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1654
Jacob Barsimon and Solomon Pietersen arrive in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam from Holland in the summer of 1654. They are the first Jews in this town of only a few hundred inhabitants but they are not the first Jews to step foot on the shores of North America. In 1649, the merchant Solomon Franco had arrived in Boston, where he was granted a weekly stipend by the Puritan authorities on the condition that he leave on the next available passage to Holland.
1654
The Portuguese regain control of Brazil from the Dutch, and expel all Dutch subjects, including Jews. Most set sail for Amsterdam. Others head for the Caribbean.
1654
Twenty-three Jewish refugees from Brazil arrive in New Amsterdam in September. Their intended destination is unknown but they had almost certainly not been planning on coming to this port. They are destitute. Ten are adults. Thirteen are children of various ages. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland, writes to the Dutch West India Company, rulers of the colony, asking for permission to expel them. In his letter he calls Jews a "deceitful race" who profess an "abominable religion." Stuyvesant also wishes to exclude from his colony all Lutherans and Quakers.
1654
Several of the refugees, including Asser Levy, a registered burgher of Amsterdam and the son of a merchant in Frankfurt, Germany, ask their friends and relatives in Amsterdam to petition Jewish stockholders of the Dutch West India Company to intervene on their behalf.
1655
The Dutch West India Company orders Governor Peter Stuyvesant to permit the Jewish refugees from Recife, Brazil (who had arrived the year before) to settle permanently in New Netherland.
1655
Oliver Cromwell, responding to a request from the Amsterdam Jewish community, states that he favors the settlement of Jews in England, from which they have been officially excluded for almost 400 years.
1656
The Dutch West India Company, ruler of New Amsterdam, orders Governor Peter Stuyvesant to let the colony's Jews trade freely and own real estate. They are still barred from civic office and denied the right to publicly practice their religion. Some establish commercial links with Jewish merchants in Curacao.
1656
The Jewish community of New Amsterdam acquires its first cemetery.
1657
Governor Peter Stuyvesant decrees that the Jews of New Netherland are eligible for full burgher (civic) rights in the colony. After a two-year campaign, Asser Levy (one of the original group of 23 Jewish refugees from Recife who had arrived in 1654) wins the right to serve in the militia of New Amsterdam.
1657
Emboldened by Oliver Cromwell's 1655 statement in favor of Jewish settlement in England, the small community of Jews in London (about 34 families of mostly Spanish and Portuguese extraction) begin to worship openly.
1658
A few Dutch Jews arrive in Newport, Rhode Island, possibly from Curacao.
1659
"David the Jew" is arrested for peddling goods in Connecticut to children whose parents were absent from home. This is the first record of a Jewish presence in that strictly Puritan colony.
1661
Asser Levy (one of the original group of 23 Jewish refugees from Recife who had arrived in 1654) purchases a house in New Amsterdam, thus becoming the first Jew in North America to own a house. Unlike most of his fellow Jewish settlers, who soon leave the colony, Levy will remain in the region for the rest of his life, as will many of his descendants.
1661
King Charles II of England grants the rights and privileges of "natural born subjects of England" to all settlers on the island of Jamaica and their children. Remarkably, this policy extends to Jamaican Jews as well. It sets a precedent for England's other colonies in the New World.
1663
All of the original group of 23 Jewish refugees from Recife who had arrived in 1654 -- except for Asser Levy and Abraham De Lucena -- have left New Amsterdam.
1664
An English expeditionary force conquers New Netherland. The articles of capitulation that formalize the takeover include a clause guaranteeing freedom of conscience to all inhabitants of the colony. The territory is renamed New York but retains its Dutch flavor for many years. Jews are granted broad rights, including freedom of worship.
1665
The legislature of Rhode Island enacts a law permitting Jews and Catholics to vote and hold public office. This law would, however, be omitted from later codifications of Rhode Island law.
1669
The founding fathers of the colony of South Carolina draft a constitution stating that Jews are welcome as settlers.
1674
The Duke of York formally grants full religious liberty to all inhabitants of New York.
1674
A tax list in Boston includes the names of two Jews, the first indication of Jewish residents in the strictly Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1677
A few Jews from Barbados settle in Newport, Rhode Island. The Jewish community in Barbados, founded by refugees from Brazil in 1655, numbers about 300.
1678
The Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, buy land for a cemetery. It will be the oldest Jewish cemetery in the U.S. to survive until modern times. Newport's Jewish community lasts for more than a decade but eventually disbands.
1682
In the late 1670s and early 1680s, a new group of Jews settle on New York's Manhattan Island, eventually necessitating the purchase of land for a second cemetery.
1683
The Charter of Liberties of New York extends the right of public worship to Christians only.
1689
After invading England at the invitation of its leading citizens, William of Orange, the head of the Dutch military, and his wife Mary, who is of English royal blood, become coregents of England. William's invasion had been underwritten by Antonio Lopez Suasso, a prominent Jewish merchant in The Hague and a large shareholder of the Dutch West India Company.
1689
England's new rulers accept the Toleration Act, granting freedom of worship to non-Anglican Protestants, and the landmark Bill of Rights, which recognizes the inviolable civil and political rights of English citizens and the primacy of a democratically elected Parliament.
1689
The influential English philosopher John Locke proclaims: "If we may openly speak the truth [...] neither Pagan nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion."
1692
Witch trials are held in Salem, Massachusetts. In a six-month period from May to October, a special court condemns and hangs 19 women as witches. 150 people are imprisoned until colonial authorities step in to dissolve the court and release the prisoners.
1692
Jews in New York hold their first public service, in a rented room on Beaver Street.
1693
90 Jews are purported to have arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, fleeing an epidemic in Curacao.
1697
The legislature of South Carolina adopts a law allowing Jews to naturalize and vote. Four Jewish settlers living in Charleston are naturalized. Over the next 50 years, only 15 adult Jewish men are known to live in this city.
1700
The Jewish population of Amsterdam reaches about 8,000, its ranks swollen by Jews expelled from German lands in the wake of the Thirty Years War and by an influx of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe.
1700
There are about 100-150 Jews in New York out of total population of about 5,000. The Jewish population of all English colonies in North America amounts to no more than 200 or 300. The total population of the colonies has reached about 250,000.
1700
Jewish settlement throughout the Caribbean is nearing a high point. Curacao alone has more than 125 families (more than all the Jews in all the English colonies on the mainland of North America). There are also significant communities on Barbados, Jamaica, and St. Eustatius, and in Surinam. The following year, more than half the spring shipments from New York's Jewish merchants go to Barbados. They include textiles, cocoa, rum, wine, and fur.
1711
Jewish businessmen in New York, including the "hazan" (prayer leader) of the Jewish congregation, contribute funds to build the steeple of Trinity Church.
1711
The ships of New York Jewish merchants travel to England, Holland, Newfoundland, St. Thomas, South Carolina, Curacao, Jamaica, and St. Christopher with cargoes that include salt, sugar, slaves, bottles, bricks, coconuts, pork, textiles, tobacco, and onions. By 1713, there are 140 Jewish families on Curacao, making up almost one third the white population of the island. There are also significant communities on Barbados, Jamaica, and St. Eustatius, and in Surinam.
1714
The Spaniard Luis Gomez purchases land five miles north of Newburgh, New York. He will build a stone house on the plot which will serve as a seasonal trading post. It will become one of the oldest continuously lived-in residences in the U.S. and the oldest surviving Jewish residence in North America. Gomez's family had fled to France from the Spanish Inquisition. When the Huguenots were driven from France (1685) his family moved to England. In 1705, Luis obtained papers of denization (rights of citizenship) from the British crown. Once he and his family came to America these papers guaranteed him commercial rights in all British colonies, including the right to own land, own ships, and engage in trade.
1715
The legislature of New York passes a measure offering naturalization to all immigrants who own real estate or who have been in the colony for more than 32 years. Thirteen Jews will become citizens under this act.
1717
The Spaniard Luis Gomez purchases land five miles north of Newburgh, New York. He will build a stone house on the plot which will serve as a seasonal trading post. It will become one of the oldest continuously lived-in residences in the U.S. and the oldest surviving Jewish residence in North America. Gomez's family had fled to France from the Spanish Inquisition. When the Huguenots were driven from France (1685) his family moved to England. In 1705, Luis obtained papers of denization (rights of citizenship) from the British crown. Once he and his family came to America these papers guaranteed him commercial rights in all British colonies, including the right to own land, own ships, and engage in trade.
1720
Renewed activity of the Inquisition in Portugal drives as many as 1,500 New Christians (forced Jewish converts or their descendants) to London. Some of them continue on to the American colonies.
1720
The total population of Philadelphia reaches 10,000. The total population of New York is 7,000.
1720
Over the next decade the number of Ashkenazic Jews (those of Eastern or Central European background) in the American colonies comes to exceed that of Sephardic Jews (those of Spanish or Portuguese background). The Jewish population remains small and still numbers only a few hundred.
1721
South Carolina restricts voting rights to white propertied Christians.
1722
Judah Monis, a naturalized citizen of New York (1715) who moved to Boston, converts to Christianity and is publicly baptized. One month later, he is appointed instructor in Hebrew at Harvard College, a post he will hold until 1760. In the following year, he will be awarded a Master of Arts degree from Harvard College.
1730
The Jewish community of New York reaches about 200 in number. They are organized into a congregation, Shearith Israel, which dedicates its new synagogue, the first in North America, in a building on Mill Street in New York, on land purchased two years earlier. They are assisted by contributions from the Jewish community on Curacao. The following year, a school building will be constructed near the synagogue.
1733
London's impoverished community sends 42 Jews to the new colony of Georgia, the last of the 13 original American colonies to be established (1732). They settle in the fledgling community of Savannah, constituting perhaps a third of its early population. Many of them will move on to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1740-1741, but a handful of families will stay to form the core of a small community.
1733
Abigail Franks, wife of New York merchant Jacob Franks, begins a correspondence with her son Naphtali, who has gone to England for employment. This series of letters, spanning the years 1733-1748, discuss politics, private matters, and the family's transatlantic business. They are notable for revealing the thoughts of a colonial Jewish woman trying to remain dedicated to Jewish identity while participating in the culture at large -- a dilemma almost entirely unfamiliar to Jews outside the American colonies.
1735
Judah Monis, an instructor in Hebrew at Harvard who had been born Jewish but been baptized in 1722, publishes "A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue" for use in his courses. Hebrew type is imported from London and one thousand copies of the book are printed. It is the first book with Hebrew type published in America.
1737
Two Jewish brothers, Isaac and Nathan Levy, arrive in Philadelphia from New York to serve as commercial representatives for their family interests. They are the first Jews to become permanent inhabitants of the city.
1739
A German Lutheran minister visits Georgia and comments: "The Englishmen, nobility and common folks alike, treat the Jews as their equal. They drink, gamble and walk together with them; in fact, let them take part in all their fun. Yes, they desecrate Sunday with them, a thing no Jew would do on their Sabbath to please a Christian!"
1740
The British Parliament passes the Plantation Act, which offers naturalization to foreign Protestants and Jews who reside permanently in the colonies for at least seven years. Jews in the colonies thereby receive greater toleration than in England, where naturalization is forbidden. Naturalization does not, however, confer the right to vote or hold public office.
1740
In New York, Rachel Levy marries Isaac Mendes Seixas, the son of Ashkenazic parents. The marriage causes an uproar among the Sephardic Seixas clan and other New York Sephardim (Jews of Spanish or Portuguese background). In subsequent years, intermarriage between Ashkenazim (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent) and Sephardim will become widespread in the American colonies. In other countries, it remains all but unheard of.
1742
Philadelphia has a total population of 13,000. The Jewish community of Philadelphia grows as people arrive from New York and Europe. By the 1740s, the community has its own cemetery and conducts services.
1742
New York has a total population of 11,000 and Boston's population is 16,000.
1748
A Swedish university professor visiting New York observes its Jews and comments: "They enjoy all the privileges common to other inhabitants of this town and province."
1749
A Jewish community is formed in Charleston, South Carolina. Over the next 30 years, about 50 different Jewish family names appear in the records of Charleston.
1750
England has a Jewish population of about 8,000. Three quarters of them are Ashkenazic Jews from Poland, Germany, or Holland. They are barred from public office and universities, but so are Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, groups that are the target of most religious hostility in England.
1750
Portuguese is used for the last time in the official records of the congregation Shearith Israel of New York. The Jewish community of New York numbers a little more than 200.
1750
Curacao has a population of 250 Jewish families, more than 1,300 people, most of whom have relatives in Amsterdam. This community is a vital trading link for Jewish communities in the English colonies of the North America.
1752
Aaron Lopez arrives in Newport, Rhode Island, fleeing the Inquisition in Portugal. Within a decade he will be one of Newport's most successful merchants. Vessels that he owns visit ports in Western Europe, in the English colonies of North America, and in the Caribbean and South America.
1752
Newport is the fourth most important port for the transatlantic slave trade, though it is far outdistanced by the British ports of Liverpool, London, and Bristol. Though a few Jewish merchants in Newport will become important slave traders, it is the city's Christian merchants who are by far the most important slave traders in North America. They dominate the extremely lucrative triangle trade, shipping Rhode Island rum and other goods to Africa in exchange for slaves that are sold in the Caribbean and southern colonies in exchange for sugar and molasses that are brought to Rhode Island to be used in the manufacture of rum.
1755
A great earthquake strikes Lisbon, Portugal, destroying most of the city. Many New Christians (forced Jewish converts or their descendants) escape the prisons of the Inquisition. They and other New Christians flee Portugal for more tolerant lands in Europe. A few make their way to the North American colonies. In the years of rebuilding that follow, the Inquisition ceases its pursuit of Judaizers (secret Jews) in Lisbon. Two decades later, New Christians will be granted rights equal to other citizens of Portugal.
1755
New York's congregation Shearith Israel expands its school's hours to five days a week in both winter and summer. Spanish, English, writing, and arithmetic are added to the curriculum.
1759
The Jewish community in Newport, Rhode Island, begins developing plans for a synagogue.
1759
Rabbi Moses Malki of Safed, Palestine, spends more than four months in New York. It is possible that he helps Shearith Israel, which has no rabbi, arrange its religious affairs. He also travels to Newport, where he meets with the Christian scholar Ezra Stiles. Malki is the first Palestinian emissary to the New World.
1761
Aaron Lopez and Isaac Elizer, both of Newport, Rhode Island, apply for naturalization under the British Plantation Act of 1740. The Rhode Island Assembly dismisses their petition on religious grounds.
1761
Aaron Lopez sends his first ship to Africa to obtain slaves for sale in the New World. Over the course of his lifetime he will engage in 21 shipments of slaves, representing approximately 10 percent of his total commercial activities. (Until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Newport's Jewish merchants will engage in a combined total of 27 shipments of slaves as part of the triangle trade. During the same period, Newport's Christian merchants will make a total of 320 shipments of slaves.)
1761
Isaac Pinto, a New York merchant, does the first translation of a Jewish prayer book into English. His "Evening Services for Rosh-Hashanah and Yom Kippur" is printed in New York.
1762
The Superior Court of Rhode Island upholds the decision of the Rhode Island assembly to reject Aaron Lopez' and Isaac Elizer's application for naturalization, submitted a year earlier. The two apply in neighboring colonies and are accepted.
1763
The Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian Wars (1689-1763), in which the British and French had fought for control of colonial territory in North America, with the British finally gaining all of Canada. The last eight years of this conflict drain the British coffers and result in escalating taxes on the English landed gentry.
1763
The Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, dedicate their first synagogue, designed by Rhode Island's leading architect, Peter Harrison. Designed in Palladian style, it reflects the latest trends in architectural fashion. It will become known as the Touro Synagogue after its first "hazan" (prayer leader) Isaac Touro and his sons Abraham and Judah, who provide funds for its maintenance.
1765
To help meet the cost of defending the North American colonies, the British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, levying a tariff throughout the colonies on legal writs, newspaper advertisements, and ships' bills of lading. The colonial economy had already been suffering as a result of the French and Indian War (1689-1763). Now, mobs riot in Boston and other towns and eject stamp distributors from their posts. Embargoes are planned against British goods.
1765
Philadelphia's Jewish community numbers 25 families. In protest of the Stamp Act, ten of Philadelphia's Jewish merchants join another 375 merchants of that city in signing a pledge to stop all imports from England. They protest the "restrictions, prohibitions, and ill-advised regulations" of British policy.
1767
Two years after passing the Stamp Act, the British impose duties on a wide range of goods imported by colonies, in another attempt to raise money. Committees are organized throughout the colonies to limit the importation of British goods.
1768
The Jewish community of Montreal establishes the first congregation in Canada. They call it Shearith Israel and adopt the practices of New York's Shearith Israel congregation.
1768
Gershom Mendes Seixas is appointed "hazan" (prayer leader) of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York. He is the son of Isaac Mendes Seixas, a Sephardic Jew (of Spanish or Portuguese background) and Rachel Levy, an Ashkenazic Jew (of Eastern/Central European background), whose marriage had created a scandal among New York's Sephardim in 1740. Seixas is the first native-born Jewish religious leader.
1770
The British repeal duties on all goods imported to the colonies except tea.
1770
There are hardly more than a thousand Jews out of the two million inhabitants of the British colonies of North America. More than 80 percent of the colonial population is British.
1770
In New York City, over the period from 1688 to 1770, 57 Jews have attained "freeman" status, the rough equivalent of "freeholder" in rural areas. This status has allowed them to vote in municipal elections and to be eligible for election to municipal office. New York is, however, the only community to consistently grant Jews civic rights.
1771
Philadelphia's Jewish community rents quarters for worship.
1771
Savannah, Georgia, has a total population of 3,000. It is home to 16 Jews.
1773
The British Parliament passes the Tea Act to help the East India Company out of financial difficulties. It grants the company a monopoly on the sale of all tea in the North American colonies. In protest, a party of Bostonians dumps tea worth 10,000 pounds sterling into Boston Harbor. The British Parliament will respond by closing the port of Boston and appointing a new government for the colony.
1773
Rabbi Hayyim Carigal of Hebron, Palestine, who had first arrived in Philadelphia a year earlier, delivers a sermon in the synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island. It is attended by the colonial governor, Joseph Wanton, and is the first recorded presence of an American official at a Jewish religious ceremony.
1773
While in Newport, Carigal becomes friends with the theologian Ezra Stiles, later the president of Yale College, who comes several times to hear Carigal speak in the synagogue. During his six-month stay in Newport, Carigal meets with Stiles more than 28 times. They discuss kabbalah, the Hebrew and Arabic languages, Turkish-Jewish relations in Palestine, and numerous other subjects. Carigal tutors Stiles intensively in Hebrew, and by the end of his stay they have begun a written correspondence in Hebrew that will continue until Carigal's death in 1777.
1774
A Continental Congress is established to coordinate the colonial response to British actions. All the colonies except Georgia send delegations. It includes among its members Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. The goal of most delegates is to resolve colonial grievances and reestablish amicable relations with Great Britain.
1774
Francis Salvador, a recent arrival from England, is elected to the General Assembly of South Carolina. He is the first Jew to hold so high an elective office in the colonies. He is also elected to South Carolina's revolutionary Provincial Congress.
1774
King's College in New York (est.1754) graduates its first Jewish student, Isaac Abrahams. After the Revolution the school will be renamed Columbia College.
1775
In April, British forces clash with Massachusetts' militia at Lexington and Concord. A full-scale military conflict ensues and quickly spreads to other colonies.
1775
The Second Continental Congress convenes and includes among its new members Thomas Jefferson, representing Virginia, and Benjamin Franklin, representing Pennsylvania. In May, the congress places the colonies on a war footing. A continental army is created and in June, George Washington is made its commander in chief.
1775
In Savannah, Georgia, the committee enforcing the decisions of the American patriots against British interests is chaired by Mordechai Sheftall, a merchant and son of one of the Jewish colonists who arrived in 1733. Another member of the committee is Philip Minis, also a son of one of the original Jewish colonists.
1776
In the spring, the Continental Congress recommends that the colonies establish new governments, and it appoints a committee to draft a declaration of independence. The American Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, is adopted and signed on July 4 in Philadelphia by members of the Continental Congress. It proclaims, among other things, that "all men are created equal."
1776
Tens of thousands of British and Hessian troops begin to arrive in August to crush the revolution.
1776
A few Jews are royalists, but most American Jews support the Revolutionary cause. Approximately 100 Jews throughout the colonies (about 8 percent of the Jewish population) volunteer for military service, including about 30 in South Carolina and 22 members of New York's Jewish community.
1776
In one of the earliest engagements of the Revolutionary War, Francis Salvador is killed while fighting in the militia of South Carolina. He is the first Jew to die in the war.
1776
Most of New York's Jews flee when the British occupy the city. Most of Newport, Rhode Island's Jews also flee British occupation. Only seven Jewish royalists remain in Newport.
1777
A German mercenary in the British forces in New York comments that the Jews in America "are not like the ones we have in Europe and Germany, who are recognizable by their beards and their clothes, for these are dressed like other citizens."
1777
The newly drafted constitution of New York State reaffirms freedom of religion and extends voting rights to "every male inhabitant of full age" without religious restrictions. It is the only state constitution adopted during the war that permits Jews to vote or hold public office.
1777
Yale graduates the brothers William and Solomon Pinto, sons of one of the first two Jewish inhabitants of New Haven, Connecticut. Their father had settled in New Haven in the 1750s and married a Christian woman. He never converted, and the boys were raised as Deists.
1778
Merchant Mordechai Sheftall, who had become chair of the committee representing patriot interests in Savannah, Georgia, in 1775, is appointed Deputy Commissary General for the federal troops stationed in Georgia and South Carolina. Late in the year, as Savannah's defenses are overrun by British troops, many American soldiers escape by swimming across the Savannah River. British troops capture Sheftall who has stayed behind with his teenage son, Sheftall Sheftall.
1779
Solomon Bush, son of a Philadelphia merchant, serves as lieutenant colonel in the Continental army, the highest rank held by any Jewish officer at this time.
1779
Philip Minis and Levi Sheftall serve as guides to French and American forces in their attempt to recapture Savannah from the British. Minis is a member of Savannah, Georgia's patriot committee and Sheftall is the son of Mordechai Sheftall (Deputy Commissary General for the federal troops stationed in Georgia and South Carolina who had been captured by the British a year earlier).
1780
Following the British evacuation of Philadelphia in 1778, the city becomes a haven for hundreds of Jews, a large percentage of the total Jewish population of the colonies.
1780
Gershom Mendes Seixas, "hazan" (cantor and prayer leader) of Shearith Israel in New York, a refugee together with most of his congregation in Philadelphia, becomes "hazan" of Philadelphia's Mikveh Israel congregation until the end of the war.
1780
The company of soldiers raised by Captain Richard Lushington in Charleston, South Carolina, includes 26-28 Jews, almost half his men, and comes to be known as the "Jew Company."
1780
American general Benedict Arnold informs the British of American military plans and plots to surrender the fort at West Point, New York. Discovered, he flees to the British side. His aide-de-camp David Salisbury Franks (from a Philadelphia Jewish family) and other of Arnold's aides request a court of inquiry to clear their names. The court finds them innocent of all wrongdoing. Franks remains in the military, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and becoming a diplomatic courier and occasional confidant of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
1780
The widow Shinah Etting and five of her children move to Baltimore, Maryland, from York, Pennsylvania. She opens a boarding house "for gentlemen" on Market Street. Her sons Solomon and Reuben will become prominent Baltimore citizens.
1781
Haym Salomon, a Polish Jewish immigrant who had arrived New York in 1772, and who had acted as supplier to American troops and as paymaster general to French forces assisting the revolutionaries, becomes assistant to Robert Morris in raising funds to finance the patriot cause. Salomon lends money at nominal rates to impecunious members of the Continental Congress, among them James Madison. Solomon will be bankrupt. It will be claimed by his heirs that the U.S. government still owed him in excess of $350,000.
1781
In early October, the British commander in the southern colonies, General Lord Cornwallis, surrenders his entire army to combined American and French forces at Yorktown, Virginia. This ends most hostilities of the war and makes an American victory all but certain.
1782
The Jewish community in Philadelphia, with a population dramatically increased by refugees from other cities, constructs its first permanent synagogue. Savannah merchant Mordechai Sheftall, who had served as Deputy Commissary General for the federal troops stationed in Georgia and South Carolina during the war, is one of the leaders in this effort. Haym Salomon, a financier of the revolution, is a major financial contributor. The congregation invites the governor and lieutenant governor to the dedication ceremonies.
1782
On his way home to Newport, Rhode Island, from his wartime refuge in Massachusetts, merchant Aaron Lopez drowns in a freak accident when his horse bolts into a pond. He dies bankrupt, the war having wiped out his once sizable fortune.
1783
Britain formally recognizes the independence of the U.S. when it signs the Paris Peace Treaty in early September.
1783
As British forces finally withdraw from New York, that city's Jewish community returns after an absence of seven years.
1783
Mordechai Sheftall, who had served as Deputy Commissary General for the federal troops stationed in Georgia and South Carolina during the war, returns to Savannah and writes to his son that now that all hostilities between England and the U.S. have ended "we have the world to begine [sic] again."
1784
David Salisbury Franks (once aide-de-camp in the revolutionary forces, and subsequently a diplomatic courier carrying documents to Benjamin Franklin in Paris and to John Jay in Madrid) is made vice-consul in Marseilles, France. He is the first Jew to serve in a U.S. diplomatic post.
1784
Gershom Mendes Seixas, "hazan" (cantor and prayer leader) of the Shearith Israel congregation, becomes a member of the board of trustees of Columbia College in New York. He will serve until 1815.
1786
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, authored by Thomas Jefferson, is enacted into law by the General Assembly of that state thanks to the efforts of James Madison. It provides for freedom of worship and separation of church and state, and it assures equal civil rights to all, regardless of religious opinions or beliefs. It will serve as a model for the freedom of religion clauses in the federal constitution. Jefferson will ask that he be remembered on his tombstone not for any of the high offices he held but, instead, for his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Religious Liberty.
1786
The Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina, is split when a group of Sephardim secede from Congregation Beth Elohim, where the Ashkenazi rite is followed, and form Congregation Beth Elohim Unveh Shallom. The split proves only temporary, but it is a sign of things to come.
1786
Jews in Philadelphia establish the U.S.'s first immigrant aid society.
1787
The Confederation Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance, which establishes rules for governance of the Northwest Territory and the states that might emerge from it. Among the requirements of such new states is that they ensure civil and religious liberty. Article I states in its entirety: "No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory."
1787
Richea Gratz, daughter of Philadelphia merchant Michael Gratz, is among the first class of students at Franklin College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is the first Jewish woman in America to attend a formal secondary school.
1788
The federal constitution is ratified by a majority of the states. Article IV states in part: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the United States." Although not binding with respect to state office holders, this clause will be emulated by many states in their new constitutions. Maryland, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, however, continue to insist upon religious qualifications for state office for several decades.
1788
After most Jewish refugees have returned to their homes in other cities, Philadelphia's Jewish community is so diminished that it makes an appeal to non-Jews for financial help in maintaining the synagogue.
1788
In a great parade in Philadelphia to honor Pennsylvania's ratification of the U. S. Constitution, the "hazan" (cantor and prayer leader) of the synagogue marches arm and arm with two clergymen. At the public feast that accompanies the celebration there is a table with kosher food, despite there being so few Jews present. One participant would remember its being supplied with "soused salmon bread and crackers, almonds, raisins, etc."
1789
A mob in Paris, France, storms the Bastille prison and launches a revolution. The National Assembly abolishes the vestiges of feudal order in France and publishes the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," proclaiming liberty, equality, the inviolability of property, and the right to resist oppression.
1789
George Washington is elected president of the newly formed republic of the United States. His inauguration is held at Federal Hall on Wall Street in Manhattan. Gershom Mendes Seixas, "hazan" (cantor and prayer leader) of New York's Jewish congregation, is one of 14 religious leaders who attend the ceremonies.
