of -cech.
American Jews have responded loyally to the call to
arms and have joined their fellow citizens of the great-
est and oldest republic in the fight against an enemy
whose wanton aggression assaults the liberty of the
world.
• •
E have come a long way from the tiny fleet of
Columbus that sailed into the west and the un-
known so bravely, from the little band of wanderers
whom Asser Levy led to New Amsterdam so many
hundreds of years ago, from the bold adventurers who
went out into the wilderness to trade with the Indians,
from the Jews who fought and suffered and froze with
Washington, from the forty-niners and the pioneers.
THE PORTUGUESE
ACADEMY AT SAYRES- 2,1
• •
•
The First World War
cZ
The new immigrants absorbed American culture,
and in themselves they held the seeds of a new and
energetic generation of Americans. They spread out
from the few large cities in which they had originally
Congregated, and now make their homes in every nook
•
W
THE MAPS USED BY
COLUMBUS WERE DRAWN
UP BY JEHUDA CRESQUES,
KNOW AS THE "MAP JEW,"
WHO WAS DIRECTOR OF
Citizens—statesmen, writers, merchants, doctors, law-
yers, and soldiers. But now, to these, the generations
deriving from the Jews of Eastern Europe have added
painters, poets, actors, playwrights, musicians, and
scientists. They have brought their share—many auth-
orities say, more than their share—of enduring excel-
,- lence to the spiritual and cultural life of the country.
•
A to CoLumaus
Prof. Herbert B. Adams, the noted
historian, is credited with the quotation
that "Not jewels, but Jews were the fin-
ancial basis of the first expedition of
Columbus."
with the supreme American award, the Congressional
Medal of Honor; the famous Seventy-Seventh Division
of New York City was composed of over forty percent
Jews;--and so was a good part of the Loat Battalion in
the Argonne wood.-
We have tried to picture for American Jews, their
place in America, to see and understand how it has
come about that they may stand up and say, "This
is my own."
It is because the life of this land and the life of its
Jewish citizens are so woven one into the other that
they cannot be separated. It is because the lives of
Jews in America have been identical with the lives of
other immigrants who have built America—they have
made the same sacrifices and shared the same blessings
with all other citizens. It is because the land has been-
nurtured with their blood in all its wars. It is because
their spirit lives and moves and has its being in the
spirit of freedom and justice. Thus,- knowing the value
of freedom and justice, Jews are willing to die to
preserve these ideals in America and in the world.