Skip to content
Read • Question • ConnectAnthony’s notes & researchReturn with a new question
Anthony’s NotesA personal field guide
From the notebook

History of American Jews

1654: The First American Jews Arrive

  • Podcast Reference: “The very first Jews in America, the first 23 souls who land in New Amsterdam in 1654, they come off a boat… refugees, poor and desperate and penniless, coming from Recife in Brazil.”
  • Historical Context:
    • September 1654: 23 Sephardic Jews arrive in New Amsterdam (later New York) aboard the Sainte Catherine after fleeing Recife, Brazil, following Portugal’s recapture from the Dutch in January 1654. The Portuguese reinstated the Inquisition, expelling Jews who had lived under Dutch tolerance.
    • Peter Stuyvesant’s Resistance: Governor Stuyvesant petitions the Dutch West India Company to bar Jews, citing economic burden, but the company, reliant on Jewish financiers like Isaac da Costa, overrules him on April 26, 1655, mandating their acceptance.
  • Key Fact: These Jews promise to “take care of their own,” establishing a communal self-reliance ethos that persists in American Jewish identity.

1772-1795: Jews Enter the Russian Empire

  • Podcast Reference: “The Russian Empire absorbed millions of Jews for the first time in the division of Poland… three specific divisions of Poland, 1772, 1793, and 1795.”
  • Historical Context:
    • Partitions of Poland: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is divided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in three stages:
      • July 25, 1772: First Partition annexes eastern Poland to Russia.
      • January 23, 1793: Second Partition expands Russian control.
      • October 24, 1795: Third Partition eliminates Poland, placing 1-1.5 million Jews under Russian rule.
    • Pale of Settlement (1791): Catherine the Great establishes this zone (decreed December 23, 1791) restricting Jews to western territories (modern Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania), barring them from inner Russia to populate borderlands and limit Moscow access.
  • Key Fact: By 1800, Russia hosts Europe’s largest Jewish population, setting the stage for later migrations.

1820-1860: German Jewish Migration to America

  • Podcast Reference: “They are immigrants to the United States from Central Europe, German-speaking immigrants who arrived between 1820 and 1860, most of them in the 1840s and 50s.”
  • Historical Context:
    • 1820s-1860s: About 150,000 German Jews arrive amid 1.7 million Irish and 1.3 million German immigrants. Push factors include Bavarian village laws limiting Jewish populations (e.g., 50% of arrivals from Bavaria face expulsion if numbers grow) and the 1848 revolutions’ economic fallout.
    • Economic Boom: U.S. urbanization rises from 20% to 50% urban (1820-1860), per U.S. Census, creating markets for Jewish peddlers like Marcus Goldman (arrives 1848, founds Goldman Sachs 1869) and the Lehman Brothers (arrive 1844, start cotton brokering 1845).
  • Key Fact: By 1860, American Jews number ~150,000, forming a prosperous base that later absorbs Russian Jews.

1827: Russian Jewish Conscription Begins

  • Podcast Reference: “In 1827, in order to sustain the military deployments that the empire needed, the Russian empire begins to impose a mandatory draft on minorities… among the Jews, the age limits were dropped down to 12.”
  • Historical Context:
    • August 26, 1827: Nicholas I’s decree mandates Jewish conscription, ending double taxation and drafting boys aged 12-25 for 25-year service. The Kahal (Jewish councils) must supply quotas, often abducting poor children via “khappers” (grabbers) for Christianization programs.
    • Impact: Tens of thousands (estimates range 30,000-70,000 by 1856) are taken, fostering deep resentment against Jewish elites who spare their own.
  • Key Fact: This trauma fuels a rejection of traditional Jewish authority among later American immigrants.

1861-1881: Alexander II’s Reforms and Assassination

  • Podcast Reference: “Alexander II… abolished serfdom in 1861… in 1881 is killed, is assassinated… His son, Alexander III, takes power.”
  • Historical Context:
    • February 19, 1861: Alexander II’s Emancipation Manifesto frees 23 million serfs, part of liberal reforms.
    • 1859-1865: Jews gain rights—merchants join guilds (1859), university students and professionals move to cities (1861), craftsmen follow (1865)—raising hopes of Pale abolition.
    • March 13, 1881: Alexander II is assassinated by Narodnaya Volya anarchists in St. Petersburg, ending reformist momentum.
  • Key Fact: His death shifts policy under Alexander III, intensifying anti-Jewish measures.