1789
Only ten Jewish families live in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the most thriving centers of Jewish life before the American Revolution. Richmond, Virginia, which before the war was home to only one Jew, now has 30 Jewish families and is organizing a congregation.
1790
The economy of Curacao starts to experience severe disruption because of the wars between England, France, and the U.S. Its importance to American Jewish merchants quickly begins to fade.
1790
The first national census estimates that there are between 1,300 and 1,500 Jews in the U.S. out of a total population of 3,893,900. New York City has the largest Jewish population with 242, followed by Charleston, South Carolina, with 200. Savannah, Georgia, has only 12 Jewish families.
1790
With the exception of Maryland, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, all the original states have embraced the principle of religious freedom.
1790
The Jewish communities of Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Richmond, Virginia, send a joint letter of congratulations and good wishes to President George Washington. He replies warmly and concludes: "May the same temporal and eternal blessings which you implore for me, rest upon your congregations."
1790
In response to a letter from the small Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, George Washington writes "the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens."
1791
All Jews of France are granted full rights of citizenship.
1791
The states ratify the Bill of Rights as a series of ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment states in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
1792
The Jews of Charleston, South Carolina, begin to construct a synagogue. Its cornerstone dedication ceremony is performed as a Masonic rite because many of the local Jews are Freemasons.
1792
Services cease in the synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island, where the Jewish community has dwindled.
1792
The organization that will become the New York Stock Exchange is founded. Among the 24 traders who gather at 68 Wall Street to sign the so-called Buttonwood Agreement that sets the rules for trade are Benjamin Seixas, brother of Gershom Mendes Seixas, "hazan" (cantor and prayer leader) of Congregation Shearith Israel, and Ephraim Hart, an immigrant from Bavaria who will become a business associate of John Jacob Astor and serve in the New York Senate from 1816-1822.
1793
The French king Louis XIV is beheaded and a "Reign of Terror" begins in France. The radical Jacobins seize power and institute a dictatorship headed by Robespierre. Almost 200,000 people will be arrested; 17,000 will be executed; and another 10,000 will die in prison as suspected "enemies of the people."
1793
Jonas Phillips, a veteran of the American Revolution and a Jewish merchant in Philadelphia, is fined ten pounds by a Philadelphia court for refusing to testify on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
1794
In a grand ceremony in Charleston, South Carolina, that includes many non-Jews, Congregation Beth Elohim dedicates its new synagogue. The building looks, on the outside, like an English parish church. It will be destroyed in the great Charleston fire of 1838. Its replacement, built in 1840 in Greek Revival style, will survive to the present day, the oldest synagogue in the U.S. in continuous use.
1794
The first American play to feature a Jewish character, Susanna Haswell Rowson's musical "Slaves in Algiers," has a Jewish villain, Ben Hassan, with a beautiful daughter who wants to convert to Christianity.
1795
Ratification of the Jay Treaty between the U.S. and England causes a controversy over such concessions as limits on American trading rights in the West Indies and the repayment of pre-revolutionary debt to British merchants. Federalist defenders of the treaty make anti-Semitic attacks on their opponents, the Democratic Republicans (the party of Jefferson, and one with which many Jews are affiliated). A debate results in the press as several Jews defend themselves and non-Jewish Democrats join in their defense.
1796
Dr. Levi Myers of Georgetown, South Carolina, is the first Jew elected to serve in a state legislature in the new republic.
1797
The French army under Napoleon Bonaparte conquers northern Italy and the Netherlands.
1797
Solomon Etting, a Baltimore businessman, and his father-in-law Barnard Gratz, a Philadelphia merchant, unsuccessfully petition the General Assembly of Maryland asking that the state's constitution be amended to abolish the requirement that all public officials take a Christian oath.
1797
"The Algerine Captive" by Royall Tyler features the first Jewish character in an American novel. This tale of an American doctor captured by Algerian pirates portrays certain Muslims and a Jew, Adonah Ben Benjamin, as more civil than most Americans or Europeans. Ben Benjamin, however, ultimately betrays the hero and robs him. Tyler will become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont in 1800.
1798
A furor erupts when it is learned that French agents had solicited a huge bribe the previous year as a precondition for negotiating a commercial treaty with the U.S. The so-called "XYZ Affair" puts the U.S. on the brink of war with France. A series of laws are passed to suppress political dissent. Jeffersonian Republicans generally disapprove of the laws and are castigated by their Federalist opponents. Some Jews, affiliated with the Jeffersonian party, are drawn into the debate.
1799
A group of Ashkenazim (Jews of East or Central European descent) secede from the Mikveh Israel congregation in Philadelphia. In 1802, they will form their own congregation, Rodeph Shalom. This fragmenting of a local community, though uncommon in Europe, will become the norm in America.
1800
After a Jeffersonian Republican convention in Philadelphia, the local Federalist paper, the "Gazette of the United States," publishes an abusive account of the meeting. It describes the attendees as "Jacobins" representing the "very refuse and filth of society." It refers to one African American in attendance as "Citizen Sambo," and calls one Jew "Citizen N__, the bankrupt Jew" and ridicules him for his poverty. The Jew in question is Benjamin Nones, who fought as a patriot in the American Revolution, serving in Count Casimir Pulaski's legion in its defense of Charleston, South Carolina. Nones writes an impassioned defense, which the "Gazette" refuses to publish. It appears in the local Jeffersonian paper instead. In it, Nones states: "I am a Jew, and if so for no other reason, for that reason I am a republican.... in republics we have rights, in monarchies we live but to experience wrongs."
1800
In the novel "Arthur Mervyn" by the Philadelphia author Charles Brockden Brown, the hero marries a rich Jewish widow after having transferred his affections from a simple Christian girl. The novel is set in Philadelphia during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793 and is told in the first person from its hero's point of view.
1800
The total world Jewish population is about 2,500,000, roughly one-third of one percent of the total world population. There are 1,000,000 in the Near East; 800,000 in Russia and Poland; 300,000 in Austria; 80,000 in France; 50,000 in Holland; and 2,000 in the U.S. (total population 5,309,000).
1800
In the following decade, the Jewish community of Charleston, numbering about 500, becomes the largest of all U.S. Jewish communities.
1801
Thomas Jefferson is elected president of the U.S.
1801
Jefferson appoints Reuben Etting as U.S. Marshall for Maryland. Long active in the Jeffersonian Republican party, Etting is the first Jew to become a federal official in the new republic.
1801
The Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina, establishes the Hebrew Orphan Society, one of the earliest Jewish communal philanthropies in America.
1801
Rebecca Gratz, daughter of Philadelphia merchant Michael Gratz, after having helped her mother nurse her bedridden father, joins with her mother and a group of some 20 Jewish and non-Jewish women to found the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances. It is the first non-sectarian women's charitable organization in Philadelphia and serves as a model for many of the women's organizations Gratz will help establish in later years.
1801
David Emanuel, who has served as president of the Georgia state senate, becomes governor of Georgia to complete the previous governor's term. If he is Jewish, as some of his descendants will claim, he is the first Jewish governor of a state. Two years after his death a Georgia county will be named in his honor.
1802
West Point, a national military academy first suggested by George Washington, opens its doors in New York. Simeon M. Levy of Baltimore, Maryland, is among the first class of West Point cadets.
1807
The first known Jewish settler in St. Louis, Missouri, Joseph Philipson, opens a store. He will go on to buy a brewery, a distillery, a sawmill, and stock in the city's second bank. The city remains, however, without a Jewish community.
1808
James Madison is elected president of the U.S. after Thomas Jefferson finishes his second term and retires to his estate in Monticello, Virginia.
1808
John Adams, the second U.S. President (1797-1801), writes a letter criticizing the attitude of the French philosopher Voltaire toward the Jews. He states: "How is it possible [that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern."
1808
Jacob Henry is elected to the state legislature of North Carolina despite a provision in that state's constitution that requires an occupant of office to swear to the divinity of the New Testament. A year later an opponent challenges him on this ground. He makes an eloquent appeal and is able to retain his seat on a technicality. In subsequent years, Catholics, Jews, Quakers, and Deists will hold legislative seats in North Carolina before the restrictive clause is officially revoked in 1868.
1809
Jacob Mordecai, a failing merchant in Warrenton, North Carolina, establishes and runs the Warrenton Female Academy, a private high school, with the support of local townspeople. It is the first Southern private school for girls, and it becomes famous throughout the South for its innovative curriculum, which is the first to provide women with a full liberal arts education.
1812
James Madison is reelected President of the U.S.
1812
The U.S. declares war on England, beginning the War of 1812 (1812-1814). The hostilities are begun because of anger that the British are blockading American ships from French ports and are continuing to stop American ships on the high seas and impress their sailors into the British navy.
1812
As many as 128 Jews join in the war effort, serving in the army, the navy, and in state and local militia. Unlike the Jews who served in the revolutionary war, many of whom were immigrants, almost all of those who fight in the War of 1812 are native-born Americans.
1812
Uriah Phillips Levy joins the U.S. Navy. His naval career will span almost 50 years. A fifth-generation American, he will not shy from controversy. His unorthodox methods and quarrelsome nature will lead to a series of six courts-martial, but he will eventually rise to the rank of Commodore, becoming the first Jew to reach that level of command in the Navy. One reason for both his unpopularity and his lasting fame will be his championing a law to prohibit corporal punishment in the navy. An admirer of Thomas Jefferson, Levy will purchase Jefferson's abandoned home, Monticello, from the Jefferson estate in 1836 and will spend large sums of money to restore and preserve it as a public historical monument. Monticello will remain in the Levy family until 1923.
1812
Hannah Adams, generally thought to be the first American woman to support herself by writing, publishes "History of the Jews from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Present Time." In her work, she includes information about the Jewish community in America. An advocate of converting Jews to Christianity, she fears that the lack of faith among some American Jews might undermine the faith of American Christians.
1813
Mordecai Manuel Noah of Philadelphia, a journalist who campaigned on behalf of James Madison, is appointed by the president to the post of Consul at Tunis. He is the first American Jew named to a diplomatic post of this level. During his years in office, Madison names several other Jews to government posts.
1814
British forces capture Washington, D.C., and burn the White House. U.S. ships defeat the British on Lake Champlain, and the two countries sign a peace treaty ending hostilities.
1814
In Philadelphia, the printer William Fry reprints a version of the Hebrew Bible first printed in Amsterdam. He uses fonts imported from Amsterdam by Dr. Jonathan Horwitz, who had hoped to do the printing himself. Fry's bible is the first Hebrew Bible printed in the U.S.
1815
The armies of Napoleon are defeated at Waterloo.
1815
At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), diplomats from Russia, Austria, Great Britain, and France redraw the map of Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. The question of Jewish rights is raised for the first time in an international conference, but no effective action is taken.
1815
Many countries revoke constitutions written under French influence, and in many places Jews lose their newly won rights of citizenship.
1815
The U.S. Department of State recalls Mordecai Manuel Noah from his post as Consul to Tunis. Secretary of State James Monroe explains "At the time of your appointment, as Consul at Tunis, it was not known that the religion which you profess would form an obstacle to the exercise of your Consular functions." President Madison explains his recall was necessary because of "the ascertained prejudice of the Turks against his Religion, and it having become public that he was a Jew." Suspected of misappropriating funds, Noah is fully cleared after an investigation.
1816
James Monroe is elected President of the U.S.
1816
Two Jews are elected to the city council of Richmond, Virginia. One year earlier a Jew had been elected recorder, the next highest office under mayor. Richmond's small Jewish community will remain highly integrated into the town's civic life for decades to come.
1816
Between 1816 and 1819, 37 out of 97 Jewish businessmen, artisans, and wage earners in New York City list themselves as "merchants," but almost none are involved in shipping, a marked change from pre-revolutionary days.
1817
Joseph Jonas, an English-born watch-maker, settles in Cincinnati (pop. 6,000), becoming the first Jew to settle permanently in the state of Ohio.
1817
The Supreme Court of the state of Pennsylvania upholds the conviction of Abraham Wolf, a practicing Jew, for having worked on a Sunday. The court's opinion reads in part: "The invaluable privilege of the rights of conscience secured to us by the constitution of the commonwealth was never intended to shelter those persons, who, out of mere caprice, would directly oppose those laws for the pleasure of showing their contempt and abhorrence of the religious opinions of the great mass of the citizens."
1817
The New York stock market is reorganized as the New York Stock and Exchange Board. One of those who participate in this reorganization is Bernard Hart, a New York merchant whose grandson by his first marriage (in 1799) to a non-Jew, Catherine Brett, will be the American author Bret Harte.
1818
A new synagogue is founded in Hamburg, Germany, the first dedicated to the principles of Reform Judaism, a movement that has been developing in Berlin over the previous decade. Its services are abbreviated and accompanied by a choir and organ. Sermons and prayers are spoken in the vernacular. This new movement will soon have a major influence on congregations in the U.S.
1818
New York's Congregation Shearith Israel builds a new synagogue. Its opening is attended by Governor DeWitt Clinton. Invitations are also extended to the president, the mayor, and other non-Jewish notables.
1819
Riots break out in southern Germany as mobs attack Jewish communities, breaking windows and looting stores. The so-called "Hep Hep" riots start in Bavaria but spread to major cities throughout Germany. Military force is used to suppress them. Among the factors behind the riots are tensions over extending equal rights to Jews.
1819
In Philadelphia, Rebecca Gratz helps establish the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society to provide needy Jewish women and their children with food, fuel, and shelter. It is the first Jewish women's charitable organization in America independent of a synagogue.
1819
The Scottish author Sir Walter Scott publishes the novel, "Ivanhoe," which features two prominent Jewish characters, a moneylender Isaac, who is of noble character, and his beautiful daughter Rebecca, who is the true heroine of the tale. She nurses the hero Ivanhoe back to health, and when taken captive by a villainous Knight Templar she articulates the moral vision of her people and condemns the false values of medieval chivalry. It is rumored that the character of Rebecca was inspired by Rebecca Gratz of Philadelphia, about whom Scott had heard from his friend, the American author Washington Irving.
1820
James Monroe is reelected President of the U.S.
1820
Women of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York follow the lead of Philadelphia's Jewish women and found their own Female Hebrew Benevolent Society.
1820
Joseph Samuel Christian Frederick Frey establishes The American Society for Meliorating the Conditions of the Jews, an organization devoted to proselytizing American Jews. Frey had been born Joseph Samuel Levy in Germany, but converted and was baptized in 1798. He had been a missionary to Jews in England before coming to America in 1816. His new organization publishes a periodical entitled "Israel's Advocate" and survives for a number of years with little demonstrable success.
1820
The national census suggests a total of between 2,650 and 2,750 Jews in the U.S., a mere three one-hundredths of one percent of the total population. Most live in Charleston, South Carolina (700); New York (550); Richmond, Virginia (191 people in 32 families); Baltimore, Maryland (125); Savannah, Georgia (94 people in 21 families); and Philadelphia (500).
1820
The Jewish community of Savannah constructs its first synagogue. The dedication service is accompanied by a choir and music played on an organ by the organist of the local Presbyterian church. The ceremony of laying the cornerstone, which had taken place a few months earlier, had been an elaborate Masonic ritual attended by Jews and non-Jewish Freemasons.
1820
The community of Richmond builds its first synagogue.
1822
The Torah scrolls of the Newport synagogue are removed to Shearith Israel in New York. Not a single Jew remains in the Newport.
1822
Journalist and ex-diplomat Mordecai Manuel Noah, after associating himself with the Tammany Society, becomes high sheriff of New York City.
1823
Solomon Henry Jackson begins publication of a monthly periodical entitled "The Jew; being a Defense of Judaism against all Adversaries and Particularly against the Insidious Attacks of 'Israel's Advocate'." Its purpose is to counter the attacks being made by Christian evangelists, particularly by "Israel's Advocate," an evangelical publication founded in 1820. The tone of "The Jew" is forthright and tough, and Jackson does not hesitate to denounce Christians where he sees fit. Though it survives only two years, it is the first Jewish periodical in America and evidence of the confidence Jews feel about engaging in public debate.
1825
The first Jewish congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bene Israel, marks its first year.
1825
Congregation Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina, is split when Isaac Harby leads a breakaway group to found the Reformed Society of Israelites, the first attempt at Reform Judaism in America. Like German Jewish reformers, the group seeks shorter, more decorous services and increased use of the vernacular.
1825
The Jewish community of New York splits into two congregations, with the older Shearith Israel continuing to follow the Sephardic ritual, and the newer, B'nai Jeshurun, following the Ashkenazic ritual. The split does not reflect a division between Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, the latter of whom had been more numerous in the community for a century, but rather a division between old colonial families and newer arrivals.
1825
The flamboyant journalist Mordecai Manuel Noah announces with great fanfare the founding of "Ararat," a Jewish colony on Grand Island near where the newly completed Erie Canal meets the Niagara River. This proposed "city of refuge" is laid out on 2,000 acres of land he has recently purchased, and he invites American Indians to join in the enterprise (thinking them members of the Lost Tribes). The plan is generally ridiculed by the Jewish press and, despite a few expressions of interest, no one ever settles there.
1826
The Maryland legislature passes a "Jew Bill" that permits Jews to take public office without making a Christian oath. The culmination of a decade-long struggle by Solomon Etting, the bill is enacted after heated debate only because of the steadfast support of the Hagerstown delegate, Thomas Kennedy, a non-Jew. Jews are allowed to substitute a declaration of belief in "a future state of rewards and punishments" for the usual Christian oath. A few months later, Solomon Etting and Jacob I. Cohen, Jr. are elected to the Baltimore City Council.
1827
Jacob da Silva Solis, a pious merchant active in New York and Wilmington, visits New Orleans and discovers that its 25 adult Jewish male residents have not organized into a congregation. He is instrumental in bringing them together to found a new congregation, Shaarei Chessed. Among the contributors to the congregation is Judah Touro, a local merchant whose father had been "hazan" (cantor and prayer leader) of the Jewish community in Newport, Rhode Island. Touro, however, never becomes a member of the congregation and remains generally uninterested in Jewish matters.
1828
New York's newest congregation, B'nai Jeshurun, is split when a group of Dutch, German, and Polish Jews breaks away to form the congregation Anshe Chesed.
1829
Isaac Leeser (1806–1868) becomes "hazan" (cantor and prayer leader) of Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. Having arrived from Germany in 1824 to work with his uncle in Richmond, Virginia, Leeser attracted notice in 1828 when an article he wrote defending Judaism was published in a Richmond paper. In the coming decades he will become the most prolific Jewish writer in America and one of the most creative forces in defining American Judaism.
1830
The 1830s marks the continuation and intensification of the wave of immigration of Jews from Central Europe to the U.S. that began in the 1820s. By the 1880s, tens of thousands of Jews will have immigrated to the U.S. Though the immigrants of this era would later be referred to as "German Jews," in reality, they come from many lands and regions and may have included many whose everyday language was Yiddish rather than German.
1830
During the 1830s-40s, various proposals to acquire land in America to build German and Polish Jewish colonies are put forth by European Jews. In 1840, a Berlin pamphlet entitled "Neu-Judaea" calls for the creation of a Jewish state in the Midwestern or Western U.S.
1830
The Jewish community of Baltimore, which has been growing for more than three decades, finally forms its first congregation.
1830
Congregation Bene Israel (Children of Israel), the oldest congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains, is incorporated in Cincinnati by the Ohio legislature. In the mid-19th century, Cincinnati will become America's third largest Jewish community and the center of the American Reform movement.
1831
Isaac Leeser, the cantor and spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel, is the first American congregational leader to introduce regular English-language sermons during weekly Sabbath services.
1833
"Fancy's Sketch Book," a volume of poems by Penina Moise of Charleston, South Carolina, is the first book by a Jewish woman to be published in the U.S. (and the first book of poetry by a Jewish author to be published in the U.S.). Moise later writes 190 original hymns for Charleston's Congregation Beth Elohim, thus becoming the first American Jewish woman to make a significant contribution to synagogue liturgy.
1833
The conviction of Alexander Marks for keeping his store open on Sunday is upheld by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Sunday laws put Jewish merchants at a disadvantage, as observing the Jewish Sabbath means that they are unable to conduct business two days out of every week.
1837
A lack of capital to support newly issued paper money causes about 33,000 U.S. banks to close. German-born August Belmont arrives in U.S. to establish himself as a private banker and to serve as American agent for the House of Rothschild, a fiscal agent of the U.S. since 1834. Belmont later becomes an important U.S. diplomat and politician.
1837
The first American Passover haggadah is printed in New York by Solomon Henry Jackson.
1837
Moses Cohen founds "Sholom," a Jewish farming colony in Wawarsing, Ulster County, New York. The many ideas and proposals for Jewish agrarian settlements attract some immigrants from Europe. But most European immigrants prefer to settle in cities, where they work in petty trade and in jobs in newly emerging industries.
1838
The first Jewish Sunday school is established in Philadelphia by Rebecca Gratz and Anna Marks Allen. Run entirely by women, the coeducational school is open to all Jewish children regardless of class or whether their families hold formal membership in a synagogue. Lessons are taught in English instead of Hebrew. Isaac Leeser, the cantor and spiritual leader of Congregation Mikveh Israel, publishes "The Hebrew Reader," the first American Hebrew primer for children.
1840
The Damascus blood libel prompts organized protests by 15,000 American Jews in New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, Cincinnati, Savannah, and Richmond on behalf of seven Syrian Jews accused of ritual murder. In response to the protests, U.S. President Martin Van Buren orders the U.S. consul in Egypt to dispute the blood libel.
1840
American officials are eager to encourage the establishment of banks as a way of ratifying the financial chaos of the colonial period and of increasing the development of business and industry. By 1840, the Rothschilds, the German Jewish banking family who have been doing business in the U.S. since 1920, have set up affiliates in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
1840
Abraham Rice from Bavaria arrives in the U.S. to become the first traditionally ordained rabbi to officiate in America. He assumes the pulpit at the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. During the 1840s-1860s, other rabbis from Central Europe (such as Leo Merzbacher, Max Lilienthal, Isaac Mayer Wise, Bernhard Felsenthal, David Einhorn, Samuel Adler, and Kaufmann Kohler) begin arriving in America. They provide religious leadership to the new American Jewish communities, and are active in promoting Reform Judaism.
1840
When a slim majority of the congregation votes in favor of having an organ, Charleston's Congregation Beth Elohim becomes one of the first Jewish congregations in the U.S. to formally adopt elements of Reform ritual. The decision causes traditionalists to secede, after which the remaining members vote in even more reforms, including prayers in English.
1840
Disagreements over ritual and other issues lead a group of Polish Jews in New York to break away from the established German-speaking congregations B'nai Jeshurun and Anshe Chesed and form Congregation Shaaray Zedek, the first Polish Jewish congregation in New York. New congregations are also formed in other cities, including Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, as a result of similar secessions from existing synagogues.
1841
In response to what he sees as a decline in religious observance and education, traditionalist Isaac Leeser, spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel, proposes a plan for a united federation of American synagogues and a network of Jewish schools. His proposal meets with rejection by proponents of Reform, who view it as an attempt by traditionalists to strengthen their control over American Jewish religious life.
1841
James Joseph Sylvester, a British Jewish mathematician, becomes a professor of mathematics at the University of Virginia, but three months later flees back to England, under attack because of his abolitionist views, the anti-Semitism of college and state officials, and his violent behavior toward an insolent student.
1841
Alfred Mordecai writes the first U.S. Army ordnance manual, standardizing U.S. weapons manufacture. During the Civil War, Mordecai will resign from the army in order to avoid choosing sides between the Union Army and his own Southern, Confederate family.
1842
Congregation B'nai Jeshurun of New York establishes the New York Talmud Torah and Hebrew Institute, an afternoon school (later converted to an all-day school) offering the most advanced Jewish religious instruction then available in the U.S.
1842
Baltimore's Har Sinai Verein is founded by a breakaway group from the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation to become the first Jewish congregation in the U.S. explicitly formed as a Reform congregation. From the beginning of its existence, Har Sinai Verein uses the German-published Hamburg Reform prayer book and an organ to accompany prayer.
1842
Congregation Ohabei Shalom is established as Boston's first synagogue.
1843
In tsarist Russia, the Pale of Settlement where Jews are legally permitted to live is further narrowed, displacing approximately 150,000 Jews, some of whom eventually emigrate to the U.S.
1843
B'nai Brith, the first American Jewish fraternal organization, is established in New York. The organization gains branches in other places, and in many small towns without synagogues, it serves as the backbone of the Jewish community. Based on the idea of Jewish "peoplehood" rather than religion, B'nai Brith develops into both a mutual benefit society and a social organization.
1843
Isaac Leeser, cantor and spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel, founds the first Jewish monthly in the U.S., "The Occident and American Jewish Advocate."
1844
Mordecai Manuel Noah speaks before Catholic and Protestant leaders in New York and pleads for the Christian world to help the Jews resettle in Palestine. His treatise on this topic, "Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews," is published the same year.
1844
The Jews of Charleston, South Carolina, protest Governor James H. Hammond's Christian-oriented Thanksgiving message, which invites citizens of all denominations to offer thanks to Jesus Christ. Hammond refuses to apologize, averring that the U.S. is a Christian land. While overtly religious speech is not uncommon among American elected officials during the 19th century, Hammond's refusal to conciliate with the Jewish community is more the exception than the rule.
1845
Florida joins the Union, and David Levy Yulee is elected senator, becoming the first Jew to serve in the U.S. Senate. He will resign in 1861 at the start of the Civil War to become a member of the Confederate Congress.
1845
Isaac Leeser, cantor and spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel, publishes his translation of the Pentateuch from Hebrew into English. This first American translation of the bible becomes the standard Jewish translation, and is widely used for over 70 years. Leeser's complete translation of the Hebrew bible will be published in 1853. In the same year, he founds the Jewish Publication Society, the first organization in the U.S. devoted exclusively to the publication of Jewish books. It flourishes only briefly, but issues a few booklets before dissolving in 1851. Several other organizations of the same name will be established later in the century.
1846
A potato famine begins in Ireland. Within four years, as many as one million will die and over one million will emigrate, with the U.S. serving as their most common destination.
1846
Reverend Isaac Mayer Wise, who will become the leading pioneer of American Reform Judaism, arrives in the U.S. from Bohemia to serve as the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth El in Albany, New York. Among the reforms he will attempt to introduce are mixed seating, a choir, and confirmation ceremonies instead of the traditional bar mitzvah.
1846
The first Jewish congregation in Chicago, Kehillath Anshe Ma'ariv (The Congregation of the People of the West) is founded.
1846
The United Order of True Sisters, the first German Jewish women's lodge, is founded in New York by members of the newly formed Congregation Emanu-El. It models itself on the lodges of the men's fraternal organization, B'nai Brith.
1847
Rabbi Max Lilienthal organizes a short-lived "bet din" (rabbinic court) in New York to act as an advisory committee to all American congregations. The "bet din" meets only once before it is disbanded.
1847
Leopold Eidlitz, the first Jewish architect to practice in the U.S., is hired by Congregation Shaarey Tefila in New York to build its Romanesque-style synagogue on Wooster Street. In 1868, Eidlitz will build the grand Gothic/Moorish-style synagogue, Temple Emanu-El, on Fifth Avenue.
1847
The Harmonie Club, an elite social club for Jews, is founded in New York City.
1848
Uprisings and riots break out across Central Europe. Among the fighters for democracy and egalitarianism are Jews who also hope that the revolutions will bring about increased civil rights for Jews. When the revolutions fail, some of these activists will emigrate to the U.S.
1848
The conviction of shopkeeper Solomon Benjamin for doing business on a Sunday is upheld by a South Carolina court. Sunday laws put Jewish merchants at a disadvantage, as observing the Jewish Sabbath means that they are unable to conduct business two days out of every week.
1848
Feminist and social reformer Ernestine Rose, a Polish-born Jew, campaigns for women's rights in Seneca Falls, New York. She later helps organize the 1850 National Woman's Rights Convention in Massachusetts.
