History of The Jews in The United States

History Of The Jews In The United States

The history of the Jews in the United States (United States of America), has been part of the American national fabric since colonial times.

Until the 1830s the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina was the most numerous in North America. With the large scale immigration of Jews from diaspora communities in Germany in the 19th century, they established themselves in many small towns and cities. A much larger immigration of Eastern Ashkenazi Jews, 1880–1914, brought a large, poor, traditional element to New York City. Refugees arrived from diaspora communities in Europe after World War II, and many arrived from the Soviet Union after 1970.

In the 1940s Jews comprised 3.7% of the national population. Today the population is about 5 million—under 2% of the national total—and shrinking because of small family sizes and intermarriage. The largest population centers are the metropolitan areas of New York (2.1 million in 2000), Los Angeles (668,000), Miami (331,000), Philadelphia (285,000), Chicago (265,000) and Boston (254,000).

Read more about History Of The Jews In The United States:  Jewish Immigration, Colonial Era, Revolutionary Era, 19th Century, Progressive Movement, Americanization, Philanthropy, Rise To Affluence in The 20th Century, Lynching of Leo Frank, World War I, 1930s, Postwar, Current Situation, Antisemitism in The United States

Famous quotes containing the words history of, united states, history, jews, united and/or states:

    “The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
    —Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)

    “... the yearly expenses of the existing religious system ... exceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown!... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish?”
    —Frances Wright (1795–1852)

    “The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
    —Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)

    “We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch.... I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.”
    —Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    “I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
    —Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)

    “If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
    When time is old and hath forgot itself,
    When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
    And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,
    And mighty states characterless are grated
    To dusty nothing, yet let memory
    From false to false among false maids in love
    Upbraid my falsehood.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)