1881-1921: Mass Migration from Russia

  • Podcast Reference: “From 1881 on by pogroms against the Jews… three million flee westward, two and a half million of them end up in the United States.”
  • Historical Context:
    • May 3 (Old Style) / May 15 (New Style), 1882: Alexander III’s May Laws restrict Jewish residence and economic activity in the Pale. The 1881 pogroms and the later 1891 Moscow expulsions are separate events in the history of escalating restrictions. Jewish Encyclopedia, “May-Laws”.
    • April 19, 1881: First pogrom in Elizavetgrad (modern Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine) sparks waves of violence—Kiev (1881), Odessa (1881), Kishinev (1903)—killing ~200,000 Jews by 1921 (Russian Civil War peak).
    • 1881-1921: 2.5 million Jews migrate to the U.S., peaking in 1906 (200,000 arrivals), per The Jews in America by Arthur Hertzberg. Only 5% return, vs. 57% of Italians (1908-1925), per Gotz Aly’s Europe Against the Jews.
  • Key Fact: These “masses without classes” arrive destitute, unlike Europe’s Jewish elites who stay until the Holocaust.

1895-1900: Jewish Federations Form

  • Podcast Reference: “The first proper federation… established in 1895 in Boston… the second federation… in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1896, in Chicago in 1900.”
  • Historical Context:
    • 1895: Boston’s Federated Jewish Charities unites fundraising for efficiency amid Russian Jewish influx.
    • 1896-1900: Cincinnati (1896), Chicago (1900), and others (St. Louis, Philadelphia) follow, formalizing aid as German Jews support 2.5 million arrivals.
    • 1882: Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) forms, expanding in this period to assist Eastern European Jews.
  • Key Fact: By 1900, federations underpin a multi-billion-dollar institutional network unique among U.S. minorities.

1921: U.S. Immigration Restrictions

  • Podcast Reference: “Beginning in 1881, ending when the American doors closed with the 1921 Emergency Quota Act.”
  • Historical Context:
    • May 19, 1921: The Emergency Quota Act caps immigration at 3% of 1910 nationality totals, slashing Jewish entries from 200,000 (1906) to ~10,000 annually by 1924’s Johnson-Reed Act.
  • Key Fact: This ends mass Jewish migration, locking in the 2.5 million as American Jewry’s core.

Two experiences of rescue: the American and Israeli branches

Gur’s 20 October 2026 Breakfast Club interview connects this migration history to differences in political memory. His Russian Jewish sequence begins with reform hopes under Alexander II, reaction after the tsar’s 1881 assassination, pogroms and exclusion, and large-scale emigration. For many migrants, America offered a future through citizenship in an existing society. The detailed continuation belongs in History of Israel and Jewish People by Haviv Gur. Interview, 41:30–55:25.

1921 and 1924 are the institutional turning points. National-origins quotas narrowed the American route, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe. Gur’s oral “no more Jews” formulation describes the felt exclusion; it should not replace the legal fact that these were quota laws, not a categorical prohibition on Jewish immigration. USHMM.

His sentence “The Israelis are the Jews who couldn’t get into America” is a memorable compression of blocked refuge. American Jews could learn to trust liberal citizenship as the institution that rescued their families; Jews reaching Israel after exclusion, catastrophe, and displacement could learn to trust sovereignty and collective self-defense. This explains divergent instincts without making either community uniform. The later Jewish DP resettlement in America also prevents treating the door as permanently and completely closed.

Retain the comparison: shared concern for Jewish survival can generate different beliefs about how it is secured. Check the compression: exact migration cohorts and totals, individual motives, and country-specific histories still matter. The full dialogue and the hosts’ replies are in Haviv Rettig Gur on The Breakfast Club - Zionism, Rescue and the Collapse of Trust.

Cultural Themes and Analysis:

  • Pre-1881: Russian Jews endure Pale restrictions and Alexander II’s reforms, dashed by 1881 pogroms and laws.
  • 1881-1921: Mass flight of 2.5 million poor Jews to America, rejecting elites and rabbinic authority due to conscription trauma (1827-1856).
  • 1820-1881: German Jews (150,000) build wealth, absorbing Russian arrivals with federations (1895+).
  • Post-1921: American Jews Americanize, shedding distinct culture for integration, yet retain a unique communal ethos of self-care—evident from 1654 to 2023 crises.