1848
Isaac Leeser, cantor and spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel, founds the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia to establish schools devoted to secular subjects, as well as Hebrew language, literature, and religion. A year later, he opens the first Hebrew high school in the U.S.
1849
The Gold Rush brings an influx of Jews from all over the world to California, mainly to San Francisco, where they work mainly as merchants and storekeepers. By 1878, there will be about 18,600 Jews in California, making up about 8 percent of the total population.
1849
The first High Holiday services in California are held in a tent in San Francisco.
1849
Upset by his congregants' lax religious observance -- which includes desecration of the Sabbath, eating unkosher foods, and engaging in intermarriage -- traditionalist rabbi Abraham Rice resigns from his Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. For the next decade, he will hold the only daily service in the city in his private congregation, Sherith Israel.
1850
The U.S. negotiates a commercial treaty with Switzerland, but several Swiss cantons at this time prohibit Jews from residing and/or doing business within their borders. American Jews protest with petitions, newspaper articles, public meetings, and letters to congressmen and win the support of Secretary of State Daniel Webster. In 1855, however, the treaty is signed.
1850
Captain Uriah Phillips Levy is one of only a few naval officers to support a bill prohibiting corporal punishment in the navy.
1850
Isaac Mayer Wise refuses to accept dismissal by his Albany synagogue, Beth El, whose leaders strongly disagree with his pro-Reform positions. After a melee on Rosh Hashanah is broken up by the police, Wise's supporters break away to form a new Reform congregation, Anshe Emeth. It becomes the first synagogue to institute the mixed seating of men and women, though this may be partly out of convenience, as the congregation had just purchased a former church with family pews and it is too expensive to change them.
1850
San Francisco's Congregation Emanu-el, the oldest congregation west of the Mississippi, is founded.
1852
Judah P. Benjamin, a noted lawyer from Louisiana, is elected to the U.S. Senate. During the Civil War, Benjamin will resign from the Senate to join the cabinet of the Confederate government.
1852
One of the earliest Eastern European synagogues in New York, Beth Hamedresh (House of Study), is established by Lithuanian and Polish immigrants.
1852
Jews' Hospital, the first Jewish hospital in America, is founded on West 28th Street in New York. During the Civil War, the hospital's facilities will be expanded to care for wounded Union soldiers. In the 1860s, Jews' Hospital will begin accepting non-Jewish patients, and in 1866 it will change its name to Mount Sinai Hospital.
1852
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes the poem "Jewish Cemetery at Newport," an elegiac poem about what he sees as the inevitable disappearance of Judaism in America. The poem reflects the 19th-century idea that "inferior" cultures such as American Indians and Jews will vanish if they do not adapt to the realities of the modern world.
1852
Artist and Jewish communal leader Solomon Nunes Carvalho serves as the first official photographer of an exploratory expedition to map out the best route for the transcontinental railway. His published memoir of the journey, "Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West" (1854), will include reproductions of his portraits and paintings.
1853
The seeds of what will one day become known as Conservative Judaism are sown when Baltimore's Congregation Ohab Shalom is founded by German immigrants as a moderate alternative to what they see as the radical Reform practices and rigid, traditional Orthodoxy of other local congregations.
1853
Isaac Leeser, cantor and spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel, completes his translation of the Hebrew bible into English, less than 10 years after publishing his translation of the Pentateuch.
1853
Rebekah Gumpert Hyneman publishes her acclaimed poetry collection, "The Leper and Other Poems," which includes many poems with Jewish themes.
1854
In his will, New Orleans merchant Judah Touro bequeaths several hundred thousand dollars to Jewish and non-Jewish charitable institutions in the U.S. and Palestine, the largest sum to date that an American philanthropist has given to charity.
1854
Reform activist Isaac Mayer Wise leaves Albany to become the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in Cincinnati, where he will remain until his death. He begins publication of the English-language weekly "The Israelite," later called "The American Israelite."
1854
The first Young Men's Hebrew Association is founded in Baltimore, inspiring a nationwide YMHA movement that will combine Jewish literary and cultural activities with sports and exercise.
1854
In response to the attendance of many non-Jews at Jewish ritual events and celebrations, Simon Tuska, a Jewish student at the University of Rochester, writes a book entitled "Stranger in the Synagogue" to provide information about Jewish worship.
1854
Edward Bloch of Cincinnati founds the Bloch Publishing Company, the first commercial Jewish publishing company in America. Bloch publishes Isaac Mayer Wise's periodicals "Die Deborah" and the "Israelite," as well as novels and other literature on Jewish themes. It also imports and reprints Jewish books from Europe.
1855
A Jewish firm in Santa Cruz, California, refuses to sign a petition in favor of statewide Sunday closing laws. In retaliation, William Stowe, the legislative sponsor of the petition, proposes a special head tax on Jews to discourage their settlement in California. Local Jews defend their rights boldly in the press and in public protest meetings.
1855
Reform activist Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise convenes a rabbinical conference in Cleveland, Ohio, aimed at organizing American Jewry religiously on a national scale. Disputes between proponents of Reform and more traditionalist rabbis, however, make unity impossible, and no organization that can claim to represent all Jewish religious interests is formed.
1855
The same year, Wise begins publishing the German-language weekly, "Die Deborah," which will become the most important and widely read Jewish newspaper in pre-Civil War America. "Die Deborah" is the first Jewish journal in the U.S. to address women publicly and to discuss the role of women in the community.
1855
Rebecca Gratz and Anna Marks Allen establish the Philadelphia Jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum, the first Jewish orphanage in the U.S.
1856
August Bondi and his business partners Theodore Weiner and Jacob Benjamin join John Brown's abolitionist forces in Kansas and take part in the massacres of Black Jack and Osawatomie against pro-slavery forces.
1856
Sabato Morais, rabbi of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, delivers anti-slavery sermons from his pulpit.
1857
American Jewish actress Adah Isaacs Menken leads a protest against the exclusion of Jews from the English Parliament.
1857
Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise publishes his prayer book "Minhag America," one of the first prayer books written for American Jews. It is quickly adopted by most congregations of the Western and Southern states and becomes a seminal text of the Reform movement.
1857
Elizabeth D.A. Cohen becomes the first woman physician to practice medicine in Louisiana.
1858
Two thousand Jews in New York City (and countless others around the country) rally to demand U.S. intervention on behalf of Edgar Mortara, an Italian Jewish child abducted from his home and forcibly converted to Catholicism. President James Buchanan refuses the requests of American Jews to intercede with the Vatican on the grounds that it might alienate Irish Catholics who are loyal Democratic supporters. (Mortara is never returned to his family and eventually becomes a Catholic priest.)
1858
In New York, Rabbi Samuel Myer Isaacs begins publication of "The Jewish Messenger," which takes a traditionalist, anti-Reform position in religious matters and identifies itself closely with the Board of Delegates of American Israelites. It also speaks out strongly against slavery.
1859
The international uproar over the Mortara Affair a year earlier inspires representatives of 25 congregations from 14 cities to create the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, the first national Jewish political organization. The Board will attempt to represent the views of the American Jewish community to the government and will coordinate Jewish responses to both overseas and domestic situations in which Jewish interests are at stake.
1859
Naval officer Uriah Phillips Levy serves for six months as commodore of the U.S. fleet.
1859
The Netherlander Israelitisch Sick Fund Society, the first New York "landsmanshaft" (immigrant mutual aid society), is founded by Dutch Jews to serve newcomers to America. Similar associations of Jews from individual towns and regions in Europe will form throughout the 1860s in the U.S.
1860
The first international Jewish defense organization, the Alliance Israelite Universelle, is founded in France to promote Jewish solidarity, oppose anti-Semitism and religious discrimination, and provide aid to suffering or persecuted Jews.
1860
Rabbi Morris Raphall of New York's B'nai Jeshurun congregation becomes the first rabbi to deliver a rabbinic invocation at the opening session of the U.S. Congress.
1860
In his popular Yiddish novels, Vilna Jewish writer Isaac Meyer Dick praises America as a land of promise for Jews and exhorts his readers to move there. Letters sent to Europe from immigrants also paint a positive picture of life in the U.S.
1861
The Southern states join to form the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as president. The Civil War breaks out as these states attempt to secede from the Union.
1861
Louisiana senator Judah P. Benjamin is appointed attorney general for the Confederacy. A year later he is appointed secretary of state, after serving briefly as secretary of war. Florida Senator David Levy Yulee resigns from the U.S. Congress to become a member of the Confederate Congress. David Camden De Leon, known as "the Fighting Doctor," is appointed as the first surgeon general of the Confederate Army. Alfred Mordecai, who drafted the first U.S. Army Ordinance Manual in 1841, is one of a number of Southern officers who resign from the army, unwilling to take sides between the Union and the South.
1861
Rabbi Morris Raphall of New York's Congregation B'nai Jeshurun gives a sermon in which he attacks abolitionists and states that nothing in the Jewish Bible prohibits slavery. The sermon is widely publicized. While it receives praise in the South, it is roundly attacked in the North. Rabbi David Einhorn, an ardent abolitionist, speaks out from the pulpit and is forced by an angry mob to flee Baltimore for Philadelphia.
1862
In the Union Army, Company C of the 82nd Regiment of the Illinois Volunteers consists entirely of Jews from Chicago, armed and financed by the Chicago Jewish community.
Colonel Edward Selig Salomon, a German Jewish immigrant and Chicago alderman, leads the 82nd Regiment.
1862
Congress amends a law specifying that army chaplains must be ministers of "some Christian denomination" to read that they must be ministers of "some religious denomination," thus permitting the appointment of Jewish military chaplains.
1862
President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in territories under rebellion as of January 1, 1863. The Civil War continues.
1862
In December, General Ulysses S. Grant, succumbing to the anti-Jewish prejudice of military officers and civilian officials, issues Order No. 11, the most blatantly anti-Jewish measure ever taken by American officialdom, expelling the Jews "as a class" from the military area under his command, including Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Jewish leaders and organizations protest, and the order is revoked less than a month later.
1862
Romanian explorer and writer Israel Joseph Benjamin publishes "Drei Jahre in Amerika" (Three Years in America), a chronicle of his three-year visit and travels throughout the U.S. He reports that there are Jewish communities in all parts of the country, including small towns and large cities.
1863
A delegation of Jews led by Cesar Kaskel of Paducah, Kentucky, a town from which Jews were expelled under General Grant's Order No. 11 in 1862, meets with President Abraham Lincoln to protest the discriminatory order. Lincoln directs the order to be rescinded.
1865
The U.S. Congress approves the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, officially abolishing slavery. A few months later, Confederate troops surrender to the Union Army, ending the Civil War.
1865
B'nai Brith launches the first of many overseas philanthropic projects and raises $4,522 for victims of a cholera epidemic in Palestine.
1865
The Hebrew Free School Association opens its first American Jewish day school in New York, teaching general and Jewish subjects to immigrant children.
1866
Jews' Hospital, founded in 1852, changes its name to Mount Sinai Hospital.
1866
San Francisco's Congregation Emanu-El builds a magnificent, domed temple at a cost of $134,000. Forty years later, the building will be destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake.
1866
17-year-old Emma Lazarus publishes her first book of poems, "Poems and Translations Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Sixteen."
1867
The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (which includes Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, Slovakia, Hungary, and other regions) is created as a federation between the kingdom of Hungary and the Austrian Empire under the Hapsburgs. Laws in the new empire grant extensive civil rights to Jews.
1867
Diplomat and Jewish communal leader Benjamin Peixotto advocates the immigration of Romanian Jews to the U.S. He is one of the first American Jews to publicly advocate planned mass European Jewish emigration and resettlement in the U.S.
1867
Maimonides College, the first rabbinical school and theological seminary in America, is founded by Isaac Leeser, cantor and spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel.
1867
Rabbi Benjamin Szold introduces a new prayer book, "Avodat Yisrael," as a moderate alternative to traditional prayer books and Reform rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise's "Minhag America." "Avodat Yisrael" will be adopted by many congregations throughout the U.S.
1867
Dr. Nathan Mayer's book "Differences" is the first novel to directly examine American Jewish life. Set during and after the Civil War, it describes Jewish life and commerce in both the North and the South, and includes an account of army life during the war that is likely based on Dr. Mayer's own participation as a Union Army doctor.
1868
An amendment to the North Carolina state constitution modifies the religious test for office, requiring officeholders to attest to a belief in God but not have to be sworn in with an explicitly Christian oath. This change permits Jews in that state to hold public office for the first time. After granting office-holding rights to African-Americans under the terms of Reconstruction, the legislature is embarrassed to withhold similar rights from Jews, and so the amendment passes despite earlier failures to get it enacted.
1868
Leopold Eidlitz, the first Jewish architect in the U.S., builds the grand Gothic/Moorish-style synagogue, Temple Emanu-El, on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
1869
The international Jewish aid organization Alliance Israelite Universelle establishes a committee in Koenigsberg, Prussia to provide assistance to Jews seeking to emigrate from places where they have suffered discrimination.
1869
Responding to a plea from communal leader Simon Wolf and a delegation of American Jews, President Ulysses S. Grant intervenes with tsarist authorities to prevent the expulsion of 20,000 Jews from Bessarabia in southwestern Russia.
1869
Under the leadership of Reform rabbis Samuel Hirsch and David Einhorn, the first official conference of religious leaders identifying as Reform rabbis convenes in Philadelphia, where it publishes the first comprehensive statement on Reform Judaism in America.
1869
In Cincinnati, Jews, along with Catholics and freethinkers, fight to have bible readings permanently abolished in the public schools and to keep the schools religiously neutral.
1870
Benajmin Peixotto is appointed U.S. Consul in Romania to help monitor the escalating persecutions of Jews there. His salary is paid by B'nai Brith, the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, and other wealthy American Jews, and his presence helps prevent pogroms and new anti-Semitic legislation.
1870
J.K. Buchner, an immigrant from Prussia to New York, publishes "Juedische Zeitung" (Jewish Newspaper), the first Yiddish newspaper in America. The paper offers news, politics, and literature from a traditionalist (anti-Reform) perspective, and is targeted to a working class readership of recent immigrants.
1870
Harvard University graduates its first Jewish student. Hunter College (later known as the "Jewish girls' Radcliffe") is founded as Normal College of the City of New York. The public, tuition-free school becomes a haven for Jewish women students and others who either cannot afford or are refused admission to other schools.
1871
The first Hebrew periodical in the U.S., "Ha-Zofeh ba'Arez ha-Hadashah" (The Watchman in the New Land), edited by Zvi Hirsch Bernstein, begins publication as a weekly.
1871
Emma Lazarus's second book, "Admetus and Other Poems," is published to critical acclaim.
1871
Esther Levy publishes the first American Jewish (kosher) cookbook, "Jewish Cookery Book on Principles of Economy Adapted for Jewish Housekeepers with Medicinal Recipes and Other Valuable Information Relative to Housekeeping and Domestic Management." Targeted to affluent women, it indicates the high level of economic mobility and financial achievement of a significant number of American Jews in the late 19th century.
1871
The American Jewish Publication Society is founded in New York and supported by the Reform congregation Temple Emanu-El. The society publishes anti-evangelical literature and books about Jewish history.
1872
Central Synagogue (today the oldest Jewish house of worship in continuous use in New York City and one of the oldest in the U.S.) is built in New York City. Designed by Henry Fernbach in high Victorian, Moorish style, the building is built to accommodate 1,000 people, although, at the time, the congregation numbers only 150.
1873
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now known as the Union for Reform Judaism) is founded in Cincinnati by 28 congregations from Western states. Isaac Mayer Wise, one of its founders, intends for the UAHC to include congregations from across the religious spectrum, but it soon evolves into a strictly Reform federation, and later becomes the umbrella organization of Reform synagogues throughout the U.S. and Canada.
1874
The first New York branch of the Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA) is founded. With its elaborate sports and entertainment facilities and its extensive schedule of classes and activities, it becomes the prototype for the over 120 branches established throughout the U.S. by 1890. By 1955, there will be 345 "Ys" in 216 cities.
1874
The United Hebrew Charities is established in New York to provide aid to poor Jewish families.
1875
In Cincinnati, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise founds Hebrew Union College, one of the first Jewish institutions of higher education in America. It will evolve into the rabbinical seminary for Reform Judaism.
1875
Evangelist Dwight L. Moody includes the charge of deicide (the claim that Jews murdered Jesus Christ) in sermons delivered at mass revival meetings held across the U.S.
1876
In Europe, Yiddish dramatist and composer Abraham Goldfaden establishes himself as the founder of modern, professional Yiddish theater by writing dialogue and continuity for the Broder Singers, a traveling troupe in Jassy, Romania. Goldfaden will later enlarge the troupe and tour Europe, and will open a theater in New York in 1887.
1876
Felix Adler founds the Society for Ethical Culture in New York, a non-theistic religious movement that advocates a humanistic, ethical worldview and works for the advancement of social justice for all.
1876
American author Herman Melville publishes his long poem "Clarel," whose characters include Ruth, a Jewish girl with whom the protagonist, Clarel, falls in love.
1877
New Hampshire becomes the last state in the union to repeal its requirement that state officeholders be practicing Protestants, thus granting political equality to Jews and Catholics.
1877
Joseph Seligman, a prominent Jewish banker, is refused admission to the Grand Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York. Author Bret Harte (who is one-quarter Jewish) writes a satirical poem ridiculing the distinction between "acceptable Hebrews" and "unacceptable Jews" made by Henry Hilton, the Grand Hotel's business manager.
1878
The New England Women's Medical Society, co-founded by Jewish surgeon Fanny Berlin, is formed to promote the idea that women physicians should be allowed to practice in Massachusetts hospitals (then open only to male doctors). Berlin later becomes chief surgeon at the New England Hospital.
1879
A group of mostly American-born young Jews from New York and Philadelphia begin publishing "The American Hebrew," an intellectually-oriented Jewish newspaper aimed at elevating the spirit of Judaism and bridging the gap between traditional Judaism and Reform.
1880
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations publishes the first census of the American Jewish population, estimated at 250,000.
1881
Russian revolutionaries assassinate Tsar Alexander II. Violent anti-Jewish pogroms ensue in 225 cities and towns across Russia. The pogroms and new, restrictive anti-Jewish laws that will be enacted the following year cause a sharp rise in the already high volume of Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire. By 1924, about 2.5 million Jews (one-third of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe) will have left. The majority of those who emigrate will settle in the U.S.
1881
Responding to the crisis, Jews in New York City create the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society to provide assistance to the immigrants.
1881
Kasriel Sarasohn transforms a Yiddish weekly into the first Yiddish daily in the U.S., the "Teglikhe Gazeten" (Daily Gazette). Traditionalist in outlook and written in a formal, Germanized Yiddish far removed from the everyday language of most of the recently arrived immigrants, the newspaper is soon forced by financial troubles to return to a weekly format. In 1885, Sarasohn will succeed in establishing a more long lived daily, the "Yidishes Tageblat" (Jewish Daily News), which will remain in circulation until 1928.
1882
A year after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the new tsar, Alexander III, responds to the political unrest in the Russian Empire by rescinding many of the liberal reforms of his predecessor. A set of statutes known as the May Laws order the expulsion of Jews from villages and force them into the larger market towns ("shtetls"), and prohibit them from doing business on Sundays. The laws cause widespread dislocation and economic hardship, as well as a feeling of hopelessness about the future. The wave of Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire intensifies.
1882
Members of the Jewish agriculturalist movement Am Olam establish the first Jewish agricultural colony in the U.S. on Sicily Island, Louisiana. Though it is soon wiped out by a flood, it heralds the establishment of other Jewish colonies throughout the U.S., the most successful of which will be the communities of Alliance, Carmel, Woodbine, and Rosenhayn in southern New Jersey, which are sponsored by the German Jewish philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch.
1882
Journalist Abraham Cahan delivers the first Yiddish socialist speech ever given in America, speaking for two hours on Marx's theories in the back of a German beer saloon in New York City.
1882
"Koldunye," the first professional Yiddish theater production in the U.S., is staged on New York's Lower East Side. Featuring the Golubok brothers from London, the production is organized by Boris Thomashefsky, a 13-year-old immigrant cigar maker, who will go on to become one of Yiddish theater's most famous actors and directors.
1883
Inspired by the Russian Jewish refugees she meets as a relief worker, poet Emma Lazarus writes "The New Colossus," as her contribution to an art auction to raise money for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. In 1903, her poem, which welcomes all immigrants with the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free," will be engraved on a memorial plaque on the statue's base.
1883
At the first ordination banquet for graduates of the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College (HUC), unkosher food is served, causing shock and outrage among some of the attendees. Several congregations resign from the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the umbrella congregation founded in 1873. The event, known as the "trefa [unkosher] banquet," becomes a symbol of the growing divide between proponents of Reform and those who will seek a more moderate solution to reconciling Jewish observance and tradition with modern life.
1884
Julia Richman, a first-generation American and daughter of Bohemian immigrants, is the first Jewish woman to be appointed as a principal in the New York City public school system.
1884
To boost ailing ticket sales at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House, conductor Leopold Damrosch proposes replacing the Italian opera company with a German company and repertoire. The Met's first German opera season, which Damrosch directs, is a smash success. At the end of the season, Damrosch himself dies from exhaustion and pneumonia.
1885
Eighteen rabbis meet in Pittsburgh to formulate a statement of principles for Reform Judaism. Known as the Pittsburgh Platform, the document espouses that "Judaism represents the highest conception of the God-idea," and assigns Judaism the mission of joining with other religions to combat the injustices of modern times in order to hasten the coming of the Messianic age. It rejects some Jewish laws, such as "kashrut" (kosher regulations), as incompatible with modern living; and explicitly rejects the idea of Jewish nationhood, preferring the definition of Jews as a "religious community." The Pittsburgh Platform will remain the most important statement of Reform Jewish beliefs until it is superseded by the Columbus Platform in 1937.
1885
Jewish intellectuals in New York City attempt to organize the Jewish working class by creating the "Yidisher arbeter fareyn" (known variously in English as the Jewish Workingmen's Association, Jewish Workmen's Society, Jewish Workers' Verein), a radical political organization.
1886
Oscar Straus, a career diplomat and future U.S. cabinet member, publishes "The Origin of the Republican Form of Government in the United States," developing a thesis that the ancient Jewish commonwealth was the model for the form of government and the political institutions of the early American colonies.
1886
Trade unionist Samuel Gompers, born in London of Dutch-Jewish parentage and a leader of the cigar workers' union, is elected president of the newly formed American Federation of Labor, a position he will hold almost without interruption until his death in 1924.
1886
The socialist Yiddish newspaper "Naye tsayt" (New Era), edited by Abraham Cahan, is founded in New York City. "Naye tsayt" and other radical Yiddish periodicals -- among them "New yorker yidisher folkstsaytung" (New York Jewish People's News), "Arbayter tsaytung" (Workers News), "Zukunft" (Future), "Fraye gezelshaft" (Free Society), and "Freie Arbeiter Stimme" (Free Voice of Labor); as well as Zionist publications such as "Shulamis" and "Di Tsayt" (The Times) -- reflect a rise of political activism among Jewish immigrants of this period.
1886
Yeshiva Etz Chaim is founded on New York City's Lower East Side as a place for young immigrant boys to receive an Eastern European-style Talmudic education. Beginning in 1897, graduates of the yeshiva will be able to continue their education at the newly founded Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), the first center for advanced Talmudic studies in the U.S. The two institutions will merge in 1912, and will later be absorbed into Yeshiva University.
1886
A coalition led by two prominent Sephardic rabbis, Dr. Sabato Morais and Dr. H. Pereira Mendes, found the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), as an alternative to Reform and Orthodox rabbinical academies. JTS's founders represent a broad cross section of American Jews, ranging from Orthodox leaders who are only grudgingly willing to accept modernizing trends, to others, who refer to themselves as "Conservative" or "Historical" and are willing to accommodate many more changes. All are united by their rejection of what they see as the radicalism of Reform Judaism.
1886
Congregation Adas Jeshurun (est. 1850s) builds a new synagogue on Eldridge Street on the Lower East Side. It is the first synagogue building erected by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. The synagogue (which will become a National Historic Landmark in 1996) is built in the Moorish style, with a 70-foot-high vaulted ceiling, magnificent stained glass rose windows, elaborate brass fixtures and brightly colored frescoes.
1886
Lyman Bloomingdale and his brother, Joseph, open Bloomingdale Brothers Department store on its present site in mid-town Manhattan.
1887
The overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in the tenements in which most immigrants reside in New York City become a focus of attention for concerned citizens, who worry about outbreaks of contagious disease. Some are also disturbed to discover that tenement landlords are charging exorbitant rents. Reformers, including Felix Adler, founder of the Ethical Culture Society, form the Tenement House Building Company, which erects six improved "model" tenements and rents apartments in them for $8-14 a month.
1887
Rabbi Gustav Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El in New York City organizes the first Sisterhood of Personal Service, an organization of women charity workers. One of the goals of the Sisterhood is the bridging of class differences within the Jewish population. Within a few years, most of the congregations in New York will follow Emanu-El's example and establish their own Sisterhood of Personal Service associations.
1887
Isidor and Nathan Straus, partners with R.H. Macy since 1874, become sole owners of Macy's, which will eventually become the world's largest department store.
1887
The Hebrew Actors Union is established to advocate for higher wages for actors on the Yiddish stage.
1887
Abraham Goldfaden, known as the founder of modern Yiddish theater, arrives in the U.S. from Europe to direct a play, but finds too much competition from his protegees in the newly thriving New York Yiddish scene. He leaves and will not return to New York until 1902.
1887
German Jewish immigrant Emile Berliner patents the horizontal (flat) disk for sound recording and develops a system for pressing the disks that allows multiple copies of the original recording to be made. A year later, he will patent the gramophone, the first record player to use flat disks instead of wax cylinders.
1888
Morris Hillquit and a group of Jewish socialists establish the United Hebrew Trades (UHT), a federation of predominantly Jewish trade unions, in New York City. At its founding, the UHT includes the choristers', typographers', and actors' unions. Within two years, it will grow to include 22 affiliated unions, with the majority representing the garment trades. The UHT also helps to coordinate organizational drives in industries that do not yet have established unions.
1888
Vilna rabbi Jacob Joseph arrives in the U.S. to serve as chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, a federation of Eastern European Jewish synagogues. Joseph's attempt to impose a tax on kosher meat in order to finance the organized supervision of "kashrut" (ritual slaughtering) in the city fails and he is regarded as old-fashioned and out of touch by New York Jews. Other rabbis come forward to claim the title of chief rabbi. The Association disbands and Joseph is out of a job, with his failure demonstrating the unfeasibility of establishing an American chief rabbinate.
1888
Women's rights advocate Annie Nathan Meyer founds Barnard College for women, as the sister college to Columbia University in New York City.
1888
The Jewish Publication Society of America (JPS), successor to two preceding organizations of the same name, is founded in Philadelphia as a membership organization to publish books of Jewish content in English. It will publish its first book, Lady Katie Magnu's "Outline of Jewish History," in 1890. Among JPS's best-known 19th century publications is the English translation of Heinrich Graetz's six-volume "History of the Jews" (1891-1898).
1888
Isaac Markens publishes "The Hebrew in America," the first attempt at a comprehensive history of Jews in America written by a Jew.
1889
The Hebrew Sheltering House Association (Hakhnoses Orkhim) is founded by publisher Kasriel Sarasohn to provide housing for homeless immigrants.
1889
Motivated by both genuine desire to help co-religionists and fear about the damage that public perceptions about lower-class Jewish immigrants might cause to their own social standing, German Jewish leaders found the Hebrew Institute on New York City's Lower East Side to implement an Americanization program for Eastern European immigrants. Later known as the Educational Alliance, the institute provides a library, classroom instruction, lectures, concerts, clubs, and recreational facilities. In its earliest years, it refuses to offer programs in Yiddish, the everyday language of the new immigrant community, a policy that causes resentment. Later, the Educational Alliance will become more sensitive and relax this policy, and will grow into one of the most popular and appreciated institutions on the Lower East Side, serving as a model for "settlement houses" elsewhere in the nation.
