How America Met the Jews (Brown Judaic Studies)

Explore how American conditions and Jewish circumstances collided in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

In this new book award-winning author Hasia R. Diner explores the issues behind why European Jews overwhelmingly chose to move to the United States between the 1820s and 1920s. Unlike books that tend to romanticize American freedom as the force behind this period of migration or that tend to focus on Jewish contributions to America or that concentrate on how Jewish traditions of literacy and self-help made it possible for them to succeed, Diner instead focuses on aspects of American life and history that made it the preferred destination for 90 percent of European Jews.

Features:

• Examination of the realities of race, immigration, color, money, economic development, politics, and religion in America
• Exploration of an America agenda that sought out white immigrants to help stoke economic development and that valued religion as a force for morality