1889
Jewish immigrant Emma Goldman, already devoted to the political ideals of anarchism, moves to New York City from Rochester and meets many prominent anarchists, including Alexander Berkman and Johann Most. The following year, she will deliver the first of many public lectures on topics as diverse as labor, anarchism, politics, drama, birth control, economic freedom for women, radical education, and anti-militarism.
1889
The Central Conference of American Rabbis, the umbrella organization of Reform rabbis, is organized with Isaac Mayer Wise as its first president.
1890
Ray (Rachel) Frank, a California journalist, delivers a High Holiday sermon to a group of 1,000 Jews and Christians in Spokane Falls, Washington, thereby becoming the first Jewish woman to preach from a pulpit in the U.S. She speaks about Jewish responsibilities as Jews and as American citizens and her sermon inspires the Spokane Jewish community to create its first congregation. For the next ten years, Frank will deliver lectures and sermons throughout the Western U.S., promoting the importance of spirituality, family, and the participation of women in Judaism.
1890
Journalist Jacob Riis publishes "How the Other Half Lives," an expose (with photographs) of the terrible living conditions in New York City's slums and immigrant neighborhoods. He includes a description of the notorious overcrowding in the Jewish quarter of the Lower East Side, which he calls "Jewtown": "Nowhere in the world are so many people crowded in a square mile as here." His work galvanizes efforts to reform housing legislation and inspires some of his middle class readers to join or contribute to organizations working to improve conditions for the poor.
1890
Philanthropist Lina Frank Hecht and social activist Golde Bamber establish the Hebrew Industrial School for Girls in Boston, possibly the first Jewish vocational school in America. A school for boys will follow in 1892.
1890
The Cloakmakers Union calls a strike in Philadelphia, the first major strike by Jewish garment workers in that city. The long, violent conflict is eventually resolved through the mediation of Rabbi Sabato Morais, the most prominent rabbi in Philadelphia, who invokes the Jewish tradition of social justice in his argument for settling the strike.
1890
The Grand View House, one of the earliest boarding houses in the Catskills to cater to a Jewish clientele, opens in Fallsburgh, New York.
1891
Jewish philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch establishes a fund to help Jewish immigrants settle in self-sustaining communities in the U.S. Later in the year, he also founds the Jewish Colonization Association to facilitate the mass emigration of Jews from Russia to agricultural colonies in South America.
1891
Orthodox Jews expand a dispensary they had opened a year earlier on New York City's Lower East Side into Beth Israel Hospital, which caters to the needs of Eastern European immigrants by providing kosher meals and Yiddish-speaking doctors.
1892
The American Jewish Historical Society is established, marking the beginning of the serious study of American Jewish history. Among its founders are Oscar Straus, the first Jew appointed to the Cabinet; Cyrus Adler, professor of history at Johns Hopkins University; Henrietta Szold, who will go on to found Hadassah; David de Sola Pool, rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City; and Professor Charles Gross of Harvard University.
1892
Ellis Island opens in New York City, replacing Castle Garden as the east coast’s main immigration center. During its peak years, it will process about 5,000 immigrants a day.
1892
The Hebrew Free Loan Society is founded to further the Jewish concept of "gemilut khesed": bestowing kindness. The society provides interest-free loans to help individual Jews become or remain self-supporting members of their community.
1892
Labor and women's rights activist Theresa Serber Malkiel helps organize the Infant Cloak Makers' Union. She will later become the first woman to graduate from the shop floor to a leadership position in the Socialist Party. Malkiel will found the Socialist Women's Society of New York, and her 1911 novel, "Diary of a Shirtwaist Maker," will be credited with helping to bring about better working conditions and legal protections for factory workers.
1892
Anarchist Emma Goldman conspires with Alexander Berkman in an assassination attempt on Henry Clay Frick, a steel magnate who had dealt heavy-handedly and violently with striking workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The couple believes that their act will inspire the working classes to seize power, but its most palpable result is to inspire widespread fear and condemnation of anarchism. Goldman escapes indictment, but Berkman is arrested and sentenced to 21 years in prison.
1892
The Frances Wisebart Jacobs Hospital, named after its founder, is established in Denver, Colorado. It is later renamed the National Jewish Hospital, and officially opens in 1899 as a non-sectarian hospital for the treatment of consumptives (tuberculosis patients).
1892
Playwright Jacob Gordin and actor/director Jacob P. Adler debut a play called "Siberia" in New York City. It is one of the first serious dramas to appear on the Yiddish stage and ushers in what has been called "the golden age" of Yiddish theater, characterized by the sophisticated, realistic plays of Gordin, Solomon Libin, Leon Kobrin, David Pinsky, and H. Leivick.
1893
The Jewish Chautauqua Society is founded in Philadelphia by Rabbi Henry Berkowitz as a program to educate American Jews about Judaism. It is modeled on the other Chautauqua Societies that have for decades been offering culturally uplifting educational programs in bucolic settings to middle class Americans throughout the U.S.
1893
The Jewish Women's Congress, organized by Hannah Greenebaum Solomon and held in conjunction with the Chicago World's Fair, leads to the founding of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), the first nationwide Jewish women's organization. Among its goals are the eradication of Jewish illiteracy and the fostering of greater religious involvement among Jewish women. A pioneer in the settlement house movement, the NCJW provides information and assistance to newly arrived immigrant women about housing and women's safety, job training, childcare, and schools. It also establishes Sabbath schools for girls and advocates for juveniles in the courts.
1893
Senda Berenson, director of the physical education department at Smith College in Massachusetts, conducts the first official women's basketball game. Enthusiasm for the game sweeps the country and hundreds of women's basketball teams are founded.
1894
In France, Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus is falsely accused of treason, court marshaled, and sentenced to life in prison. The case splits French society, pitting anti-Dreyfusards (royalists, militarists, nationalists, and anti-Semites) against pro-Dreyfusards (republicans, socialists, and anticlerical forces). A young reporter from Vienna, Theodor Herzl, is shaken by the sight of mobs shouting "Death to the Jews" and comes to the conclusion that the only solution to anti-Semitism is for the Jews to establish their own homeland. Two years later, he will publish "The Jewish State," a founding document of the Zionist movement.
1894
The Immigration Restriction League is founded by a group of elite Bostonians unhappy with the rising tide of immigration. They are particularly displeased with immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe (mostly Jews and Italians) and propose a literacy requirement for new immigrants.
1894
The Baron de Hirsch Agricultural School, the first American secondary school to teach agricultural subjects, opens in Woodbine, New Jersey, a town established in 1891 by the Baron de Hirsch Fund as part of its program to settle Jewish immigrants in self-sustaining communities. By 1903, Woodbine will become an independent borough and America's first self-governing Jewish community.
1894
The "Abendblatt" (Evening News), the first Yiddish socialist daily in the U.S. and an organ of the Socialist Labor Party, begins publication.
1894
The Reform movement publishes the "Union Prayer Book, for daily services, the weekly Sabbath, and the annual festivals of Passover, Sukkoth, and Shavuot." Unlike traditional prayer books, it opens left to right and contains very little in the way of Hebrew.
1894
Physiologist Ida Henrietta Hyde founds the Naples Table for Promoting Scientific Research by Women in Boston. It is the first research laboratory exclusively for women scientists.
1895
Anti-Semitic German politician Herman Ahlwardt comes to the U.S., briefly publishes a periodical called "Der Anti-Semit" (The Anti-Semite), and organizes among German immigrants in New York and New Jersey. He is denounced by American Christian clergymen and his speaking appearances are marked by near riots.
1895
The Women's Christian Temperance Union votes to allow Catholic and Jewish women as members.
1895
Writer and communal activist Rosa Sonnenschein founds and edits "The American Jewess," the first English-language magazine published by and for Jewish women in the U.S.
1895
In New York City, social worker and nurse Lillian Wald founds the Nurse's Settlement, later called Henry Street Settlement House, offering nursing care, sanitation campaigns, and educational and recreational services to immigrants all over the city. In 1902, Wald will start the first public school nursing program in New York, a model for public health nursing programs nationwide.
1896
Largely in order to debunk stereotypes that Jews are unpatriotic and had avoided military service during the Civil War, Jewish veterans of the Civil War form the Hebrew Union Veterans, later known as the Jewish War Veterans.
1896
Writer William Dean Howells encourages Abraham Cahan, the future founder of the Yiddish newspaper, the "Forverts" (Forward), to publish his first English-language novel, "Yekl, A Tale of the New York Ghetto," the story of a young immigrant who exchanges adjustment to American life for emotional and spiritual loss.
1896
The American Art Association chooses Katherine M. Cohen's life-size sculpture, "The Israelite," for the 1896 Paris Salon.
1897
In Switzerland, over 200 delegates from many countries convene the First Zionist Congress and agree upon the chief goal of the Zionist movement: the establishment of a home for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel (then Palestine). A year later, the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations will issue a statement reaffirming its rejection of "political Zionism," asserting that "the Jews are not a nation, but a religious community --America is our Zion."
1897
The Bund (General Jewish Workers' Union) of Russia and Poland is founded in Vilna. It is a non-Zionist movement dedicated to working for a Jewish future in the Diaspora. The Bund's commitment to socialism and political and cultural rights for Jewish workers and its trade union and anti-tsarist activities will garner it widespread support among Jews in Eastern Europe, especially youth. The movement will not only organize trade unions and political parties, but also succeed in welding together its followers into cohesive communities by providing a wide range of cultural and social welfare services. Bundists who immigrate to the U.S. will play key roles in the American trade union movement.
1897
A restrictive immigration bill with a literacy requirement is passed by Congress, but vetoed by President Grover Cleveland. Similar proposals will be vetoed by President Taft in 1913 and President Wilson in 1915.
1897
In New York City, Abraham Cahan founds the "Forverts" (Forward), a Yiddish daily newspaper, to advocate for trade unionism and socialism, and to help immigrants with the process of acculturation by introducing them to American mores, attitudes, and trends. The "Forverts" will become the most widely read Yiddish newspaper in the world (and by the 1930s, will have one of the highest circulations of any U.S. newspaper).
1897
The Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) is chartered by the New York State Board of Regents to provide an institution of higher learning for graduates of Yeshiva Etz Chaim. RIETS will become part of Yeshiva College in 1928.
1898
The blowing up of the battleship USS Maine in Havana, Cuba precipitates the entry of the U.S. into the Spanish-American War. Fifteen Jewish sailors are among those killed on the Maine; 5,000 Jews will serve in the U.S. Army during the war.
1898
Leaders of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Eastern European Jewish leaders, and 47 congregations nationwide establish the Orthodox Jewish Congregational Union of America to strengthen traditional Judaism (especially among immigrants from Eastern Europe) and to counter the influence of the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1898
Under the leadership of Reform rabbi and Columbia University professor Richard Gottheil, the Federation of American Zionists, the first national Zionist organization, is established, with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as its first secretary. Professor Gottheil also establishes the first Jewish college campus group, Zion be-Mishpat Tipadeh (ZBT). In 1903, ZBT will respond to the exclusion of Jews from fraternities by changing its name to Zeta Beta Tau and becoming the first Jewish Greek-letter fraternity.
1898
Printer and writer Abraham Hayyim Rosenberg begins publication of "Ozar HaShemot" (Treasury of Names), a ten-volume Hebrew biblical encyclopedia.
1898
American Yiddish poet Morris Rosenfeld's "Lider-bukh" (Book of Poems) is published in an English translation by Leo Wiener as "Songs of the Ghetto." Rosenfeld's work reaches a non-Yiddish audience and he becomes known as the "Poet Laureate of Labor."
1898
Florence Nightingale Levy creates the "American Art Annual," a comprehensive directory of the American art world.
1899
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) publishes his famous essay "Concerning the Jews" in "Harper's Magazine." He espouses the idea that anti-Jewish prejudice is based on gentile envy of Jewish economic achievements and asserts that Jews are good citizens and honest businessmen who have made substantial contributions to commerce, the arts, science, and learning. He also criticizes Jews, however, for being "unpatriotic," and for not mounting a more vigorous campaign in support of Colonel Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer falsely accused of treason in France in 1895. Clemens will later retract these negative comments.
1899
The National Conference of Jewish Charities is organized in Cincinnati to develop coordinated approaches to raising and distributing charitable funds to the masses of Jewish immigrants arriving in the U.S. Reflecting changing trends, the organization will change its name to National Conference of Jewish Social Service in 1919, and then to National Conference of Jewish Communal Service in 1951.
1899
The National Jewish Hospital officially opens in Denver as a non-sectarian hospital for the treatment of consumptives (tuberculosis patients).
1899
Charles Proteus Steinmetz, a German Jewish electrical engineer, arrives in the U.S. As chief consulting engineer at General Electric, he will formulate a theory of alternating current that will facilitate the development of the modern electrical industry.
1900
The International Ladies' Garment Worker's Union (ILGWU) is founded in New York. Jews make up a large percentage of its original membership.
1900
The Workmen's Circle (Arbeter Ring), a socialist-led, nationwide fraternal and mutual aid society, is founded in New York. The membership of the new organization will grow quickly, to 10,000 by 1908 (and over 80,000 by the 1920s). By the 1910s, under the influence of recently arrived Bundists, the Workmen's Circle will adopt the goal of promoting Yiddish culture and publish books, sponsor singing and drama clubs for adults, and open afternoon schools for children. Many are drawn to the organization because they support socialism and/or trade unionism; others because of the opportunity to provide their children with a Yiddish education; and still others because of the excellent medical, dental, and insurance benefits available to members.
1901
Anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinates President William McKinley and claims that he has been influenced by Emma Goldman, one of the movement's leading spokespeople. Goldman is arrested as an accomplice, but released because of lack of evidence. Nevertheless, she and the anarchist movement will be demonized in the press.
1901
The Industrial Removal Office (IRO) is organized by the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society, an arm of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, to assist in steering immigrants away from East Coast cities (perceived as being oversaturated with immigrants) to cities and towns across the U.S. and Canada. By 1917, it will have succeeded in relocating more than 79,000 Jewish immigrants.
1901
Merchant and industrialist Meyer Guggenheim and his sons take control of the American Smelting and Refining Company, becoming the "copper kings" of the era. They develop mining operations in the U.S., Mexico, South America, Alaska, and Africa, and become one of the wealthiest families in America. They will also become philanthropists who donate large sums to Jewish institutions, as well as to the arts, and to medical, scientific, and scholarly organizations.
1901
The Rabbinical Assembly is established in New York City as the alumni association of the Jewish Theological Seminary. It will later also admit members from other rabbinical schools and evolve to become the official organization of Conservative rabbis, serving congregations across the U.S., Canada, South America, and Europe.
1901
Politically conservative Orthodox publisher Jacob Saphirstein begins publishing "Der morgn zhurnal" (The Jewish Morning Journal), a Yiddish daily newspaper, in New York City. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise founds the monthly magazine "The Maccabean" (later known as "The New Palestine"), the first Zionist publication in English.
1901
The first Yiddish production of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" is performed at the People's Theatre on New York's Lower East Side. It is such a sensation that the show goes to Broadway a year later -- in Yiddish -- and its star, Jacob P. Adler, wins international fame in the role of Shylock.
1901
Lizzie Black Kander of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, publishes "The Settlement Cook Book," which includes German Jewish and American non-kosher recipes. Proceeds from the book, which becomes one of the most successful American cookbooks ever published, benefit arriving immigrants, and later, the Milwaukee Jewish Community Center.
1902
New York Congressman Henry Goldfogle introduces a resolution in the House of Representatives to initiate the removal of restrictions placed upon American Jews traveling in Russia.
1902
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) is founded by members of an Eastern European Jewish lodge in New York City to provide assistance to and advocacy for Jewish immigrants. HIAS mediates between immigration officials and immigrants at Ellis Island, and provides interpreters, legal aid, temporary housing, and employment assistance. In 1909, it will merge with the Hebrew Sheltering House Association (est. 1889) to form the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society.
1902
Immigrant Jewish women in New York City organize the Ladies Anti-Beef Trust Association and initiate a successful boycott of kosher butchers to protest the rising cost of kosher meat.
1902
The funeral procession of Rabbi Jacob Joseph (who had served a short and unsuccessful stint as "chief rabbi" of New York City) is attended by tens of thousands of mourners. The occasion is marred, however, when workmen of the R. Hoe and Co. factory pelt the procession with nuts and bolts, causing a riot.
1902
Hutchins Hapgood, a non-Jewish reporter for the "New York Commercial Advertiser," publishes "The Spirit of the Ghetto," a collection of sympathetic sketches of immigrant life on the Lower East Side, with illustrations by Jacob Epstein. While touring the neighborhood, Hapgood is accompanied by Abraham Cahan, editor of the "Forverts" (Forward), the popular Yiddish daily.
1902
Scholar Solomon Schechter arrives from England to head the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). Under Schechter's leadership, Conservative Judaism begins to take shape as a distinct movement, with JTS as its flagship institution.
1902
Sixty European-trained rabbis found the Union of Orthodox Rabbis (Agudath Harabonim) to differentiate staunchly traditionalist Jews from the emerging Conservative movement. The new body does not recognize graduates of JTS as bona fide rabbis, but instead endorses only rabbis who have received training in European yeshivas (rabbinical academies) or at the Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary (RIETS).
1902
Bella Unterberg establishes the first independent Young Women's Hebrew Association (YWHA) in New York City, following the failure of an earlier attempt to establish such a group in 1887. While the YWHA models itself in some ways on its male counterpart, the YMHA, its mission also includes the fostering and preservation of Jewish identity. Part of a women's movement to "Judaize" American Jews, the YWHA has a synagogue on its premises and offers classes in Bible study, Hebrew, and Jewish history alongside athletics and social events.
1903
Forty-seven Jews are killed and hundreds severely beaten in a pogrom in the Ukrainian town of Kishinev. Many pogroms take place in Southern Russia between 1903 and 1906, as the authorities encourage the rise of right-wing, anti-Semitic movements and look the other way as mobs attack Jews. To many Jews, the pogroms demonstrate beyond a doubt that Tsarist Russia will not protect its Jewish subjects. A self-defense movement springs up, with individual groups forming in communities throughout the Russian Empire. A sharp rise in emigration to America also follows, as does a new wave of emigration to Palestine. Jewish revolutionaries, including members of the Jewish Labor Bund, become convinced that only the overthrow of the tsarist government will bring about safety and security for Jews.
1903
The American branch of Mizrahi (an acronym for Merkaz Ruhani, meaning "Spiritual Center"), the religious Zionist movement, is established. Founded in Vilna in 1902 and headquartered in Palestine after 1918, the movement believes that Jews must take the initiative to end their stay in exile, and are therefore obligated to live in the Land of Israel. Their slogan is "The Land of Israel for the People of Israel according to the Torah of Israel." American Mizrahi will dissolve in 1905, but be revived in 1913.
1903
The southern New Jersey farming village of Woodbine, founded as Jewish colony in 1891 with the support of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, becomes the first all-Jewish municipality to be incorporated in the U.S.
1903
Henrietta Szold, the future founder of Hadassah, is granted special permission to attend classes at the Jewish Theological Seminary if she promises not to seek rabbinical ordination, which is available only to men.
1903
Iota Alpha Pi, the first national Jewish sorority, is established at Hunter College in New York City.
1904
Angered by Russia's anti-Semitic policies, financier Jacob Schiff underwrites a bond issue of $200 million for Japan during the Russo-Japanese war. He also uses his influence to dissuade others from supporting Russia financially and provides aid for Russian Jewish self-defense groups.
1904
National Council of Jewish Women president Hannah Greenebaum Solomon, together with women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony, represents the Council of Women of the U.S. at a convention of the International Council of Women in Berlin.
1904
In response to reports of prostitution by Jewish immigrant women, Upper East Side German Jews establish the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls, a residence and trade school designed to prepare young immigrant women for life as productive and respectable American citizens.
1904
On the 250th anniversary of Jewish life in America, President Theodore Roosevelt sends a letter to Jacob Schiff, the chair of the celebration committee, praising American Jews for their contributions to the U.S.
1905
Albert Einstein, a Jewish patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland has an "annus mirabilis" (miracle year) in which he formulates several concepts that revolutionize the study of physics, the most famous of which is the theory of relativity: that space and time are not absolute, but relative, as expressed by the equation, E=mc2. (The energy content of a body is equal to the mass of the body times the speed of light squared).
1905
Solomon Schechter, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, joins the American Zionist Federation, espousing the idea that the attainment of a Jewish national home in Palestine could serve as a safeguard against assimilation. He attends the 11th Zionist Congress in Vienna in 1913, and encourages Zionist activity at the Seminary.
1905
Alfred Stieglitz, along with his non-Jewish protegee Edward Steichen, opens the Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City, where he exhibits the work of contemporary photographers together with the work of American and European avant-garde artists, such as Max Weber, John Marin, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse.
1906
In response to reports of the violent pogroms that are sweeping southern Russia, Congress passes a joint resolution declaring "that the people of the United States are horrified by the reports of the massacre of Hebrews in Russia, on account of their race and religion," and expresses sympathy for the victims.
1906
Prominent American German Jews form the American Jewish Committee to advocate for Jewish civil and religious rights in both the U.S. and internationally. Among the founders are Jacob Schiff, Louis Marshall, Oscar Straus, Cyrus Adler and Mayer Sulzberger. Straus, a scion of the department store family, becomes the first Jew to hold a Cabinet post when President Theodore Roosevelt appoints him Secretary of Labor and Commerce.
1906
Three synagogues are destroyed in the devastating San Francisco earthquake, including Temple Emanu-el, home to the oldest Jewish congregation west of the Mississippi (est. 1851).
1906
The Menorah Society, the first Jewish collegiate association in the U.S., is founded at Harvard University by a student, Henry Hurvitz. Its goal is to forge a positive relationship between Jewish tradition and intellectualism, based on the study of Judaism's humanistic values. The society will publish the "Menorah Journal" from 1915 to 1962.
1906
Anarchist Emma Goldman begins publishing "Mother Earth" magazine, a radical forum on current events. She will continue to put out the monthly until August 1917, despite attempts by the authorities to close it down on the grounds that it prints "treasonable" material. In 1918, federal authorities will seize its mailing list and investigate its subscribers.
1906
The "Forverts" (Forward) begins publishing an advice column for immigrants called "A bintl brif" (a bundle of letters). Originally written by "Forverts" editor Abraham Cahan, the column answers readers' letters on a range of topics including poverty, unemployment, socialism, generational conflicts, relationships, and religion.
1906
Sholem Aleichem, considered one of the fathers of modern Yiddish literature, moves to New York hoping to achieve financial success by writing for the Yiddish theater. The two plays he stages here are failures and he returns to Europe a year later.
1907
The Galveston Project, proposed and financed by Jacob Schiff, seeks to divert European Jewish immigration away from New York to the sparsely populated Jewish communities in the southwestern states. 5,000 immigrants pass through Galveston, Texas, which the project has selected as its preferred port of entry. By 1914, about 10,000 immigrants will have been rerouted from the ports of the Northeast to destinations further west.
1907
Alarmed by reports of increased criminal behavior among Jewish youth on New York City's Lower East Side, Jacob Schiff and other wealthy German Jews establish the first Jewish reform school, the Hawthorne School of the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society, in upstate New York. The school teaches trade skills such as carpentry, printing, and plumbing, as well as academic classes and courses on Judaism.
1907
Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning is chartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as an independent, non-theological graduate school dedicated to Jewish learning and research. Its name is later changed to Dropsie University.
1907
Carrie Marcus Neiman, her husband Al Neiman, and her brother Herbert Marcus open a fashionable department store, Neiman Marcus, in Dallas, Texas.
1907
Physicist Albert A. Michelson becomes the first American to win the Nobel Prize for science, for his work on the velocity of light.
1907
Playwright Martha Morton founds the Society of Dramatic Authors as an alternative to the American Dramatists Club, which excludes women authors.
1907
Jack, Abe, Harry and Sam Warner, the children of poor Polish Jewish immigrants, establish a film distribution company in New Castle, Pennsylvania. As business thrives, they will continue to open more movie theaters, deciding in 1912 to start producing films themselves. Warner Brothers Pictures becomes a pioneer in the Hollywood movie industry, and will produce the first "talkie" picture ("The Jazz Singer," 1927) and the first Hollywood musical ("The Gold Diggers," 1933), as well as countless other hit films.
1907
A group of young immigrant writers form "Di yunge" (The Young Ones), a literary movement that believes in art for art's sake, emphasizing beauty and personal expression in Yiddish literature, rather than service to moral or political causes. "Di yunge" will remain the dominant Yiddish literary movement in America until the founding of "In zikh" (Introspective) after World War I. Poets and novelists associated with "Di yunge" include Moses Leib Halpern, Mani Leib, Moses Nadir, Reuben Iceland, J.J. Schwartz, David Ignatoff, Isaac Raboy, and Joseph Opatoshu.
1908
English author Israel Zangwill's play about Jewish immigrants in America, "The Melting Pot," opens in Washington D.C., with President Theodore Roosevelt (to whom the play is dedicated) in attendance. It then moves to New York, becoming a Broadway hit. Its assimilatory theme ("America is God's crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming!") provokes controversy among American Jews, who, for the most part, favor acculturation, but not at the cost of completely giving up their identities as Jews.
1908
New York City's police commissioner Theodore Bingham publishes an article entitled "Foreign Criminals in New York" in the "North American Review," claiming that half the criminals in New York City are Jews. After being denounced as an anti-Semite in the Jewish press and at mass protest meetings, Bingham retracts his charges.
1909
Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham's accusation a year earlier that Jews are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in New York City leads to an attempt there to organize a "kehillah," a unified and centrally organized Jewish community governing body. Led by Reform rabbi Judah L. Magnes, the New York Kehillah consists of a confederation of hundreds of organizations. It mounts successful programs in the areas of Jewish education, labor arbitration, and philanthropy, but will be plagued by disunity for its entire existence, and will finally disband in 1922.
1909
William Williams, the Commissioner of Immigration, decrees that immigrants must possess at least $25 in order to gain admittance. Protests and pressure from American Jews help relax the enforcement of this requirement.
1909
The immigrant aid organizations Hebrew Sheltering House Association (est. 1889) and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (est. 1902) merge to form the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (still known as HIAS). In 1954, HIAS will again merge with other organizations (the United Service for New Americans and the Joint Distribution Committee's immigration department) to form the United HIAS Service. Over the course of its existence HIAS will help nearly 500,000 immigrants obtain citizenship, employment, housing, and other services and will maintain offices in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and South America.
1909
In New York City, striking worker Clara Lemlich's impromptu speech in Yiddish calling for a general strike of shirtwaist workers leads to the "Uprising of the 20,000," the largest strike by women to date in U.S. history. Some 20,000 young, immigrant women workers in the needle trades, most of them members of the fledgling International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), walk off their jobs for 11 weeks. In the face of violence, sexual harassment, and imprisonment, the strikers succeed in winning a 52-hour week, four paid legal holidays, improvements in working conditions, and uniform procedures for settling wage disputes. The strike spurs on the growth of the ILGWU, which will by 1920 be one of the most powerful industrial unions in America, with more than 100,000 members.
1909
The Columbia Auxiliary, the first permanent chapter of B'nai Brith Women, is founded in San Francisco. The men's Grand Lodge refuses them official recognition. Women's auxiliaries are formed in cities around the country, but will not be allowed formal representation at B'nai Brith conventions until the 1940s.
1909
American-born merchant (and later, philanthropist) Julius Rosenwald becomes president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., and turns it into the largest mail-order house in the world.
1909
Vienna's Dr. Sigmund Freud and his Swiss disciple, Carl Jung, visit the U.S. and lecture on psychoanalysis at Clark University. Austrian-born psychoanalyst Abraham Arden Brill introduces Freudian psychoanalysis to the English-speaking world with his translation of Freud's "Studies in Hysteria." He will go on to translate most of Freud's other work, and to found the New York Psychoanalytical Society in 1911.
1909
Isidore Singer completes publication of his 12-volume "Jewish Encyclopedia," a comprehensive history of the Jewish people.
1910
Sixty-five thousand cloak makers of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) strike for two months. Boston's Louis D. Brandeis, known as the "People's Attorney," helps bring about an end to the strike by writing the Protocol of Peace, a pioneering agreement that sets up systems of settling labor disputes through mediation and arbitration. Bessie Abramowitz (who will later marry labor activist Sidney Hillman) leads a walkout of 16 button sewers in Chicago that escalates into a strike of thousands of workers.
1910
Labor Zionists found a fraternal order, the Jewish National Workers Alliance. It provides insurance and medical plans, day and evening schools, and other cultural activities, and participates in other ways in Jewish political and communal affairs in the U.S. and internationally. The Alliance partners with the Labor Zionist Organization of America to establish the National Radical Schools, the first Yiddish secular afternoon schools. In addition to Yiddish, the schools also teach Hebrew. Later renamed Jewish Folk Schools, they are soon imitated by other labor and cultural groups.
1910
Judah L. Magnes, rabbi of New York City's Temple Emanu-El, a Reform congregation, comes to the conviction that the rising tide of Jewish assimilation can be stemmed only by a return to religious traditionalism. He resigns his pulpit and becomes rabbi of B'nai Jeshurun, a Conservative synagogue.
1910
Moise Gadol, a Bulgarian-born Sephardic Jew, begins publication of "La America," the first Judeo-Spanish language weekly in the U.S. The newspaper, which will exist for 15 years, provides practical advice to Sephardic immigrants about employment and citizenship, as well as glossaries of important words in both English and Yiddish. It also includes articles on Zionism, the labor movement, and women's rights, along with literary and cultural features.
1910
Fanny Brice inaugurates her career as an "ethnic" comedienne by performing Irving Berlin's song "Sadie Salome, Go Home," with a Yiddish accent.
1911
American Jewish groups, led by Louis Marshall and the American Jewish Committee, succeed in convincing Congress to abrogate the Commercial Treaty of 1832 treaty with Russia because of Russia's anti-Semitic policies and continuing discrimination against American Jewish travelers.
1911
A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City claims the lives of 146 workers, mostly Jewish and Italian women. Many of the deaths are due to locked exit doors and other safety violations that prevent the workers from escaping. The tragedy galvanizes the labor movement and leads to improved fire and safety regulations across the country.
1911
The National Desertion Bureau is established in New York City to provide legal aid for wives who have been deserted by their husbands, a growing phenomenon in the immigrant community. The Bureau attempts to locate the husbands and use the courts to compel them to pay child support.
1911
Victor Berger of Wisconsin becomes the first socialist elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he advocates for labor laws and social reform.
1911
Songwriter Irving Berlin has his first big hit with "Alexander's Ragtime Band."
1912
One of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history occurs when the Titanic, the largest passenger steamship in the world, strikes an iceberg and sinks during her maiden voyage. Among the over 1500 passengers and crew killed are Isidor Straus (co-owner of Macy's) and his wife Ida, who refuses a place on a lifeboat in order to remain at the side of her husband.
1912
Henrietta Szold founds the Daughters of Zion-Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. Focusing on nursing and public health needs, Hadassah will establish an American nursing service in Jerusalem in 1913. By the outbreak of World War I, Hadassah will have 34 chapters and 2,100 members, making it the largest women's organization in the world.
1912
The National Council of Young Israel is founded on New York City's Lower East Side to fight assimilation by promoting a form of traditional, synagogue-based Judaism that is compatible with Americanization. The Young Israel movement will grow to eventually include nearly 25,000 members in 150 Orthodox congregations throughout the U.S. and Canada.
1912
Cantor and composer Yossele Rosenblatt emigrates from Russia to serve as cantor for New York City's Congregation Ohab Zedek. The most popular cantor of his time, Rosenblatt tours extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. His voice will be featured on the soundtrack of "The Jazz Singer" (1928), the first full sound film ever made.
1912
Mary Antin, a Russian-born immigrant, publishes her autobiography, "The Promised Land." The best-selling book extols the abundant opportunities available to American immigrants.
1912
Universal Studios is founded in Hollywood by film producer Carl Laemmle, a German Jewish immigrant. The studio soon becomes one of the largest movie studios in the world.
1912
Ray Karchmer Daily is the first Jewish woman to graduate from a Texas medical school. She goes on to become the only woman physician among the founders of the Houston Academy of medicine.
1913
Leo Frank, manager of the factory of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Georgia, is accused of the murder of Mary Phagan, a 14-year-old worker. Despite dubious evidence, he is convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, amid anti-Semitic outbursts in the courtroom and in the press. In 1915, Georgia governor John Slaton will commute Frank's sentence to life imprisonment, but an angry mob will drag the prisoner from his cell and lynch him. In 1982, Alonzo Mann, a 14-year-old office boy at the time of the murder, will come forward and provide new evidence of Frank's innocence.
1913
B'nai Brith establishes an Anti-Defamation League to combat anti-Semitism in the U.S., including discrimination in employment, educational institutions, and housing; and offensive images of Jews in the media. During the 1920s, the ADL will succeed in initiating legislation that helps expose and diminish the power of the Ku Klux Klan.
1913
Reform Jewish women in Cincinnati establish the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods. In 1993, the organization will be renamed The Women of Reform Judaism-The Federation of Temple Sisterhoods.
1913
Solomon Schechter, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, establishes the United Synagogue of America, the umbrella organization for Conservative synagogues in North America.
1913
The Library of Congress establishes a Semitics Division, to which financier Jacob Schiff donates a collection of 10,000 Hebrew books.
1913
The first Hebrew encyclopedia, "Ozar Yisrael" (Treasury of Israel) in ten volumes, is edited and published in New York City by Judah David Eisenstein.
1913
Samuel Goldwyn (nee Goldfish), a Polish Jewish glove salesman, joins with his brother-in-law, Jesse Lasky, a vaudeville promoter, and Cecil B. de Mille to produce Hollywood's first feature-length movie, "The Squaw Man." He will later join with Edgar and Archibald Selwyn to form the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, which later becomes the hugely successful film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
1913
Filmmaker Sidney M. Goldin directs "The Heart of A Jewess," "The Sorrows of Israel," and other films on Jewish themes for Universal Studios.
1914
World War I begins in Europe. By the time it ends in 1918, it will have involved most of the great Western powers and will be the largest war the world has yet seen.
1914
The war creates massive dislocation and hardship for civilians caught in its path. Jewish communities in Eastern Europe are particularly hard hit, and there are many Jewish refugees. American Jews conduct extensive fundraising campaigns on behalf of their co-religionists overseas. Many small and large "relief committees" are organized. The most prominent and permanent of these is the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Under the leadership of its first chairman, financier Felix Warburg, it will provide millions of dollars of aid and other special relief services to Jews in Europe and elsewhere in the world and will play a particularly important role in aiding Jews during World War II.
1914
Banker Paul Moritz Warburg (Felix Warburg's brother) is appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as one of the five members of the first Federal Reserve Board. He will later write several books about the importance of maintaining a solid, politically independent central banking system in the U.S.
1914
Lawyer and socialist leader Meyer London is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a socialist from New York City's Lower East Side. The first Russian-born Jew to serve in Congress, London argues for reforms in immigration, labor, and bankruptcy laws, and will endure many anti-socialist attacks during his congressional tenure.
1914
Under the leadership of Chicago labor leader Sidney Hillman, a group of tailors break away from the United Garment Workers Union to form the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which soon becomes a huge and powerful labor union.
1914
Grossinger's, located on 1,200 acres in New York's Catskill Mountains, opens as a boardinghouse for Jewish vacationers. It will develop into a large and fancy resort hotel, becoming the standard against which all other "Borsht Belt" hotels are measured.
1914
"Der Tog" (The Day) is founded in New York City by a group of businessmen and intellectuals who aspire to the creation of a nonpartisan, Yiddish daily newspaper of high journalistic standards. Its first editor is Herman Bernstein, a well-known English-language journalist, and its staff and contributors include some of the most important Yiddish writers of the day, among them Samuel Niger, David Pinsky, Aaron Glanz-Leyeles, Peretz Hirshbein, Joseph Opatoshu, and Yehoash.
1914
Harry Hershfield creates the comic strip "Abie The Agent," depicting the daily life of a lower middle class Jew in New York City. The strip uses the sort of "ethnic" dialogue that has often been used to demean foreigners in the past, but nonetheless, treats its immigrant characters with respect and sympathy.
1915
The death sentence of Leo Frank, accused and convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan in 1913 is commuted by Georgia Governor John Slaton. An angry mob drags Frank from his cell and lynches him. In 1982, Alonzo Mann, a 14-year-old office boy at the time of the murder, will come forward and provide new evidence of Frank's innocence.
1915
In Idaho, Moses Alexander becomes the first Jew elected as a state governor.
1915
Philosopher and educator Horace Kallen formulates his theory of "cultural pluralism," which promotes the idea that every ethnic group has a special contribution to make to American culture, and that assimilation need not come at the cost of cultural identity. Kallen will later become one of the founders of the New School for Social Research.
1915
The Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and Yeshiva Etz Chaim (an Orthodox elementary school) are united. The reorganized rabbinical seminary will later become the core of Yeshiva College, and then Yeshiva University, the first Orthodox institution of higher education.
1915
The Yiddish daily press in America reaches its peak, with circulation at around 600,000 nationally.
1915
1915 is the year of birth of a number of important Jewish writers, including Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Alfred Kazin, and Herman Wouk. In the May issue of "Harper's Monthly Magazine," William Dean Howells, discussing the New York literary scene, writes: "Very possibly there may be at this moment a Russian or Polish Jew, born or bred on our East Side who shall burst from his parental Yiddish and . . . slake our drought of imaginative literature."
1915
The Folksbiene Theater is established in New York City to produce serious, high-quality Yiddish theater as an alternative to the light, popular "shund" (lowbrow) theater that is then commonplace. Its first production is a Yiddish adaptation of Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People." Originally an amateur group affiliated with the Workmen's Circle, the Folksbiene will endure to become the longest-running Yiddish theater company in the world, marking its 89th anniversary in 2004.
1916
American Jews number nearly 3.4 million, comprising 3.27 percent of the total U.S. population of 103.7 million.
1916
Boston lawyer Louis D. Brandeis is the first Jew appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Known as the "People's Attorney" for his championship of consumer and taxpayer interests and other populist causes, his nomination by President Woodrow Wilson is initially opposed by Senate conservatives, but finally confirmed after a debate which lasts for four months.
1916
Industrialist Simon Bamberger, the founder of Utah's first Jewish congregation (Bnai Israel), is the first Democrat and non-Mormon to be elected governor of Utah.
1916
Labor activist Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca is named vice president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Fannia M. Cohn is the first woman elected as vice president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), and will serve ten years on the executive board. One of her chief accomplishments is creating the first education department in an international union. Bellanca and Cohn are among the very few women to serve as executives of major trade unions.
1916
Over 100,000 mourners attend the funeral of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, known as the father of modern Yiddish literature, in New York City.
1917
The U.S. enters World War I. About 200,000 Jews serve in the armed forces.
1917
Great Britain, after wresting control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, issues the Balfour Declaration, stating its support for the establishment of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine. It is the first major diplomatic victory of the Zionist movement. Encouraged, many more Jews will immigrate to Palestine.
1917
Congress passes a bill requiring a literacy test for new immigrants. Jewish lobbyists succeed in getting both Yiddish and Hebrew recognized as acceptable languages for the requirement.
1917
The National Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) is established to meet the religious and communal needs of Jews in the U.S. armed forces. The JWB works with local YMHAs, synagogues, and rabbinic bodies to provide religious services and holiday programs, prayer books, and cultural activities for Jewish military personnel and their families.
1917
The Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies is established in New York City to coordinate fundraising for social agencies that otherwise remain autonomous. Similar agencies have existed since 1895 in cities such as Boston and Cincinnati in order to help Jewish organizations avoid competition and duplication of services.
1917
The Jewish Correspondence Bureau Telegraphic Agency (now known as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency), the first news agency to both gather and distribute the news around the world, is established in London by journalist Jacob Landau. It will move its headquarters to New York City in 1922.
1917
The Jewish Publication Society of America issues a new English translation of the Bible by American Jewish scholars, which wins broad acceptance in the English-speaking world.
1917
Benny Leonard wins the world lightweight boxing championship. He will retire from boxing in 1925 as the undefeated champion, and is considered to this day to be the greatest lightweight in boxing history.
1918
World War I ends. The American Jewish Congress convenes to elect a delegation to the Paris peace talks, where issues such as minority rights in Europe and the future of Palestine will be addressed. The Congress sees itself as a more democratic and Zionist alternative to the American Jewish Committee. About 335,000 Jews vote in the elections for the Congress, which will disband after the peace talks, but reconstitute itself as a permanent organization in 1921.
1918
President Woodrow Wilson, influenced by his close relationship with American Zionist leader Louis D. Brandeis, announces his approval of the Balfour Declaration (Great Britain's 1917 statement of support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine) in an open letter to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.
1918
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, creates the American Zionist Medical Unit in Palestine, bringing 45 doctors and nurses and hundreds of tons of supplies to the region. The unit transforms medical care in Palestine and offers medical care to both Jews and Arabs. It will later be known as the Hadassah Medical Organization.
1918
Mathilde Schechter, Racie Adler, and Carrie Dreyfuss Davidson establish the Women's League for Conservative Judaism, a national organization of Conservative sisterhoods. With the goal of promoting Jewish observance, the Women's League publishes Jewish educational materials in English for immigrant women and helps provide Jewish student housing with kosher facilities.
1918
The Workmen's Circle begins an after-school program, focusing on Yiddish language and literature, Jewish history, "beauty and cleanliness," idealism, "love for the working class and the oppressed," and respect for "the struggle for freedom." Imbued with socialist consciousness, the "shules," as they are popularly called, will become the largest Yiddish-language school system in North America. The same year brings the establishment of the first Sholem Aleichem folk-schools ("folk-shules"), in New York City, which place less emphasis on socialism than the Workmen's Circle "shules."
1919
Anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are released from prison after serving time for antiwar activities, but are rearrested, stripped of their citizenship, and deported to the Soviet Union, along with 247 other foreign-born radicals.
1919
Educators Albert and Bertha Singer Schoolman establish the Cejwin Camps, the first system of Jewish educational summer camps in the U.S.
1919
Yiddish poets Aaron Glanz-Leyeles, Jacob Glatstein, and N.B. Minkoff found "In zikh" (Introspective), a modernist Yiddish poetry movement.
1919
Jacob Ben-Ami, Celia Adler, and other actors break away from Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theater (founded only the year before) to found the Jewish Art Theater or Naye teater (New Theater) to perform realistic, literary dramas. The founding of these two theaters, both exemplars of quality and sophistication, ushers in a brief, new "golden age" of Yiddish theater. Of the 24 Yiddish theatres in America, 11 are in New York, with the rest in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit.
1920
Great Britain is granted a mandate over Palestine at the international San Remo Conference.
1920
New York is the biggest Jewish city in the world, with over 1.5 million Jews.
1920
Prohibition is instituted in the U.S. and immediately leads to a brisk business in bootlegging. Among the most notorious bootleggers are Cleveland Jewish gangsters nicknamed the "Big Jewish Navy" because they smuggle liquor across Lake Erie from Canada.
1920
"The Dearborn Independent," Henry Ford's weekly newspaper, publishes the first in a series called "The International Jew," which includes excerpts from the anti-Semitic "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." American Jews mount a mass boycott of Ford automobiles.
1920
Anzia Yezierska, a protegee of educator John Dewey, publishes "Hungry Hearts," an autobiographical short story collection dramatizing immigrant life on the Lower East Side. The book draws the attention of Samuel Goldwyn, who brings her to Hollywood as a screenwriter. Homesickness and writer's block, however, soon draw her back to New York.
1921
The 1921 Immigration Act is signed into law. Addressing the fears of those who are alarmed by the growing ethnic diversity of the U.S., the law sets quotas based on national origin by limiting the number of immigrants from any country to 3 percent of the number of persons from that country already living in the U.S. in 1910. It results in a sharp reduction of visas granted to immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, the home of many Jews and Italians.
1921
The American Jewish Congress, originally established as a temporary delegation of pro-Zionist Jews to the Paris Peace Conference, becomes a permanent organization.
1921
Albert Einstein, accompanied by Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, makes his first visit to the U.S. to mobilize support for the establishment of the Hebrew University in Palestine.
1922
President Harding signs the Lodge-Fish Resolution, indicating American approval for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
1922
Mordechai M. Kaplan founds the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a synagogue in New York dedicated to Reconstructionism, his developing philosophy of Judaism. He introduces the bas mitzvah ceremony for girls, to parallel the bar mitzvah, the traditional coming-of-age ritual for boys. Kaplan's daughter Judith becomes the first bas mitzvah.
1922
The first Reform Jewish day school is founded in New York City at Congregation Rodeph Sholom. Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise establishes the Jewish Institute of Religion. The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis votes to ordain women as rabbis but Hebrew Union College rejects their recommendation.
1922
The first Orthodox degree-granting rabbinical seminary, the Hebrew Theological College, is established in Chicago.
1922
Harvard University sets a quota limiting its number of Jewish students. Other colleges and universities soon do the same. Berlin-born literary critic Ludwig Lewisohn, Associate Editor of "The Nation," publishes "Up Stream," an autobiographical memoir describing his student years at Columbia University and the anti-Semitism he experienced in the Department of English literature.
1922
"Morgn-Frayhayt" (Morning-Freedom), a Yiddish daily newspaper, is founded in New York by the Jewish section of the American Communist Party. The newspaper, "Der Tog" (The Day) begins serialization of a Yiddish translation of the Hebrew bible by Yehoash (Solomon Bloomgarten).
1923
The first radio broadcast of a synagogue service takes place.
1923
Rabbi Joseph Lookstein, a graduate of the Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary and the first American-educated rabbi to hold a pulpit, is hired by Congregation Kehillath Jeshurun in New York.
1923
A Women's branch of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations is organized. The National Council of Jewish Women organizes an international congress in Vienna bringing together 200 Jewish women from 70 countries.
1923
The first Hillel foundation is established by Rabbi Ben Frankel to meet the needs of Jewish college students at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Four years later, his successor, Abram Leon Sachar, builds Hillel into a national organization under the sponsorship of B'nai Brith.
1924
The Immigration Act of 1924 is passed, making permanent the quota system established by the 1921 law. The provisions of the new law are even more restrictive, limiting immigration to 2 percent of the number of persons from that country already living in the U.S. in 1890. The law slashes immigration to a fraction of its pre-World War I level and all but halts further Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe.
1924
Richard Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster establish the Simon and Schuster Publishing Company. Their first project, a crossword puzzle book, with a first printing of 3,600 copies sells out. A year later, the pair revolutionizes the American book business by becoming the first publisher to offer booksellers the opportunity to return unsold books for credit.
1924
Edna Ferber is the first Jewish writer to receive the Pulitzer Prize for her novel "So Big."
1924
George Gershwin composes "Rhapsody in Blue."
1924
Serge Koussevitsky, the Russian-born son of a violin teacher and a klezmer musician, arrives in the U.S., where he becomes the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the foremost champion of new American music.
1924
Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer join forces to establish MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), which will develop into one of Hollywood's largest movie studios.
1925
The Hebrew University is inaugurated in Jerusalem with American Rabbi Judah L. Magnes as its first chancellor.
1925
Florence Prag Kahn becomes the first Jewish woman to serve in the House of Representatives when she wins a special election after the death of her husband, a Republican congressman from San Francisco.
1925
Edward Ellsberg, a U.S. naval officer who led the rescue efforts to raise the sunken submarine USS S-51 off the coast of Block Island, becomes the first peacetime recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal.
1925
Two women's Zionist organizations are founded: Pioneer Women (representing Labor Zionists) and the Mizrahi Women's Organization of America (representing Orthodox Zionists). Bessie Gotsfeld, a founder of the Mizrahi Women's Organization, also starts AMIT, a network of schools for underprivileged children.
1925
The Synagogue Council of America is established with the aim of fostering cooperation between the different denominations of American Judaism.
1925
F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes "The Great Gatsby," the classic novel of the jazz age. Its most prominent Jewish character is the gambler Meyer Wolfsheim, who is described as a "flat-nosed Jew" and may have been modeled on real-life Jewish gangster Arnold Rothstein.
1925
The Jewish Art Center is founded in Greenwich Village by Jennings Tofel and other Jewish artists who reject assimilation in favor of emphasizing the connection between art and Jewish culture.
1925
Sophie Tucker introduces her smash hit, "My Yiddishe Mama."
1926
A strike called by more radical locals of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) begins and lasts for several months, involving tens of thousands of garment workers. It ends unsuccessfully with the union in financial shambles and ideological disarray, forced to accept the terms offered by employers at the outset of the strike. The influence of communists on the Jewish labor unions declines and the ILGWU is reorganized, but it takes several years for it to regain its strength and prestige as a defender of Jewish workers.
1926
David Sarnoff creates the first U.S. radio network, the National Broadcasting System (NBC), as a subsidiary of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).
1926
Radio station WEVD, specializing in Yiddish-language programming, is founded in New York by the Forwards Association, publishers of the Yiddish daily newspaper, "Forverts" (The Forward). Its call letters honor the memory of socialist leader Eugene V. Debs.
1926
The silent film "The Cohen and the Kellys" is released. It is the first in a popular comedy series satirizing both Jews and the Irish.
1926
Ernest Hemingway publishes "The Sun Also Rises," a novel of expatriate Americans in Europe after World War I with a Jewish character, Robert Cohn, who is portrayed in unflattering terms.
1927
A religious census reports 3,118 congregations and 17,500 Jewish organizations in the U.S. with a Jewish population estimated at 4.28 million.
1927
Charles A. Levine becomes the first transatlantic airplane passenger when he charters a flight from New York to Eisleben, Germany.
1927
After a long campaign by Jewish leaders, Henry Ford publicly apologizes for having published anti-Semitic propaganda in his newspaper "The Dearborn Independent."
1927
Bennet Cerf, Elmer Adler and Donald Klopfer found Random House, which will later become the largest publishing house in America.
1927
Charles Reznikoff publishes "Five Groups of Verse." Over the years, the Brooklyn-born poet will publish several poetry collections, with many poems drawing from Yiddish sources and focusing on the American Jewish experience.
1927
Al Jolson, the son of a cantor, stars in "The Jazz Singer," the first feature-length "talkie." The main character, Jackie Rabinowitz, a Lower East Side youngster torn between his dream of success on Broadway and his duty to his family and Jewish tradition, is modeled after Jolson himself.
1927
Composer Jerome Kern and librettist Oscar Hammerstein create the first modern American musical, "Show Boat," adapted from a novel by Edna Ferber.
1928
Yeshiva College is established as America's first Jewish liberal arts college, providing both traditional religious education and secular studies.
1928
The National Conference of Christians and Jews, an organization dedicated to the eradication of prejudice, is founded.
1928
Notorious Jewish gangster Arnold Rothstein, known as the J.P. Morgan of the underworld, is fatally shot by a creditor in a New York hotel.
1928
Aline Bernstein, famous for Thomas Wolfe's fictionalized account of their affair, becomes the resident designer of Eva La Gallienne's Civic Repertory Company, ensuring her reputation as one of the greatest theatrical designers of the American stage.
1929
The New York stock market crashes and is followed by the collapse of U.S. banks and the onset of the Great Depression.
1929
Arab nationalist riots break out in Palestine. Among the 67 Jews killed are eight American students at the Slobodka Yeshiva in Hebron. Abraham Reisen, H. Leivick, and other writers on the staff of the New York communist Yiddish daily, "Morgn-Frayhayt" (Morning-Freedom), resign in protest over the newspaper's anti-Zionist coverage of the riots.
1929
Edward L. Bernays, publishes "Crystallizing Public Opinion," establishing himself as "the father of public relations."
1929
Rabbi David de Sola Pool organizes the Union of Sephardic Congregations with the participation of leaders from Shearith Israel in New York, Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, and Shearith Israel in Montreal.
1929
NBC begins broadcasting the popular radio series, "The Goldbergs," a comedy about an Americanizing Jewish immigrant family written by and starring Gertrude Berg. The program later becomes one of the earliest television comedies.
1930
Salo Wittmayer Baron joins the faculty of Columbia University as the first chair in Jewish history at a secular university in the U.S.
1930
Political activist Michael Gold publishes his semi-autobiographical novel, "Jews Without Money," a communist perspective on Jewish poverty on the Lower East Side.
1931
Traditional prayers and a Zionist anthem are added to the Reform hymnal, reflecting the movement's evolving positions on traditional ritual and Zionism.
1931
The Museum of Jewish Ceremonial Objects, a precursor of New York's Jewish Museum, is founded under the auspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1931
"Of Thee I Sing," composed by George Gershwin and written by George S. Kaufman, Ira Gershwin and Morris Ryskind, becomes the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize.
1932
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president of the U.S. He is one of the first presidential candidates to campaign vigorously in "ethnic" communities, and he receives an overwhelming percentage of the Jewish vote.
1932
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, chief judge of New York's Court of Appeals, is appointed associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1932
David Dubinsky is elected president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, a post he will hold for the next 34 years.
1932
The Council of Jewish Federations, dedicated to community planning, fundraising and social services, is established.
1932
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg and Jay Gorney is recorded by Bing Crosby and becomes one of the best-known songs of the Great Depression. Yip Harburg will later go on to write the lyrics for "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," popularized in the 1939 movie, "The Wizard of Oz."
1932
Artist Ben Shahn attracts attention with his paintings of Sacco and Vanzetti and labor leader Tom Mooney. Around this time, he also begins to work as an assistant to Diego Rivera on his mural at Rockerfeller Center, the controversial "Man at the Crossroads," destroyed in 1934 by management because of its communist imagery.
1933
Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
1933
The American Jewish Congress declares its attention to organize a boycott on German goods to protest the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi regime. Other organizations, such as the Jewish War Veterans and a new organization called the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights, also initiate boycott activities. Some mainstream Jewish organizations are reluctant to follow suit, fearing a backlash against German Jews and anti-Semitic responses in America, but the boycott is endorsed by the American Federation of Labor.
1933
Youth Aliyah is founded by the Jewish Agency to rescue Jewish children threatened by persecution or destitution. The new organization is headed by American Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah. From 1933-1945, Youth Aliyah will save the lives of thousands of children by bringing them to Palestine or convincing Allied countries to accept them as refugees.
1933
Scholars Morris Raphael Cohen and Salo Baron establish the Conference on Jewish Relations in New York to refute Nazi propaganda by providing the public with reliable information about Jews.
1933
Poet T.S. Eliot begins to gain a reputation as an anti-Semite when he states in a lecture that "reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable." At the same time, however, he carries on a friendship and correspondence with New School co-founder Horace Kallen, who seeks Eliot's help with developing the International League for Academic Freedom, an organization active in aiding scholars and teachers in German concentration camps.
1933
Albert Einstein resigns his position at the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences and accepts a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, leaving Germany forever.
1933
The Yiddish film "The Wandering Jew" is the first American film to depict the Nazi persecution of Jews.
1933
Gertrude Stein, famous expatriate and hostess of a salon frequented by Pablo Picasso and other Paris artists and intellectuals, publishes the modernist classic "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas."
1933
Hollywood screenwriter Nathanael West expresses cynicism about the American Dream in his novel "Miss Lonelyhearts," a satire involving an advice columnist. In 1939, he publishes "Day of the Locusts," a scathing look at Hollywood.
1934
President Roosevelt appoints Henry Morgenthau, Jr. as Secretary of the Treasury. Roosevelt includes more Jews at the highest levels of government than any previous president, and during his administration, many Jews are also appointed to civil service positions.
1934
The Jewish Labor Committee is organized under the leadership of Baruch Charney Vladeck to represent Jewish labor in the American trade union movement and in the Jewish organizational world and to mobilize labor in the struggle against fascism.
1934
Mordechai M. Kaplan publishes "Judaism as a Civilization," which argues that Judaism evolves as the Jewish people encounter new social, political, and cultural conditions, and that American Jews must constantly work at "reconstructing" Judaism. The book becomes the guiding text of Reconstructionism, a new movement within Judaism.
1934
Henry Roth publishes "Call It Sleep," a modernist novel about of the immigrant experience. Al Capp publishes the first installments of "Li'l Abner," his comic strip satire of Depression Era America.
1934
The movie "House of Rothschild," produced by Darryl Zanuck, a non-Jew, uses the anti-Semitism suffered by the Rothschild family as a metaphor for the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
1934
Cabaret owner Max Gordon opens the Village Vanguard, a nightclub that will launch the careers of many performers, including Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Judy Holliday, and Johnny Mathis.
1934
Already a hero in Jewish households, Detroit Tiger Hank Greenberg becomes even more of a role model when he refuses to play on Yom Kippur. Barney Ross wins the world lightweight welterweight boxing championship.
1935
The Nuremburg Laws strip Jews of most of their rights as German citizens.
1935
The Artists Congress Against War and Fascism is founded by left-wing artists, including William Gropper, Max Weber, and Moses Soyer.
1935
Justine Wise Polier becomes the first woman judge in New York.
1935
The Rabbinical Council of America, composed of English-speaking Orthodox rabbis, is established.
1935
Alfred Eisenstaedt, sometimes referred to as "the father of photojournalism," leaves Nazi Germany for the U.S. and joins the staff of "Life Magazine." Composer Kurt Weill, another refugee from Nazism, also arrives in America. Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer leaves Poland and joins his brother, the novelist Israel Joshua Singer, in New York.
1935
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal establishes the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a government program that employs talented artists and writers, including many Jews.
1935
The Group Theater stages Clifford Odets' "Waiting for Lefty," a landmark in avant garde, participatory theater. Audiences shout and chant political slogans along with the actors during particularly arousing scenes, and the actors, carried away by the audience's fervor, sometimes break down and cry. The same year brings the opening of another Odets play, "Awake %26 Sing," portraying the troubles of an impoverished Jewish family in the Bronx.
1936
The Spanish Civil War begins.
1936
While voters from other ethnic communities become less ardent supporters of the Roosevelt Administration, Jews become even more enthusiastic about the president and his policies: 85 percent of Jews vote to reelect Franklin D. Roosevelt for a second term as president.
1936
The Jewish Labor Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and other organizations form the Joint Boycott Council, combining their efforts to organize a boycott of German goods. The boycott is endorsed by the newly established World Jewish Congress.
1936
When the U.S. Olympic Committee decides not to boycott the Berlin Olympics, the Jewish Labor Committee responds by holding a "Counter- Olympics," a World Labor Athletic Carnival in New York City.
1936
Mathematician Richard Courant flees Nazi Germany for New York, where he becomes head of the department of mathematics at New York University.
1936
"Yidl Mitn Fidl" (Yidl with his Fiddle), a Polish-American co-production starring Molly Picon as a girl masquerading as a boy violinist, debuts in both the U.S. and Poland. It is one of many Yiddish films made for audiences in both the U.S. and Eastern Europe by producer Joseph Green and other entrepreneurs.
1936
Clarinetist Benny Goodman organizes the Benny Goodman trio with drummer Gene Krupka and African-American pianist Teddy Wilson. It is the first interracial jazz band to achieve widespread acceptance and fame.
1937
The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis adopts a new statement of principles, known as the Columbus Platform, which accepts the idea of the Jews as a people, supports Zionism, and calls for the increased use of Hebrew and the restoration of some traditional ritual and ceremonial practices.
1937
Ramaz, the first modern Orthodox day school, is founded in New York. Rabbi Moses Feinstein, an Orthodox rabbinic leader and leading scholar, emigrates to the U.S. from Russia.
1937
YKUF (Yiddish Kultur Farband) is founded to serve as a parallel in the arts to the Popular Front (the anti-Fascist coalition of New Deal liberals, communists and independent radicals) by forging a coalition of liberal and leftist artists.
1937
The WPA (Works Progress Administration) bans "The Cradle Will Rock," an anti-capitalist musical written by Mark Blitzstein, from being performed. On opening night, audiences assemble outside the advertised (and locked) New York City theater anyway, and are led by the defiant writer and actors through the streets to a different theater where the performance takes place.
1937
Leo Rosten's stories about the comical problems of Yiddish-speaking immigrants trying to learn English, originally published in the "New Yorker," are published as "The Education of Hyman Kaplan."
1938
Germany annexes Austria.
1938
Great Britain, France, and Italy sign the Munich Pact, allowing Germany to annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
1938
An international conference convenes at Evian, France to discuss the problem of Jewish refugees, but no country except the Dominican Republic agrees to significantly loosen restrictions on immigration.
1938
The Nazis carry out Kristallnacht, a massive pogrom against German Jews, destroying hundreds of synagogues and Jewish businesses and imprisoning thousands of Jews in concentration camps. Franklin Delano Roosevelt recalls American ambassador Hugh Wilson from Germany as a protest.
1938
A public opinion polls reveals that nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that the persecution of European Jews is entirely or partly their own fault. The anti-Semitic rantings of Roman Catholic priest Charles Coughlin on the radio and in his magazine "Social Justice" are at the height of their popularity.
1938
Admiral Claude Bloch, a Jew from Kentucky, is named commander-in-chief of the U.S. fleet.
1938
3,000 "landsmanshaftn" (immigrant mutual aid organizations) in New York are recorded in a WPA survey.
1938
Kate Smith records Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," sometimes called America's "second national anthem."
1938
Barney Josephson opens the Cafe Society nightclub in New York, welcoming racially mixed audiences and presenting African-American performers such as Billie Holliday and Hazel Scott.
1938
The first "Action Comics" is published, featuring Superman, a character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1933.
1939
A British White Paper restricts Jewish immigration to Palestine.
1939
In March, Germany occupies Czechoslovakia, and in September, invades Poland. World War II begins.
1939
Fritz Kuhn, leader of the pro-Hitler German-American Bund, addresses more than 22,000 followers at New York's Madison Square Garden.
1939
A Gallup poll reveals that 66 percent of Americans oppose a rescue plan calling for 10,000 German Jewish refugee children to be brought to the U.S. The St. Louis, a ship carrying several hundred Jewish refugees, is not allowed to land in a U.S. port.
1939
The United Palestine Appeal and the American Joint Distribution Committee form the United Jewish Appeal to spearhead fundraising campaigns. The UJA's first beneficiary is the National Refugee Service, an organization that aids Jewish refugees.
1939
"Confessions of a Nazi Spy" is released. It is Hollywood's most openly anti-Nazi film before the entry of the U.S. into World War II.
1939
Felix Frankfurter is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt, succeeding Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo.
1939
Literary critic Lionel Trilling becomes the first Jew to be appointed assistant professor in Columbia University's English department.
1939
Agudath Israel of America, part of a worldwide Orthodox political movement established in Europe in 1912, is founded in New York.
1939
The New York World's Fair opens and includes a "Palestine pavilion."
1939
The dancer Anna Sokolow goes to Mexico, where she becomes known as the founder of Mexican modern dance.
1940
The Nazis begin confining Polish Jews in ghettos.
1940
The Jewish Labor Committee succeeds in getting the State Department to issue emergency visas to labor and socialist leaders, Yiddish writers and artists, and other communal activists from Nazi-occupied Europe. Over 1,000 are rescued and come to the U.S.
1940
The headquarters of YIVO (then known as the Yiddish Scientific Institute) is transferred from occupied Vilna to New York.
1940
Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, escapes from Poland and settles in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, establishing the U.S. as a new center of his movement.
1940
One year after the general public gets its first glimpse of television at the World's Fair, Peter Goldmark invents a color television system for CBS. The system is not compatible with black-and-white televisions marketed after World War II, however, and it is not until the 1960s that color broadcasting becomes widespread.
1940
Sid Luckman becomes the first great T-formation quarterback during his first year with the Chicago Bears, and the team goes on to win four NFL Championships (1940, 1941, 1943, 1946).
1941
In June, Germany invades the Soviet Union and embarks on the systematic murder of Jews. As the German army sweeps eastward, it is accompanied by special units, known as "Einsatzgruppen," which round up and massacre entire Jewish communities. At the end of the year, the Nazis establish the first extermination camp, Chelmno, in Poland.
1941
Rep. M. Michael Edelstein, Democrat of New York, collapses and dies of a heart attack in the cloakroom of the House of Representatives after delivering a speech in response to anti-Semitic remarks by Rep. John Rankin, Democrat of Mississippi.
1941
After a stay in Japan, Rabbi Aaron Kotler, revered scholar and head of the Kleck Yeshiva, arrives in the U.S. Under his leadership, the Lithuanian Jewish Orthodox movement establishes a new yeshiva, Beth Medrash Gevoha, in Lakewood, New Jersey, destined to become one of the most highly regarded yeshivas in the U.S.
1941
In September, Charles Lindbergh appears in Des Moines, Iowa, on behalf of the isolationist America First Committee, expressing doubt that U.S. could hold its own in a war against Germany. He blames Jews, the British, and the Roosevelt Administration for leading America toward war.
1941
On December 7, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and the U.S. enters the war.
1942
Jews from all over Europe are deported to and murdered at the six death camps established by the Nazis in Poland.
1942
In February, American Zionists hold their first joint meeting since World War I at New York's Biltmore Hotel. Zionist leaders from around the world attend. At the urging of chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive David Ben-Gurion, a declaration, known as the Biltmore Program, is adopted, in which, for the first time, American Zionists officially endorse the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine.
1942
In response to a resolution of the Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis calling for a Jewish army in Palestine, a group of anti-Zionist Reform rabbis establish the American Council for Judaism, which maintains that Judaism is a religion and not a nationality.
1942
In March, 20,000 Jews attend an anti-Nazi rally at New York's Madison Square Garden to protest Nazi atrocities. President Roosevelt sends a message that for the first time specifically mentions atrocities against Jews and which promises that the perpetrators will be brought to justice after the war.
1942
In the summer, the State Department postpones delivery to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of a cable from Dr. Gerhardt Riegner, the World Jewish Congress representative in Switzerland, about the Nazis' plans to carry out the mass extermination of the Jews with poison gas. Later, the agency pressures Wise not to publicize the information.
1942
In November, a special edition of the Labor Zionist journal "Jewish Frontier" dedicated to reporting on the genocide of European Jewry appears. It is the first comprehensive account of the mass murder of Jews to appear in an English-language publication.
1942
In December, a Day of Mourning and Prayer on behalf of European Jewry is held in the U.S. and 29 foreign countries. Yiddish newspapers are published with black borders and Jewish and non-Jewish union workers halt work for ten minutes.
1942
Frank Loesser's "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" becomes a wartime hit. Irving Berlin writes "White Christmas" for the movie "Holiday Inn."
1942
Ernest Lubitsch directs "To Be or Not to Be," a black comedy about a Polish theater company that joins the resistance after being shut down by the Nazis.
1943
Peter Bergson, a Palestinian Jew and the leader of the Committee for a Jewish Army, strikes a new note of militancy by placing an ad in "The New York Times" headlined "FOR SALE TO HUMANITY: 70,000 JEWS, GUARANTEED HUMAN BEINGS AT $50 A PIECE." The ad refers to a report that the Rumanian government was willing to free 70,000 Jews in exchange for payment, and demands that the Allies do more to halt the murder of Jews.
1943
In March, 75,000 people attend a "Stop Hitler Now" rally at Madison Square Garden organized by the American Jewish Congress. Later in the month, Bergson's new group, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, stages Hollywood writer Ben Hecht's pageant, "We Will Never Die," at Madison Square Garden. 40,000 attend.
1943
Leaders from eight major Jewish organizations form the Joint Emergency Committee on European Jewish Affairs to mobilize public opinion and convince Congress to endorse the rescue of European Jews.
1943
On April 19, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto mount an uprising against the Germans and hold out for nearly a month. On the same day that uprising begins, the Allies convene an international conference in Bermuda to discuss the issue of refugees. No country, including the U.S., agrees to open their doors to significant numbers of Jewish refugees.
1943
In June, Yiddish actor Solomon Mikhoels and other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee tour the U.S. to raise funds to aid the Soviet war effort.
1943
The State Department obstructs a plan proposed by the World Jewish Congress to save Rumanian and French Jews. In October, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe organizes a trip of 400 Orthodox rabbis to Washington, D.C., to petition the president to form a U.S. rescue organization for European Jews. The president refuses to meet with them.
1943
Microbiologist Selman A. Waksman discovers the antibiotic streptomycin, the cure for tuberculosis. Otto Stern, a Jewish refugee from Germany, is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton.
1943
Three Jewish artists, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Adolph Gottlieb write a letter to "The New York Times" outlining the principles of a new art movement which would become known as Abstract Expressionism.
1943
Leonard Bernstein is appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. "Fancy Free," a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins, debuts in New York and launches Bernstein's composing career. "Oklahoma!," with music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, opens on Broadway.
1944
The U.S. Treasury Department, under the leadership of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., submits to the president a scathing report about the State Department's obstruction of the rescue of European Jews entitled "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews." The report is the impetus for the formation of the War Refugee Board, the only organized American government rescue effort. The agency calls for postwar trials of Nazis and aids the rescue efforts of other organizations. It also arranges for the transfer of 1,000 Jews from Europe to a refugee camp in Oswego, New York.
1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt permits two prominent Zionist leaders, Stephen S. Wise and Abba Hillel Silver, to issue a statement suggesting future U.S. support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. He also, however, assures Arab leaders that the U.S. had not made any decisions regarding the future of Palestine.
1944
On June 6, Allied naval forces, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, land on the northern coast of France in an operation code-named "D-Day."
1944
In August, U.S. officials turn down a request by the World Jewish Congress to have Allied planes bomb railway lines to Auschwitz. At the instigation of the War Refugee Board, the U.S. and Great Britain offer to take in all Jews allowed to leave Hungary, but the Nazis prevent Jews from leaving and continue deportations to Auschwitz.
1944
In November, the word "genocide" appears in print for the first time, in a report for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by lawyer Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin had coined the phrase in 1943 when the world learned of the Nazis' plan to exterminate all Jews in Europe.
1944
90 percent of American Jews vote to reelect Roosevelt for a fourth term as president.
1944
Isidor Isaac Rabi is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for developing the resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei. Joseph Erlanger shares the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine with Herbert S. Gasser for discoveries relating to the functions of nerve fibers. Hungarian-born physicist Theodore von Karman is appointed chairman of the U.S. Air Force scientific advisory board.
1944
Isaac Stern debuts as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
1944
"None Shall Escape," the first Hollywood movie to acknowledge the German genocide of Europe's Jews, is released.
1945
Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal takes one of the most famous photographs of the war: the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima, the site of a decisive battle between U.S. and Japanese forces.
1945
The Jewish Labor Committee mounts "Heroes and Martyrs of the Ghettos," the first exhibition dealing with Jewish resistance against the Nazis.
1945
The Vaad Hahatzalah, a rescue organization sponsored by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, ransoms over 1,200 Jews from the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp.
1945
On May 7, Germany surrenders to the Allies. The war is Europe is over. On August 6, the U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and a few days later, one on Nagasaki. Japan surrenders and World War II ends. In December, Eugene Rabinowitch and other scientists who had worked to develop the bomb found the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists," a journal devoted to addressing nuclear energy's potentials for evil and good in the world.
1945
In response to reports that Jewish refugees were not being properly provided for by U.S. occupation forces in Germany and Austria, Earl G. Harrison, dean of the University Pennsylvania Law School, is appointed by President Harry S. Truman to investigate. His findings criticize conditions in displaced persons camps and recommend that Palestine be opened to Jewish immigration.
1945
Anna Rosenberg is the first woman to receive the Medal of Freedom for her service on the War Labor Board.
1945
Mordechai M. Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism, is excommunicated by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and denounced by colleagues at the Jewish Theological Seminary after he issues a new version of the "Sabbath Prayer Book."
1945
"Commentary," a monthly magazine, begins publication under the sponsorship of the American Jewish Committee. Schocken Books, an imprint started by Salman Schocken in Germany shortly before the rise to power of the Nazis, is reestablished in New York.
1945
Aaron Copland is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for his ballet "Appalachian Spring." Playwright Arthur Miller publishes his first novel, "Focus," a tale of mistaken identity in which a non-Jew is targeted by anti-Semites.
1945
Bess Meyerson is the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America pageant.
1946
A pogrom kills 42 Jews in Kielce, Poland, and spurs the exodus of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe to the U.S.-controlled zones of Germany and Austria.
1946
President Truman endorses the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry's recommendations to admit 100,000 Jewish refugees to Palestine, to revoke laws prohibiting the sale of land to Jews, and to form a UN trusteeship leading to a bi-national state of Arabs and Jews.
1946
Herman Joseph Muller is awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery that x-rays could produce genetic mutations.
1947
The United Nations General Assembly, meeting in Flushing Meadows, New York, votes to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab.
1947
Illinois Republican Congressman William G. Stratton sponsors a bill calling for the admittance of 400,000 displaced persons into the U.S. within four years.
1947
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America establishes a new network of summer camps called Ramah. The American Jewish Archives is established at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.
1947
Two classics of popular Jewish scholarship are published: Milton Steinberg's "Basic Judaism" and Solomon Grayzel's "A History of the Jews." Author Marie Syrkin publishes "Blessed Is the Match," a study of Jewish resistance to the Nazis during World War II.
1947
Laura Z. Hobson publishes "Gentleman's Agreement," a novel about American anti-Semitism. The book becomes a bestseller and a movie, winning the Academy Award as the best movie of the year. Another Oscar nominee is "Crossfire," about anti-Semitism in the military. (The novel by Richard Brooks on which the movie is based is actually about anti-homosexual bigotry, but this is too controversial a subject for Hollywood at the time.)
1947
Arthur Miller's first critically acclaimed play, "All My Sons," debuts on Broadway.
1947
Edwin Land invents Polaroid instant film and the Polaroid Land Camera.
1947
Gangster Bugsy Siegel, credited with helping establish Las Vegas as a mecca of gambling and casinos, is assassinated.
1948
On May 14, Israel declares its independence and the U.S. immediately recognizes the new nation. The next day, Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq invade, marking the start of Israel's War of Independence.
1948
In the Soviet Union, a new anti-Semitic campaign is launched by the government. Jewish organizations are disbanded and Jewish cultural figures are arrested.
1948
Congress passes the Displaced Persons Act calling for the admittance of 200,000 refugees to the U.S. within two years. The bill is considerably less expansive than the one proposed by Republican Congressman William G. Stratton in 1947 and contains provisions that disqualify many Jewish refugees from obtaining visas.
1948
Brandeis University, the only non-sectarian Jewish university in the U.S., is established.
1948
Norman Mailer writes his best-selling first novel, "The Naked and the Dead," based on his experiences as a soldier in World War II.
1948
Milton Berle makes his television debut on NBC's "Texaco Star Theatre."
1949
Hollywood releases its first film related to the State of Israel, "Sword in the Desert," starring Dana Andrews as an American ship captain who lands illegal immigrants in Palestine and then joins the Jewish resistance to fight against British rule.
1949
"The Goldbergs," Gertrude Berg's hit radio show, debuts on television. The situation comedy focuses on the daily life of an immigrant Jewish couple and their American-born children.
1949
Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead," first published in 1943, is made into a movie after selling over half a million copies. The book's protagonist is Howard Roark, a brilliant architect engaged in a battle not to compromise his artistic vision. His eventual triumph over mediocrity celebrates the power of individualism.
1949
Stella Adler, renowned stage actress and member of a famous Yiddish theater family, founds an acting academy in Los Angeles based on the Stanislavsky system ("method acting"), which trains actors to use their own emotional experiences in developing roles.
1950
The Korean War begins.
1950
Former Roosevelt Administration official Anna Rosenberg is appointed assistant Secretary of Defense, the highest post in the U.S. military establishment ever held by a woman.
1950
Israel's prime minister David Ben Gurion clarifies the Israeli government's official view of the relationship between Israel and American Jewry by drafting a statement with Jacob Blaustein, president of the American Jewish Committee, affirming the independence of the American Jewish community and recognizing that "the Jews of the United States . . . have only one political attachment, namely, to the United States of America."
1950
"Red Channels, The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television," a booklet listing the names of 151 entertainment and cultural figures purported to be communists or members of organizations sympathetic to communism, is published. Many prominent Jewish writers, actors, and directors are included in its pages, and as a result, are blacklisted and shut out of their professions.
1950
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, husband-and-wife members of the Communist Party in New York City, are arrested on charges of spying for the Soviet Union.
1950
The Conservative movement officially permits Jews to use electricity and drive to synagogue on the Sabbath. The Reform movement's Hebrew Union College and Jewish Institute of Religion merge. Paula Ackerman becomes the interim spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel in Meridian, Mississippi, after her husband, the rabbi, dies. For the next three years, she will lead services and officiate at funerals, weddings and confirmations.
1950
The American Jewish Committee publishes three volumes in its Studies in Prejudice series: "Antisemitism and Emotional Disorder" by Nathan W. Ackerman and Marie Jahoda; "The Authoritarian Personality" by Theodor Adorno (et.al.); and "Dynamics of Prejudice" by Bruno Bettelheim and Morris Janowitz.
1950
The cover of "TIME Magazine" features William Levitt, the creator of Levittown, Long Island, the first example of a type of suburban community that would become emblematic of postwar America.
1950
Herb Flam is the first Jewish tennis player to advance to the finals at the U.S. Open.
1951
West Germany announces a commitment to provide financial compensation and restitution to Jewish Holocaust survivors. Jewish organizations gather in New York to create the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany to serve as the chief agency for negotiations.
1951
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Communist Party members from New York, are convicted of conspiring to commit espionage against the U.S. for the Soviet Union, and are sentenced to death. They continue to maintain their innocence. Many speak out on their behalf, convinced that there is no truth to the government's charges and that the Rosenbergs are victims of an anti-communist (and anti-Semitic) witch hunt. Others believe that the couple is guilty, but that the death sentence is too harsh a punishment. Still others believe that they are getting what they deserve. Much later, after the fall of Communism, new evidence will indicate that Julius was indeed a Soviet spy, but that Ethel's involvement in the crime may have been minimal.
1951
Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion arrives in the U.S. to launch the first Israel bonds campaign. Reform Judaism's Union of American Hebrew Congregations moves its headquarters from Cincinnati to New York City. The first day school sponsored by a Conservative synagogue, the flagship of what will become the Solomon Schechter Day School network, is founded at Temple Beth El in Rockaway Park, New York. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn succeeds his father-in-law as spiritual leader of the Lubavitcher Hasidim.
1951
Scholar/rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel publishes "Man Is Not Alone," establishing himself as one of the most important Jewish theologians of the 20th century. Will Herberg publishes "Judaism and Modern Man." The success of both books signals a revival of interest in Judaism among intellectuals.
1951
German Jewish emigree philosopher Hannah Arendt publishes "The Origins of Totalitarianism," a landmark study of the psychology of Nazism, Soviet communism, and political anti-Semitism. Sydney Taylor publishes the first of the "All of a Kind Family" series, tales of Jewish life on the Lower East Side for children.
1951
When Brooklyn Dodger Cal "Abie" Abrams leads the major leagues in batting, the New York Post runs a banner headline reading: "Mantle Shmantle. . . We've Got Abrams." Sports fans are shocked when several players on the City College of New York basketball team (pride of the Jewish community because of its many excellent Jewish players) are arrested for point-shaving, as part of an investigation which will result in the arrests of players in other college teams across the country.
1952
In an event that has come to be known as "The Night of the Murdered Poets," over a dozen Russian Jewish writers, poets, and actors are executed, as part of Stalin's continuing campaign to eradicate Jewish culture in the Soviet Union.
1952
The diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who lived in hiding in Amsterdam before being captured and dying in a Nazi concentration camp, is published in an English translation by Doubleday. The diary is one of the earliest first-person narratives of the Holocaust and becomes one of the mostly widely read books in the world.
1952
Lever House, an important landmark in corporate and International Style architecture designed by Jewish architect Gordon Bunshaft, is completed on Park Avenue in New York City. Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler exhibits "Mountain and Sea," a seminal work that will influence the development of color-field painting.
1952
Microbiologist Selman A. Waksman is awarded a Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis. Swiss Jewish refugee scientist Felix Bloch shares the Nobel Prize for physics for developing new methods of measuring nuclear magnetic fields.
1952
The first hydrogen bomb is tested by the U.S. in the Pacific. The bomb is based on a concept developed by Hungarian Jewish refugee physicist Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam, a Polish refugee mathematician of Jewish descent.
1953
After exhausting all appeals, Jules and Ethel Rosenberg are executed for spying for the Soviet Union. Their case is a cause celebre and for years, many will remain convinced that they are innocent. Others will argue that execution was too harsh a punishment for their crime. Much later, new evidence will indicate that Julius was indeed a Soviet spy, but that Ethel was, at best, minimally involved in the crime for which she was executed.
1953
Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" debuts on Broadway. Set during the 17th-century Salem witch hunt, the play is widely read as a parable for McCarthyism, the preoccupation with rooting out Communism that then prevails in the U.S.
1953
Marking the beginning of a trend, Cong. Beth El in Springfield, Massachusetts, dedicates a new synagogue featuring works by modern artists.
1953
Pioneering advertising executive Albert Lasker dies. His wife Mary continues to build the charitable foundation they had established together. The Lasker Foundation becomes one of the most important funders of medical research in the U.S., with over 50 percent of recipients of its coveted awards going on to win Nobel Prizes.
1953
Pearl Lang, a disciple of Martha Graham, forms her own dance troupe, which will go on to perform many works with Jewish themes.
1953
Gladys Heldman founds "World Tennis" magazine. She later founds the Virginia Slims circuit that revolutionizes women's tennis.
1954
In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court unanimously rules that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal and a violation of the equal protection of the laws mandated by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The landmark case encourages civil rights activists and leads to the desegregation of public schools.
1954
"Red-baiting" Senator Joseph McCarthy is censured by Congress after televised hearings into supposed communist infiltration of the U.S. Army provokes public outrage at his bullying tactics and flimsy allegations.
1954
Dismayed by what they perceive as the conformism and tolerance for red-baiting of the established Jewish intellectual magazines "Commentary" and "Partisan Review," Irving Howe and others create a new voice for independent radicals, "Dissent." Though its circulation remains tiny, it is influential among American intellectuals and will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2004.
1954
"Midstream," a Zionist journal, begins publication. AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is founded to lobby on behalf of Israel on Capitol Hill.
1954
Architect Morris Lapidus's flamboyant Fontainbleau Hotel is built in Miami Beach. Reviled by critics, it is popular with the public, and Lapidus will live to see his work celebrated by a new generation of architecture aficionados.
1954
Robert Cohen begins a winning streak as the world bantamweight boxing champion from 1954 to 1956.
1955
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is established as a forum for American Jewish leaders. By 2004, it will represent over 50 organizations. The Leo Baeck Institute, an archives, library, and research institute dedicated to chronicling the history of German-speaking Jews, is established in New York City.
1955
Betty Robbins becomes the first female cantor in history at Temple Avodah, a Reform synagogue in Oceanside, New York.
1955
Sociologist Will Herberg publishes "Protestant-Catholic-Jew," which suggests that Americans now prefer to identify themselves in religious, rather than ethnic terms, and that Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism are all equally acceptable in American life.
1955
A play based on the English translation of the diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who lived in hiding in Amsterdam before being captured and dying in a Nazi concentration camp, opens on Broadway and wins a Pulitzer Prize.
1955
Esther Pauline Lederer takes over the "Ann Landers" advice column in the "Chicago Sun Times." Her twin sister and rival Pauline Esther begins her own advice column, "Dear Abby," under the name Abigail Van Buren in the "San Francisco Chronicle" three months later.
1955
Epidemiologist Jonas Salk announces the success of his trials of the polio vaccine. His discovery will lead to the almost complete eradication of poliomyelitis, a crippling disease of the central nervous system.
1956
Israel, France, and Great Britain go to war with Egypt over control of the Suez Canal. Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula but withdraws under pressure from the U.S., the Soviet Union, and the UN.
1956
A failed uprising against Soviet domination in Hungary is followed by the emigration of about 10,000 Hungarian Jews to the U.S.
1956
Non-Jewish writer/critic Edmund Wilson publishes an essay called "The Need for Judaic Studies," arguing that the study of Judaism and Jewish history should be an integral part of the college curriculum.
1956
The first mall, Southdale Shopping Center, designed by Viennese Jewish German emigre Victor Gruen, is built in Edina, Minnesota.
1956
Allen Ginsberg publishes "Howl and Other Poems," one of the first great works of the Beat generation. Songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's "Hound Dog," considered a harbinger of rock 'n' roll, is recorded by Elvis Presley and becomes a national hit.
1956
Detroit Tigers Hank Greenberg becomes the first Jew to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Eugene Selznick, becomes the first American elected to the honorary All-World Volleyball Team. Isaac Berger, considered by many to be the greatest featherweight weightlifter in American history wins the gold medal for the U.S. at the Melbourne Olympics.
1957
The launch by the Soviet Union of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, marks the beginning of the space age.
1957
A Civil Rights Act is signed into law. It is the first of several laws passed by Congress that are aimed at safeguarding the voting rights of all citizens by establishing interference with the right to vote as a crime.
1957
The B'nai Brith Klutznick National Jewish Museum is founded in Washington, D.C.
1957
Birdie Amsterdam is the first woman elected to the New York Supreme Court. Jennie Barron is the first woman elected to the Massachusetts Superior Court.
1957
Allegra Kent, a muse of George Balanchine, becomes the principal dancer of the New York City Ballet. Leonard Bernstein becomes the first American-born musician to be appointed music director/conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
1958
White supremacists who had targeted African-Americans and civil rights advocates throughout the South since 1954 set off a bomb at a leading Atlanta Reform synagogue whose rabbi is an outspoken proponent of civil rights.
1958
Entrepreneur/diplomat Walter Annenberg, the creator of "TV Guide," donates $3 million to the University of Pennsylvania to establish the Annenberg School for Communications.
1958
Leon Uris publishes "Exodus," a bestselling novel about the birth of the State of Israel. It is later made into a movie starring Paul Newman. Humorist Harry Golden, the Charleston, South Carolina, civil rights activist/ publisher of "The Carolina Israelite," publishes "Only in America," which becomes a bestseller.
1958
Geneticist Joshua Lederberg shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for his studies of the organization of genetic material in bacteria. New York University renames its institute of mathematics the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in honor of Richard Courant, the German Jewish refugee who had established graduate studies in mathematics at the university in the 1930s.
1959
Several thousand Cuban Jews emigrate to the U.S. after Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba.
1959
Grace Paley publishes her first collection of short stories, "The Little Disturbances of Man," to critical acclaim. Philip Roth's "Goodbye, Columbus," a novella/short story collection, receives the National Book Award, but some Jews criticize it because of what they see as its unflattering portrayal of suburban Jewish life.
1959
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach releases his first record album, "Haneshamah Lakh" (Songs of My Soul), pioneering a new genre of Orthodox Jewish folk music.
1959
The Solomon Guggenheim Museum opens in New York on Fifth Avenue. Paddy Chayefsky's "The Tenth Man," a modern-day take on the Jewish "dybbuk" legend, opens on Broadway and runs for 623 performances. Hugo Weisgall's opera, "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is produced by the New York City Opera and attains iconic status as one of the most important American operas of the 20th century. Sculptor Louise Nevelson's all-white, room-size "environment," entitled "Dawn's Wedding Feast," appears in the Museum of Modern Art's prestigious "Sixteen Americans" exhibition.
1959
Italian Jewish emigre Emilio Segre shares a Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of the antiproton. Arthur Kornberg shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for the discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid.
1959
The first Barbie Doll, invented by Ruth Handler, co-owner of Mattel, Inc., appears on toy store shelves.
1959
Pitcher Larry Sherry has one of the most impressive rookie seasons in history when he is called up as a relief pitcher in mid-season. He finishes with seven straight victories and helps lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to the World Series. His brother, Norm, is a catcher for the team. The Celtics begin an eight-year winning streak with Red Auerbach as coach.
1960
John F. Kennedy is the first Catholic to be elected president of the U.S. A larger percentage of Jews than Irish Catholics vote for him.
1960
Norman Podhoretz becomes the editor of "Commentary," the influential intellectual monthly founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. During his tenure, Podhoretz will transform the magazine from a liberal journal into America's leading conservative magazine.
1960
The National Foundation for Jewish Culture is founded by the Council of Jewish Federations to enhance the quality of Jewish life in America through the arts and humanities.
1960
Elie Wiesel's first book, "Night," appears in English. An autobiographical novel, it recounts the experiences of a teenaged boy during the Holocaust and his crisis of faith after emerging as the only surviving member of his family.
1960
Sylvia Field Porter, one of the first women to break into the field of writing about finance, publishes her first "Income Tax Guide." It will appear annually until her death in 1991.
1960
Donald A. Glaser is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the bubble chamber, an important tool for conducting experiments in high energy nuclear physics.
1960
Sid Gillman, known in football lore as the "father of modern passing," becomes coach of the San Diego Chargers.
1961
The Berlin Wall is erected by communist East Germany to stop its citizens from defecting to the West.
1961
The trial of Adolf Eichmann, the mastermind of the Nazis' campaign to exterminate the Jews, gets underway in Jerusalem. The trial, the first to be televised, is covered by German Jewish refugee political theorist Hannah Arendt for "The New Yorker." Her observations on the nature of evil are later published as "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil."
1961
Hadassah-The Women's Zionist Organization of America opens a hospital in the Jerusalem suburb of Ein Kerem to replace its first hospital on Mt. Scopus, which had become inaccessible following Israel's War of Independence in 1948.
1961
The community of New Square, a suburban village whose residents are mostly Skverer Hasidim, is incorporated in Rockland County, New York. It is the first village in the state to be governed by a religious group.
1961
Joseph Heller publishes "Catch-22," a protest novel satirizing both the horrors of war and the spirit-destroying qualities of bureaucracies. Poet Allen Ginsberg publishes "Kaddish," considered by many to be his greatest work. The title of the poem, inspired by the death of his mother, refers to the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead.
1961
Melvin Calvin is awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his studies of photosynthesis.
1961
Robert Hofstadter is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his pioneering study of electrons and discoveries regarding the structure of nucleons. A drug developed by Gertrude Elion enables the first successful human kidney transplant.
1962
The world comes close to nuclear war when a 13-day standoff develops between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over the Russians' installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba, only 90 miles off the coast of the U.S. The crisis abates when President Kennedy and Soviet leader Khrushchev negotiate a compromise.
1962
The Jewish Publication Society of America publishes "The Torah: The Five Books of Moses," the first new Jewish English translation of the Bible since 1917. The Judah L. Magnes Museum is founded in Berkeley, California. The B'nai Or Fellowship (later called Aleph) is founded in Philadelphia by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi to promote awareness of Judaism's mystical and prophetic traditions. It becomes the leading organization in what is later known as the Jewish Renewal Movement.
1962
The Reform Movement opens the Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C., to educate and mobilize the American Jewish community on legislative and social concerns on issues ranging from Israel and Soviet Jewry to economic justice, civil rights, international peace, and religious liberty.
1962
Barbra Streisand wins the New York Drama Critics Award and a Tony nomination for her very first Broadway appearance in the musical, "I Can Get It For You Wholesale."
1962
Charlotte Friend receives the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Cancer Research for work related to her revolutionary discovery of the link between viruses and cancer, based on her experiments with inducing leukemia with a virus that becomes known as the Friend Leukemia Virus (FLV).
1963
On August 28, an estimated 250,000 people gather in Washington, D.C., for a peaceful civil rights demonstration. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is televised and seen by millions.
1963
On November 22, U.S. president John F. Kennedy, is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is gunned down two days later by Jewish night club owner Jack Ruby. The most important film record of Kennedy's assassination is a home movie shot by a Jewish onlooker, Abraham Zapruder.
1963
Two scholars, Nathan Glazer, a Jew, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an Irish-American, publish "Beyond the Melting Pot," a landmark sociological study of ethnic groups in New York that suggests that every ethnic group has its own distinct way of realizing social integration and economic success. Betty Friedan publishes "The Feminine Mystique," a critique of American notions of family and gender that becomes a seminal book for the feminist movement.
1963
Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan releases his second album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," with "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," which will become two of the most ubiquitous folk songs of the 1960s.
1964
America's involvement in the Vietnam War formally begins when the Senate passes the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, permitting President Lyndon B. Johnson to engage in armed combat against North Vietnam without securing a formal declaration of war from Congress.
1964
During "Freedom Summer," tens of thousands of civil rights activists, many of them Jewish college students, travel to Mississippi to register African-American voters. Young Jewish New Yorkers Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, along with an African-American, Mississippian James Chaney, are brutally murdered by Klu Klux Klansmen.
1964
Senator Barry Goldwater, an Arizona Republican of Jewish ancestry, wins the Republican nomination for president. Goldwater, a right-wing conservative, is viewed as an extremist by many, including a sizable number of Republicans. He loses the election to Lyndon B. Johnson.
1964
The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry is founded in New York City.
1964
The musical, "Fiddler on the Roof," by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Joseph Stein (based on the Yiddish stories of Sholem Aleichem) begins a record-making run on Broadway.
1964
German Jewish emigre Konrad Bloch shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries related to the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.
1965
The first American combat troops arrive in Vietnam.
1965
In February, militant African-American nationalist leader Malcolm X is assassinated at a speaking engagement in Harlem.
1965
In March, thousands of African-Americans and white civil rights activists join Martin Luther King, Jr. on a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand greater enforcement of voting rights laws. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the nation's most prominent rabbis, marches arm in arm with Reverend King. In August, in reaction to the murder of civil rights activists in the South and the continuation of white resistance to African-American voter registration there, Congress passes the Voting Rights Act, which gives the federal government broader powers to oversee voter registration. It is considered the strongest and most effective of the civil rights bills enacted in the 1960s.
1965
Later that month, riots break out in the poor, African-American Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. When they end six days later, 34 are dead, over 1,000 people injured, and hundreds of businesses lay in ruins.
1965
In October, the Immigration Act of 1965 is signed into law. It abolishes the national origin quotas that had been in place in the U.S. since 1882 and uses skills and professions as the criteria for granting immigration visas. Immigration activist Emmanuel Celler, a New York Congressman since 1923, is instrumental in getting the law passed.
1965
The Vatican releases an official document condemning anti-Semitism, stating that "Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed," thus ushering in a new era in Catholic-Jewish relations.
1965
Kosher foods are increasingly mass-marketed. Hebrew National launches its "We answer to a higher authority" ad campaign to sell its hot dogs to both Jews and non-Jews. Levy's Rye Bread launches "You don't have to be Jewish to like Levy's" ads depicting stereotypically non-Jewish people (e.g., Native Americans in traditional headgear) munching on rye bread.
1965
Richard Phillips Feynman and Julian Seymour Schwinger share a Nobel Prize in physics for their groundbreaking work in the field of quantum electrodynamics.
1965
On September 9, Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Sandy Koufax completes the last game in a four-year no-hitter streak, establishing himself as one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time.
1966
A fire at the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary destroys 70,000 books.
1966
There are over 60 fulltime positions in Jewish Studies in American universities, compared with only a dozen at the end of World War II.
1966
Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique," helps found the National Organization of Women and becomes its first president.
1966
Elie Wiesel publishes "The Jews of Silence," an eyewitness report of the persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union. Bernard Malamud wins the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for "The Fixer," a novel based on the case of Mendel Beilis, a Russian Jew, who in 1911 was falsely accused of ritual murder.
1966
Susan Sontag publishes her first collection of essays, "Against Interpretation," establishing herself as one of the U.S.'s most influential cultural critics. Cynthia Ozick publishes her first novel, "Trust." She will go on to publish many more works of fiction and essays and to a reputation as one of the most significant writers of the late 20th century.
1967
Israel succeeds in fighting off Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War. American Jews are first terrified for Israel's survival and then jubilantly proud of its victory. They respond to the crisis with record-breaking levels of financial support. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan becomes a new culture hero to Jews in the Diaspora.
1967
Photographs by Diane Arbus appear in the Museum of Modern Arts' influential "New Documents" show, introducing her bold and shocking style to a broad public.
1967
In the spring, Neil Simon has four plays running on Broadway simultaneously: "Star-Spangled Girl," "Sweet Charity," "Barefoot in the Park," and "The Odd Couple." In October, two more Simon plays debut: "There's a Girl in My Soup" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead."
1967
Chaim Potok's novel "The Chosen," the story of an encounter between ultra-Orthodox Hasidim and modern Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, becomes a bestseller.
1967
German Jewish refugee Hans Bethe is awarded a Nobel Prize in physics for describing the nuclear reactions in the energy production of stars. George Wald shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about physiological and chemical processes in the eye.
1968
The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia in order to crush the liberal reform movement known as the Prague Spring.
1968
Civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles, California.
1968
Antiwar sentiment in the U.S. reaches a high point. Students at Columbia University occupy administration buildings to protest both the war and what is perceived as the university's racist expansion into minority neighborhoods. Antiwar protests also take place on other college campuses across the U.S. and Europe. In Chicago, violent demonstrations erupt outside the Democratic Party convention.
1968
The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is founded in New York by followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who warns that Jews are in as much danger in America as they were in Nazi Germany and that they must be protected by whatever means necessary, including violence. The JDL (whose membership will remain small) will engage in extremist activities, such as racist speeches, bombings, beatings, and attempted hijackings.
1968
During a strike of the United Federation of Teachers (largely Jewish in membership) against the governing board (largely African-American) of Brooklyn's Ocean Hill-Brownsville public school district, a bitter struggle over community control of the school system escalates into heated conflict. Anti-Semitic statements are made and the board accuses the teachers of racism.
1968
The first "havurah" (small, communal prayer group) meets in Somerville, Massachusetts. "Havurot" are viewed as an appealing alternative to worship in large congregations and the idea takes off, especially among young Jews. The Reconstructionist movement establishes a rabbinical college in Philadelphia and also becomes the first Jewish denomination to recognize patrilineal descent (having a Jewish father) as well as matrilineal descent (having a Jewish mother) as a basis for being considered Jewish, as long as parents "rear the child as a Jew."
1968
The Spertus Museum, the largest Jewish museum between the two coasts, is founded in Chicago.
1968
Marshall Nirenberg shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for interpreting the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.
1969
The U.S. lands two astronauts on the moon, marking the first time human beings set foot on another world.
1969
Golda Meir (formerly Goldie Myerson of Milwaukee, Wisconsin) becomes Prime Minister of Israel.
1969
The Association for Jewish Studies is founded.
1969
500,000 hippies and others gather at a dairy farm a few hours north of New York City for the most famous countercultural event of 1960s, Woodstock, a three-day music festival.
1969
The largest demonstration in U.S. history takes place on October 15 as an estimated 20-30 million people march against the war in Vietnam. Jewish radicals Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and Rennie Davis are among the seven antiwar activists who are put on trial for inciting violence during the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago.
1969
Philip Roth publishes "Portnoy's Complaint," a comic novel of the American Jewish experience that is scandalously candid about sex. The book comes to define American Jewish literature in the 1960s and is later named by the Modern Library as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century.
1969
Biologist Salvador Luria shares the Nobel Prize in medicine for research on the genetic structure of viruses, paving the way for the new science of molecular biology. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on the behavior of subatomic particles.
1970
Four students are shot by National Guardsmen during an antiwar protest at Kent State University in Ohio. The nation is shocked by the killings and many memorials and protest meetings are held. Only a week or two later, two students are shot during a demonstration at Jackson State University, a historically African-American college.
1970
Civil rights and peace activist Bella Abzug is elected to Congress, where she continues to take passionate stands on a variety of issues. By her third term, she will be voted the third most influential member of Congress (behind only the Speaker and Majority Whip).
1970
Judy Blume publishes "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret," a coming of age novel that becomes extremely popular with teenaged girls. Shulamith Firestone publishes "The Dialectic of Sex," the first book of the women's liberation movement to put forth a feminist theory of politics. Saul Bellow wins his third National Book Award for his novel "Mr. Sammler's Planet."
1970
Paul Samuelson wins the Nobel Prize in economics for his efforts to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory. Julius Axelrod shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries concerning humoral transmittors in nerve terminals.
1971
Americans for a Safe Israel is founded. Its members believe that a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict will only occur when the Arab nations realize that Israel cannot be defeated militarily, and that Israel must retain possession of the territories it controls in the West Bank and Golan Heights.
1971
"Ms. Magazine," a new feminist publication, is launched. Its founders include Jewish feminists Gloria Steinem and Letty Cottin Pogrebin. Ezrat Nashim, a Conservative women's organization, is founded and calls "for an end to the second-class status of women in Jewish life."
1971
Touro College, an institution dedicated to providing liberal arts and science education, as well as Jewish studies and scholarship, is founded in New York.
1971
Simon Kuznets is awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his interpretation of economic growth and for new insights into the economic and social structure.
1972
A National Solidarity Day for Soviet Jews is held in more than 100 American cities.
1972
Palestinian terrorists kill eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Against this tragic backdrop, U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz becomes the first person to win seven gold medals in a single Olympics.
1972
Elizabeth Holtzman, a 31-year-old attorney and former New York City official, becomes the youngest woman elected to House of Representatives.
1972
Sally J. Preisand graduates from Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College and is ordained as the first woman rabbi. Beth Chayim Chadashim, the first gay synagogue, is founded in Los Angeles.
1972
Ann G. Wolfe publishes "The Invisible Jewish Poor" in the "Journal of Jewish Communal Services," claiming that there is widespread and unacknowledged poverty among American Jews, especially the elderly.
1972
The first Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School is founded in Northridge, California. The non-denominational school bases its innovative curriculum on the humanistic and Jewish teachings of philosopher/civil rights activist Heschel and encourages awareness of social issues as an integral part of a child's education.
1972
Musem curator Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson founds the Dorot Foundation to provide funding for Jewish education, cultural institutions, preservation of Jewish antiquity, and other areas related to Jewish heritage.
1972
There are four American Jewish Nobel Prize winners: Kenneth J. Arrow shares the prize in economics for contributions to economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory; William H. Stein shares the prize in chemistry for research involving the ribonuclease molecule; Gerald M. Edelman shares the prize in medicine for discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies; and Leon Cooper shares the prize in physics for developing a new theory of superconductivity.
1973
In January, the Paris Peace Accords officially end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In May, the Senate begins televised hearings on Watergate, the political scandal involving U.S. president Richard M. Nixon and 40 government officials.
1973
In October, Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack on Israel on the Jewish day of atonement, marking the beginning of the short Yom Kippur War. Angered by U.S. support for Israel, OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) imposes an oil embargo on the U.S., causing an energy crisis and gas/fuel rationing, as well as public expressions of anti-Semitism (such as offensive bumper stickers) by those who blame Jews for the crisis.
1973
Breira (Hebrew for "alternative") is formed by American Jews who feel that Israel should be more flexible in negotiating with the Arabs and Palestinians, and should announce its willingness to return land in return for recognition and peace treaties.
1973
Henry Kissinger becomes Secretary of State, the highest U.S. government position ever held by a Jew, and is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiations leading to the end of American involvement in Vietnam. Abraham Beame becomes the first Jewish mayor of New York.
1973
Abortion is legalized in the U.S. when the Supreme Court rules, in Roe vs. Wade, that a woman's right to an abortion falls within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
1973
The Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly rules that women may be counted toward the making of a "minyan" (quorum for prayer). Esther Jungreis's first Jewish "awakening," modeled on the techniques of Billy Graham, attracts an audience of thousands to Madison Square Garden. "The First Jewish Catalog," a counter-culture guide to Judaism, is published and becomes enormously popular, especially among those interested in "havurah"-style Judaism (worship in small, communal prayer groups).
1973
The Reform movement upholds a ban on the performance of intermarriage by its rabbis. Leonard Baskin illustrates the new official Reform Passover Haggadah.
1973
The American Sephardi Federation is established at a convention of delegates from many Sephardic organizations. Yeshiva University Museum is founded.
1974
As a result of the Watergate scandal, U.S. president Richard M. Nixon resigns.
1974
The Jackson-Vanik amendment denying normal trade relations to certain countries with non-market economies that restrict emigration rights is successfully added to the 1974 Trade Act. The new law places pressure on the Soviet Union to grant emigration rights to Jews.
1974
Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is ordained as the first Reconstructionist woman rabbi.
1974
CLAL (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) is founded as an interdenominational think tank and leadership training institute. Its founders believe that Judaism is at the beginning of a new era in which new forms are emerging in a "spirit of experimentation and re-imagination."
1974
Judy Chicago begins work on "The Dinner Party," a multimedia artwork celebrating women's achievement in Western civilization.
1975
In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge begins the perpetration of the first large-scale genocide since the Holocaust. Between 1975 and 1979, it will murder about 1.7 million people, 21 percent of the Cambodian population.
1975
The UN passes a resolution equating Zionism with racism.
1975
Edward H. Levi, President of the University of Chicago, the first Jew to serve as president of a major American university, is appointed U.S. Attorney General by President Gerald Ford.
1975
Charles H. Revson, founder of Revlon, Inc., dies, willing half his estate to the foundation he had established in 1956. The Revson Foundation continues on to fund many projects and organizations related to general and Jewish education, urban affairs, and biomedical research policy.
1975
Leonard Fein and Elie Wiesel found "Moment Magazine," which will become the U.S.'s largest independent Jewish monthly.
1975
E. L. Doctorow publishes "Ragtime," a novel of America at the dawn of the 20th century whose plot features both fictional and real-life characters. It becomes a bestseller and is later named one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library. Lorne Michaels' "Saturday Night Live" debuts on NBC. Yiddish is heard on the big screen when Joan Micklin Silver's film "Hester Street," an adaptation of Abraham Cahan's 1894 novella "Yekl," is released. Its star, Carol Kane, is nominated for an Academy Award.
1975
David Baltimore and Howard Temin share a Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries about the interaction of tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell. Ben Roy Mottelson shares a Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei.
1976
Harvard University announces plans for a $15 million Center for Jewish Studies. The National Museum of American Jewish History is founded in Philadelphia. The first conference of the Coalition for Alternatives in Jewish Education (CAJE) is sponsored by the North American Jewish Students Network at Brown University, bringing together 350 Jewish educators.
1976
"Lilith Magazine," a Jewish feminist publication, is founded. At ABC, Barbara Walters becomes the first woman to anchor a network nightly news show.
1976
Irving Howe publishes "World of Our Fathers," a history of immigrant Jewish culture that tops the bestseller list for several weeks. Saul Bellow wins a Nobel Prize in literature for a body of work that includes "The Adventures of Augie March," "Henderson the Rain King," "Herzog," and "Mr. Sammler's Planet."
1976
Milton Friedman wins a Nobel Prize in economics for his work in the fields of consumption analysis and monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy. Baruch S. Blumberg shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases. Burton Richter shares a Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of the subatomic psi particle.
1976
Astronomer Vera Cooper Rubin and her colleagues announce that they have found evidence for the motion of our local galaxies relative to more distant galaxies. Dubbed the Rubin-Ford Effect, the finding will at first provoke controversy, but will eventually be confirmed by observations by other scientists.
1977
Members of the Hanafi Muslim sect occupy three buildings in downtown Washington, D.C., including the national headquarters of B'nai Brith, taking hostages and killing and wounding others. After two days, they surrender, and are later tried and convicted for armed kidnapping and other crimes.
1977
ARZA (Association of Reform Zionists) is founded. The Reform movement's rabbinical organization issues a statement supporting civil rights for homosexuals.
1977
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is founded in Los Angeles as a Jewish human rights organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust by fostering tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach, and social action.
1977
Woody Allen's film "Annie Hall" wins four Academy Awards.
1977
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow wins a Nobel Prize in medicine for her role in developing the radioimmunoassay, an application of nuclear physics in medicine allowing many different varieties of hormones, viruses, and chemicals to be measured. Her work revolutionizes laboratory work and every field of clinical medicine. Andrew V. Schally shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for his research in pituitary hormone deficiencies.
1977
Transexual tennis champion Renee Richards goes to court to win the right to compete as a woman in tournaments.
1978
The Camp David Accords, a new framework for peace in the Middle East, are signed by Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and witnessed by U.S. president Jimmy Carter.
1978
The Supreme Court upholds the free-speech rights of an American Nazi group to hold a march in Skokie, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that is home to many Holocaust survivors. Thousands of members of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) resign after the organization defends the constitutional rights of the marchers. Faced with the prospect of a huge counter-demonstration, the Nazis cancel their plans to march in Skokie and hold a rally in Chicago instead.
1978
NBC's mini-series "Holocaust," a fictionalized drama about the Nazi mass murder of Jews during World War II, attracts an estimated 120 million viewers and sparks the creation of a number of Holocaust educational initiatives.
1978
Judith Krantz publishes "Scruples," her first novel. She will become one of the world's best-selling writers.
1978
Polish-born American Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer wins a Nobel Prize in literature. German Jewish emigre Arno Allen Penzias shares a Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation. Daniel Nathans shares the prize in medicine for his discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics. Herbert A. Simon is awarded the prize in economics for his research on decision-making within economic organizations.
1979
Israel and Egypt sign a peace treaty.
1979
The Shah is overthrown in Iran and militants storm the U.S. Embassy, taking 54 hostages. (A U.S. rescue mission in 1980 will fail. The hostages will finally be released in 1981.) Fleeing the new fundamentalist Iran, about 20,000 Iranian Jews emigrate to the U.S.
1979
The New Israel Fund is founded to provide funding for Israeli projects that promote social change, particularly in the areas of civil and human rights and religious pluralism. MERCAZ, the Zionist organization of the Conservative movement, is founded.
1979
The Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, the world's first center for women's advanced study of Jewish classical texts, is founded. Beverly Sills becomes the first woman and first singer to serve as general director of the New York City Opera.
1979
Joel Teitelbaum, the spiritual leader of the Satmar, one of the largest and most prominent Hasidic groups, dies. His death precipitates a dynastic struggle among his heirs, splitting the Satmar Hasidim into factions.
1979
Sheldon Lee Glashow and Steven Weinberg, New Yorkers who were classmates at Bronx High School of Science, share a Nobel Prize in physics with a third scientist for contributing to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles. Herbert Brown shares a Nobel Prize in chemistry for the development of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds.
1980
The Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington State erupts, destroying nearly 230 miles of forest.
1980
President Jimmy Carter presents the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest military honor, to Admiral Hyman Rickover. Rickover will retire two years later after serving for 63 years, longer than any other naval officer in American history.
1980
A young graduate student, Aaron Lansky, starts rescuing old Yiddish books from cellars, attics, abandoned buildings, and dumpsters with the help of other volunteers. Their work leads to the creation of the National Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts and to a MacArthur ("Genius") Award for Lansky.
1980
"Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History" is founded to provide a forum for the growing field of Jewish literary studies.
1980
The first Jewish film festival is held in San Francisco. Dr. Ruth Westheimer launches "Sexually Speaking," a call-in radio show that promotes "sexual literacy." "Playing for Time," a television drama by Arthur Miller about survival in Auschwitz based on the true story of Fania Fanelon, airs on CBS. Holocaust survivor groups and others protest the casting of Vanessa Redgrave, an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause, in the lead role.
1980
Paul Berg wins a Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies on the biochemistry of nucleic acids. Walter Gilbert shares a second Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing ways of finding the order in which the individual links are present in the chainlike molecules of nucleic acids. Baruj Benacerraf shares the prize in medicine for discoveries about genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions. Lawrence R. Klein is awarded the prize in economics for developing computer models of the world's economy.
1981
U.S. president Ronald Reagan survives an attempt at assassination.
1981
Awareness of AIDS begins when the Centers for Disease Control reports on unusual occurrences of rare forms of cancer and pneumonia in New York and California.
1981
The left-wing New Jewish Agenda, "a progressive voice in the Jewish community, and a Jewish voice in the progressive community," is founded. Journalist Midge Decter, wife of "Commentary" editor Norman Podhoretz, founds the right-wing Committee for the Free World, an organization dedicated to the defense of the non-communist world against totalitarianism. The Committee counts among its members several individuals who will later play prominent roles in the government of President George W. Bush.
1981
Blu Greenberg publishes "On Women and Judaism," a seminal book for modern American Orthodox women who are struggling to combine Orthodoxy and feminism. Anthropologist Marjorie Shostak publishes "Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman," which becomes one of the most widely read ethnographic works of all time and a foundational text in contemporary feminist anthropology.
1981
Roald Hoffman shares a Nobel Prize in chemistry for theories about the course of chemical reactions.
1982
Israel invades Lebanon and advances nearly to Beirut in an attempt to create a buffer zone to prevent attacks on northern Israel.
1982
Nathan and Ruth Perlmutter publish "The Real Anti-Semitism in America," claiming that while overt anti-Semitism might be on the wane, a new threat has arisen: an indifference to the importance of Israel to the Jewish people on the part of people who would ordinarily never think of themselves as bigots.
1982
The Hineni Heritage Center opens in New York City. The creation of the charismatic Esther Jungreis, it reaches out to disaffected Jews by promoting a passionate, spiritual, evangelical brand of Judaism via classes, worship services, singles events, radio programs, and public appearances by Jungreis.
1982
In response to news of the persecution of Jews in Ethiopia, activists establish the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry to help Ethiopian Jews survive in Ethiopia and to emigrate to Israel.
1982
Based on new evidence, the Anti-Defamation League calls for the posthumous pardon of Leo Frank, convicted of the murder of a young girl, Mary Phagan, in a factory in Atlanta in 1913, and lynched in 1915. An elderly man, Alonzo Mann, who had been a 14-year-old office boy at the time of the murder, had finally come forward to clear his conscience by confessing that he had seen not Frank, but another employee with the corpse of the dead girl.
1983
Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish World War II diplomat credited with saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi death camps, is granted honorary U.S. citizenship. Wallenberg disappeared soon after the Soviet liberation of Budapest. It is believed that he was either executed or perished in a Soviet prison camp.
1983
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of New York's Lincoln Square Synagogue, founds Efrat, a settlement in the West Bank.
1983
In a radical departure from tradition, the Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis becomes the second American Jewish denonomination to recognize patrilineal descent (having a Jewish father) as well as matrilineal descent (having a Jewish mother) as a basis for being considered Jewish. (Patrilineal descent was recognized by the Reconstructionist movement in 1968.)
1983
The Conservative movement votes to ordain women as rabbis.
1983
The public becomes more familiar with images of Jewish life in the "shtetlakh" (towns) of Eastern Europe as a result of a film and an exhibition: Barbra Streisand directs, produces and stars in "Yentl," an adaptation of a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer about a young woman who masquerades as a boy in order to study in a yeshiva; and photographer Roman Vishniac publishes "A Vanished World," an album of pictures of Jews in Poland, Hungary, and Romania that he took on the eve of World War II.
1984
Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson refers to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown" in an interview with a reporter for "The Washington Post." After a flurry of media attention, Rev. Jackson apologizes in an emotional speech at a synagogue in Manchester, New Hampshire.
1984
The media begins to take note of the increasing number of American Jews who are becoming interested in traditional Judaism, including Hasidism. "The New York Times Magazine" publishes a piece called "American Jews Rediscover Orthodoxy."
1984
Holocaust survivor George Soros begins to establish foundations in Eastern Europe in order to help communist countries make transitions to democracy. By the end of the century, his Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network will include foundations in 29 countries and a special initiative providing funding to 27 African countries.
1984
Clothing store magnate Leslie Wexner establishes the Wexner Foundation to provide fellowships for graduate students and Jewish communal leaders in North America and Israel; and a year later, the Wexner Heritage Foundation, to provide seminars for Jewish communal lay leaders. The new interest in adult education will later be echoed by the establishment of the Florence Melton Adult Mini Schools (1986) and similar projects.
1984
Playwright David Mamet wins a Pulitzer Prize for "Glengarry Glen Ross," a comedy about competition in the real estate business.
1984
Mitch Gaylord becomes the first American gymnast in history to receive a perfect "10" at the Los Angeles Olympics.
1985
At a ceremony awarding him a Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement, Holocaust survivor/author Elie Wiesel publicly asks President Reagan to cancel a wreath-laying visit to a cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany where members of the notorious Nazi S.S. are buried. "That place, Mr. President, is not your place," Wiesel commented. "Your place is with the victims of the S.S." Despite the pleas of Wiesel and others, Reagan carries through with his visit.
1985
Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American Jewish U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, is arrested on charges of spying for Israel. He is later convicted of espionage and is sentenced to life in prison. For nearly two decades, his supporters will attempt to win a reduction of his sentence, claiming that the classified information he provided to Israel caused no harm to U.S. interests and that the usual sentence for the offense he committed is only 2-4 years.
1985
Amy Eilberg becomes the first Conservative female rabbi two years after the movement votes to allow the ordination of women.
1985
In a departure from its long-term commitment to public school education, the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations votes to support the establishment of Reform Jewish day schools.
1985
The American Jewish World Service is founded to help alleviate poverty, hunger, and disease among the people of the world regardless of race, religion, or nationality.
1985
Michael S. Brown and Joseph L. Goldstein win a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about the regulation of cholesterol metabolism. Herbert A. Hauptman and Jerome Karle win a Nobel Prize in chemistry for advances in the development of direct methods for the determination of crystal structures.
1986
The Challenger space shuttle explodes soon after take-off, killing all seven crew members. Among the astronauts to perish is Judith Resnick, the first Jewish astronaut and one of the first women to go into space.
1986
The world's worst nuclear accident occurs in the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. A chain reaction causes the destruction of a reactor at a nuclear power plant, and radiation contaminates a 20-mile radius.
1986
Alleged Nazi criminal John Demjanjuk, believed by many to be the infamous Treblinka death camp guard known as "Ivan the Terrible," is deported from U.S. for trial in Israel. In 1993, he will be acquitted and allowed to return to the U.S.
1986
A proposed change in Israel's Law of Return, which grants every Jew the right to come to immigrate to Israel, prompts protests by American Jews. The so-called "Who is a Jew" amendment would accept as legitimate only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis and reject those performed under Reform and Conservative auspices.
1986
The North American Jewish Data bank estimates the make-up of American Jewry as 2 percent Reconstructionist, 9 percent Orthodox, 29 percent Reform, 34 percent Conservative, and 26 percent as "other" or "just Jewish."
1986
"Tikkun" begins publication "as the liberal alternative to the voices of Jewish conservatism and spiritual deadness in the Jewish world and as the spiritual alternative to the voices of materialism and selfishness in Western society." The first "KlezKamp," an annual gathering of Yiddish folk culture and klezmer musicians, takes place in the Catskills, reflecting a growing interest in klezmer music and Yiddish. Art Spiegelman publishes "Maus: A Survivor's Tale," a comic book account of his father's survival of the Holocaust.
1986
Wall Street arbitrageur Ivan Boesky is arrested for insider trading and informs on other Wall Street titans, including financier Michael Milken. Both men serve prison sentences. After being released from prison, Milken will devote himself to philanthropy.
1986
Author/Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for speaking out against racism and oppression. Stanley Cohen and Rita Levi-Montalcini win a Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries of growth factors.
1987
Palestinians begin an uprising known as the Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1987
The Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary of America begins granting cantorial diplomas to women. The first International Kosher Food and Jewish Life Expo is held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. More than 50,000 people attend.
1987
Annette Greenfield Strauss becomes the first Jewish mayor of Dallas, Texas.
1987
The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation is established to support Jewish communities in the former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
1987
Robert M. Solow wins the Nobel Prize in economics for his contributions to the theory of economic growth. Russian Jewish exile poet Joseph Brodsky wins the Nobel Prize in literature.
1988
The Conservative movement publishes "Emet ve-Emunah" (Truth and Faith), a statement of the basic principles of Conservative Judaism.
The Jewish Outreach Institute is created to serve the needs of intermarried families, a growing phenomenon among Jews.
1988
Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser establish the Hauser Foundation to fund initiatives that promote democracy and the peaceful resolution of conflict, particularly in the Middle East.
1988
"Roseanne," a sitcom starring comedienne Roseanne Barr, debuts on ABC.
1988
Gertrude Elion shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries of important principles of drug treatment. Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger win a Nobel Prize in physics for experiments involving the neutrino.
1988
Golf champion Amy Alcott becomes the third member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association to pass the $2 million mark in career earnings.
1989
In China, pro-democracy protests are brutally repressed by the government. Thousands of people are massacred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In Poland, the anti-government Solidarity movement is legalized and permitted to take part in elections. The most dramatic moment in the fall of communism in Europe occurs in November when the borders between East and West Germany are opened and the Berlin Wall is torn down.
1989
"Seinfeld," the long-running sitcom about "nothing," starring comedian Jerry Seinfeld, premieres on NBC.
1989
Composer Stephen Sondheim has three hits running simultaneously on Broadway in September: "Into the Woods," "Jerome Robbins' Broadway," and "Sweeney Todd." Wendy Wasserstein's "The Heidi Chronicles" debuts on Broadway and wins both a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
1989
Harold Varmus shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for important discoveries in the field of cancer research.
1989
National Basketball Commissioner David Stern is named Executive of the Decade by the Associated Press.
1990
The Soviet Union begins to dissolve itself, and many of its former republics proclaim their independence. South African authorities free Nelson Mandela from jail after 27 years as the first step toward making the political transition to majority rule.
1990
Jewish Defense League founder/rightwing militant Meir Kahane is assassinated in New York City by an Islamic militant.
1990
Shoshana Cardin becomes the first woman to serve as president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
1990
PARDeS (Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools) is founded as a federation of Reform day schools. The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis issues statements affirming that the movement permits the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis.
1990
An English-language weekly edition of the Yiddish newspaper "Forverts" (Forward) begins publication in New York. Grossinger's, the famous Jewish Catskills resort, closes.
1990
Jerome I. Friedman shares a Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics. Harry A. Markowitz and Merton H. Miller are two of the three American winners of a Nobel Prize in economics for work in the theory of financial economics.
1991
The first Gulf War takes place. A 34-nation coalition force led by the U.S. drives the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait.
1991
The Soviet Union officially dissolves itself. Its remaining republics rename themselves the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The daily lunchtime vigil by Soviet Jewry activists outside the Soviet Embassy in DC is officially ended after 21 years with a final ceremony to celebrate freedom of emigration by Jews in the former Soviet Union. By 2004, an estimated 600,000-800,000 Soviet Jews will make their homes in the U.S.
1991
Riots break out in Crown Heights, a Brooklyn neighborhood that is home to large numbers of both Hasidic Jews and African-Americans, after a car driven by a Lubavitcher Hasid accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a seven-year-old African-American child. The rioters indiscriminately attack Jews. Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting Hasid from Australia, is stabbed to death.
1991
The United Synagogue of America changes its name to United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. In response to the Jewish Theological Seminary's decision to grant cantorial degrees to women, dissidents within the Conservative movement's Cantors Assembly break away and form the International Federation of Traditional Cantors.
1991
A survey by the Council of Jewish Federations reveals that 52 percent of all Jews who have married since 1985 have intermarried. The results are greeted skeptically by social scientist Steven M. Cohen, who questions its methodology and claims that his own analysis of the data has found that the intermarriage rate is only 40 percent, the same as it has been for many years. "American Jewish life may be shallow and superficial," he said, "but it's not getting any worse."
1991
Attorney Alan Dershowitz publishes "Chutzpah," accusing American Jews of not being assertive enough in the face of continuing anti-Semitism in America. It is a best-seller even as it arouses criticism from other Jewish leaders. Letty Cottin Pogrebin publishes "Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America," the story of her struggle to reconcile her feminism and her Jewish faith.
1991
Joseph Brodsky, a poet who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and who won the 1987 Nobel Prize, is named fifth poet laureate of the U.S.
1992
In Los Angeles, massive riots break out after a jury acquits police officers who had savagely beaten an African-American, Rodney King, during an arrest a year earlier.
1992
In Europe, fighting intensifies in the wake of the secession of the Yugoslavian republics. In Bosnia, a civil war breaks out between ethnic Serbs, Bosnians, and Croatians. War crimes are committed by all combatants and fears mount that genocide is unfolding there as the Yugoslav Army and Serbian militias target the Muslim population for "ethnic cleansing," i.e., elimination. 18 Jewish organizations, including Holocaust survivors' groups, take part in a rally outside the UN and call upon the U.S. government to take greater action, even military intervention, on behalf of the Bosnian Muslims.
1992
California Congresswoman Barbara Boxer and former mayor of San Francisco Dianne Feinstein are elected to the U.S. Senate.
1992
Jewish organizations express concern over mentions of religion in speeches made by presidential candidates Patrick Buchanan and George H.W. Bush at the Republican National Convention, as well as the prominent role played by Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition at the event. Buchanan calls the presidential race "a religious war" and calls for public funding for private and parochial schools. Bush says "that the other party took words to put together their platform but left out three simple letters: G-O-D."
1992
Sharon Kleinbaum, a lesbian and graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, becomes the first rabbi of New York City's Beth Simchat Torah, a large gay synagogue with over 1,000 members. The Conservative movement remains split over whether to grant rabbinical ordination to openly homosexual students.
1992
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the 90-year-old spiritual leader of Lubavitcher Hasidism suffers a stroke and is incapacitated. The faction among his followers who believe that he is the Messiah becomes bolder and sings a song called "King Messiah" at all his public appearances.
1992
A study by the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) finds that though UJA raises more money than any other U.S. charity, "more money is being raised from Jews by non-Jewish causes."
1992
Gary S. Becker wins a Nobel Prize in economics for applying microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior and interaction.
1993
Islamic terrorists plant a bomb in the World Trade Center in New York, killing six and damaging the South Tower.
1993
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat and sign a peace accord on the lawn of the White House. Most mainstream American Jewish organizations applaud the so-called Oslo agreement. Other groups, however, such as the Lubavitcher Hasidim, Americans for a Safe Israel, and the Zionist Organization of America are harshly critical of the peace plan. One of the most vocal critics is "Commentary" editor Norman Podhoretz, who writes that the negotiations are a "trap" for Israel -- that Israel is giving up too much and weakening itself. The Israeli Labor Party seeks to build support for its actions by establishing the Israeli Policy Forum to promote its policies among American Jews.
1993
Jewish conservatives found the Jewish Policy Center to promote a conservative agenda among Jews. Leftwing "Tikkun" editor Michael Lerner gains influence at the White House when First Lady Hillary Clinton indicates her support for "the politics of meaning," a concept developed by Lerner.
1993
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, designed by James Ingo Freed, opens in Washington, D.C.; Beit Hashoah: Museum of Tolerance, affiliated with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, opens in Los Angeles; and Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," begins appearing in movie theaters.
1993
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court.
1993
The kosher food industry is booming. 1.75 million of its six million customers are Jewish; the rest are Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, and others who consider kosher food healthier. Coca-Cola, Coors, General Mills, Hershey, Kraft, and Nestle are among the companies that have obtained kosher certification.
1993
Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" opens on Broadway, establishing him as a new, important voice in American theater.
1993
Robert W. Fogel shares a Nobel Prize in economics for renewing research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods to explain economic and institutional change.
1994
The world does little to prevent genocide in Rwanda, where, in just 100 days, members of the Hutu majority slaughter 800,000 Tutsi.
1994
Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a West Bank settler from Brooklyn, massacres 29 Palestinians in a mosque in Hebron. The overwhelming majority of American Jews and Jewish organization condemn the attacks.
1994
Worried by the growing influence of the religious right in Congress, the Anti-Defamation League publishes "The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America." Other Jews disagree that the increased power of evangelicals constitutes a threat, pointing out that rightwing Christian groups are strong supporters of Israel. Some Jewish activists ally themselves closely with the religious right, forming and joining organizations such as Toward Tradition and the Center for Jewish and Christian Values.
1994
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the 90-year-old spiritual leader of Lubavitcher Hasidism dies. Tens of thousands gather for his funeral and his gravesite becomes a place of pilgrimage for his followers from all over the world. A faction within the Lubavitchers persists in believing that the Schneersohn is the Messiah.
1994
Steven Spielberg uses profits from "Schindler's List," his award-winning film about the Holocaust, to establish the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, dedicated to collecting video oral histories from Holocaust survivors.
1994
Roger Kamenetz's book "The Jew in the Lotus" chronicles an encounter between American Jews and the Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, and draws new attention to a growing interest in Eastern religions among American Jews.
1994
Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell win a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries concerning proteins.
1995
Rightwing terrorists bomb the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
1995
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by a rightwing militant as he leaves a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
1995
Martin Indyk is appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel, becoming the first Jew to serve in this post.
1995
Responding to the recent wave of Russian Jewish immigration to the U.S., the Forward Association, publisher of the Yiddish newspaper "Forverts," launches a Russian-language edition five years after launching an English-language newspaper, "Forward."
1995
Klezmer music remains as popular as ever, with several of the top klezmer bands and performers releasing albums, some of which take the traditional music into new, experimental directions: "Jews with Horns" by the Klezmatics; "Kapelye on the Air" by Kapelye; "Songs of Our Fathers" by Andy Statman; and "Klezmer Madness" by David Krakauer. "Klezmer Madness" is one of the first releases of composer/saxophone player John Zorn's new record label, Tzadik, and inaugurates a series called "Radical Jewish Culture."
1995
Frederick Reines and Martin L. Perl win Nobel Prizes in physics; the former for the detection of the neutrino, and the latter for the discovery of the tau lepton.
1996
Jewish groups protest a resolution by the Southern Baptist Convention prioritizing missionary activity among Jews. Conservative Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis sparks controversy when he suggests that Jews should drop their aversion to proselytizing and directly compete with other religions by mounting a campaign to attract converts.
1996
Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser donate $13 million to Harvard Law School, the largest single gift ever made to a law school. The Skirball Museum and Cultural Center is founded in Los Angeles, joining the list of many other institutions that bear the name of the Skirball family, one of the preeminent Jewish philanthropic families in the U.S. These institutions include the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, Skirball Eye Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and the Skirball Institute at New York University Medical Center.
1996
The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis issues a resolution recognizing the right of gays and lesbians to civil marriages.
1996
In Los Angeles, the University of Judaism declares its independence from the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and establishes a competing rabbinical seminary.
1996
David M. Lee shares a Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of superfluidity in helium-3.
1996
Nancy Lieberman, the youngest player in history to win an Olympic medal in basketball and the first woman to play in a men's league, becomes the first woman ever inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
1997
Madeline Albright, the first female U.S. Secretary of State, an Episcopalian who was raised as a Roman Catholic, discovers that she has Jewish grandparents who may have been murdered during the Holocaust.
1997
The Museum of Jewish Heritage -- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust -- is opened in downtown Manhattan.
1997
$5 million is donated to the United Jewish Appeal by 60,000 individual donors, mostly evangelical Christians, via the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
1997
A group of Orthodox Jewish students sue Yale University. On the grounds that forcing them to live in a co-ed environment is a violation of their religious freedom, they challenge the rule that unmarried undergraduates must reside in the college's dormitories.
1997
Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) becomes all the rage among celebrities, including the singer Madonna, who enrolls in courses at the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles and wears an amulet on her wrist. Other celebrities who study kabbalah include Roseanne Barr, Elizabeth Taylor, and Barbra Streisand.
1997
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain opens. Its building, designed by American Jewish architect Frank Gehry, is considered one of the most unusual and thought-provoking masterpieces of the late 20th century.
1997
Poet Adrienne Rich turns down the National Medal for the Arts in order to protest economic and political disparity in the U.S.
1997
Stanley B. Prusiner wins a Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery of prions, a new biological principle of infection.
1998
A bill is proposed in the Israeli Knesset stating that no conversion to Judaism performed in Israel will be recognized without being approved by the Chief Rabbinate. Opponents charge that the law will delegitimize non-Orthodox denominations. The proposed bill particularly angers Reform and Conservative Jews in the U.S. Debate over the bill leads to the further deterioration of interdenominational Jewish relations.
1998
The first Conference on Orthodoxy and Feminism is held and leads to the creation of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, a spiritual home for Orthodox women seeking to reconcile their belief in equal rights for women with their desire to live within the framework of "halakhah" (Jewish law).
1998
"A Price Above Rubies," a Hollywood film about the identity crisis of a Hasidic woman, starring Renee Zellweger, opens in theaters.
1998
The Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly reaffirms its disapproval of intermarriage by establishing a policy discouraging intermarried Jews from serving as rabbis, teachers, or officials in its institutions.
1998
A new communal focus on Jewish youth is reflected by two new initiatives: "birthright israel" is established by philanthropist Michael C. Steinlauf and other benefactors to send young Jews on educational "heritage" trips to Israel. By 2004, it will have paid for the trips of 60,000 youths from all over the world. The Foundation for Jewish Camping is established by Robert and Edith Spungeon Bildner in recognition of the important role played by camping in Jewish identity.
1998
Robert F. Furchgott shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system.
1999
President Bill Clinton is impeached after being charged with perjury in a congressional investigation of a scandal involving his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. He is acquitted by the U.S. Senate, however, and is not removed from office.
1999
There is widespread support among Jewish groups for U.S. participation in NATO bombings of Serbia that are designed to halt its "ethnic cleansing" campaign against Muslims in Kosovo.
1999
In April, two students go on a shooting rampage at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 students and a teacher. A few months later, a white supremacist shoots three young children, a teenager, and an adult at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles.
1999
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism urges its congregations to adopt stricter standards of religious behavior, including Sabbath observance, regular synagogue attendance, and no intermarriage for officers. The Central Conference of American Rabbis issues a new, updated version of its 1885 "Pittsburgh Platform" in response to "a growing desire for increased learning, spiritual expression, and guidelines for Reform ideology." The document suggests that Reform Jews should pay renewed attention to "mitzvot" (sacred obligations), such as honoring the Sabbath, and that they should use Jewish learning and practice to elevate their lives to holiness.
1999
The three major Jewish fundraising organizations, the United Jewish Appeal, the Council of Jewish Federations, and the United Israel Appeal merge to form the United Jewish Communities.
1999
Hasidic Rabbi Shmuley Boteach publishes "Kosher Sex," a self-help book on love and relationships based on traditional Jewish thought. It becomes a bestseller among both Jews and non-Jews and Boteach becomes a talk-show celebrity.
1999
The "Forward" runs stories on Jewish women athletes Jill "The Zion Lion" Matthews, International Female Boxing Association and the International Women's Boxing Federation junior flyweight champ; and weightlifter Amy Weisberger, strongest woman in the world in her weight category of 56 kg.
2000
The second Palestinian intifada (uprising) begins, featuring the use of suicide bombings by Hamas and other militant groups.
2000
Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore names Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate, the first time that a Jew has been nominated to a national ticket. An observant Jew, Lieberman frequently invokes God in his campaign speeches. This prompts a protest letter from the Anti-Defamation League, similar to letters they have sent to other politicians who make appeals along religious lines. A voting scandal in Florida costs the Gore and Lieberman the election. The Supreme Court rules against a recount, allowing Republicans George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to claim victory.
2000
The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis allows its members to perform same-sex unions.
2000
There is an upsurge in the numbers of Jewish day schools. Fifteen new non-Orthodox, mostly nondenominational, day schools are scheduled to open. A shortage of qualified teachers is reported.
2000
Samuel Freedman publishes "Jew vs Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry," a look at the growing rift between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews.
2000
150 Jewish religious figures sign an ad in "The New York Times" called "Dabru Emet" (Speak the Truth), billed as the first statement of a Jewish view on Christianity, in recognition of the evolution of mainstream Christian theology about Judaism.
2000
The Center for Jewish History, a consortium of five Jewish research and cultural organizations (American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research) opens in New York City. It is billed as the "Jewish Library of Congress" and contains the largest Jewish library and archival collections outside the State of Israel.
2000
Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel share a Nobel Prize in medicine with a Swedish scientist for discoveries related to the signal transduction in the nervous system. Alan J. Heeger shares the prize in chemistry for the discovery and development of conductive polymers.
2000
Russian Jewish immigrant and swimming champion Lenny Krayzelburg, known as the "Backstroke King," wins three gold medals at the Sydney Olympics.
2001
On September 11, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history takes place when Al Qaeda terrorists hijack airplanes and use them as missiles, destroying the World Trade Center in New York and damaging the Pentagon. Another plane, thought to be heading for Washington, D.C., crashes in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people are killed.
2001
Only a few days earlier, the U.S. and Israel had walked out of a UN-sponsored World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, to protest both the presence of anti-Israel rhetoric and an attempt to pass a resolution equating Zionism with racism. But the horrible terrorist attack pushes most other events out of people's minds for some time to come.
2001
"Etz Hayim," Conservative Judaism's first official Biblical commentary, is published. An article in "The Jewish Week" reports that the use of meditation has become common in Jewish worship.
2001
Sharona Margolin Halickman attains the highest-level synagogue position by a woman in Orthodox Judaism when she is appointed as "spiritual mentor" at the Hebrew Institute in Riverdale, New York. At the Drisha Institute, women are called up to the Torah during the High Holidays and lead parts of the service.
2001
A census of American synagogues reports that there are 3,727 of them, with 40 percent identifying themselves as Orthodox, 26 percent as Reform, and 23 percent as Conservative. It is estimated that 95 percent of American Jews live in the top metropolitan areas, a situation very different from the early 20th century when there were a higher percentage of Jews living in small towns.
2001
2001 is a banner year for books on intermarriage. Examples of books published on the topic include "The Half-Jewish Book" and "The Interfaith Family Cookbook."
2001
B'nai Brith and the New American Alliance organize a Jewish-Latino Summit to discuss the development of a common agenda and strategies on such issues as fair portrayal in the media and the strengthening of public education.
2001
George A. Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz share a Nobel Prize in economics for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information.
2002
"Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl is murdered by terrorists while on assignment in Karachi, Pakistan. His captors announce that he was kidnapped and killed because he is "anti-Islam and a Jew," and release a videotape showing him being murdered.
2002
The Anti-Defamation League reports the biggest decrease in anti-Semitic acts in the U.S. in two decades. Many American Jews, however, are haunted by reports of anti-Semitic attacks in Europe and other places in the world and are disturbed by the growth of anti-Israel sentiment, especially on college campuses, where campaigns urging divestment in Israel are under way. Over 100,000 people gather in Washington, D.C., for a rally to express solidarity with Israel, the largest pro-Israel demonstration ever held in the capitol.
2002
Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, a liberal voice in Congress for over 10 years, is killed in a plane crash.
2002
In response to reports that Orthodox Jews with large families are being driven into poverty by the pressure of measuring up to their neighbors by holding lavish celebrations, Agudat Israel issues guidelines for how much money may be spent on weddings.
2002
Women of Reform Judaism-The Federation of Temple Sisterhoods announce that they are commissioning a women's commentary on the Bible.
2002
The first issue of "Heeb: The New Jew Review," a magazine aimed at young, hip Jews, appears on newsstands and the Internet. Leonard Nimoy of "Star Trek" fame publishes "Shekhina," a book of photographs that includes images of nude women wearing "tallises" (prayer shawls) and "tefillin" (phylacteries), prompting some Jewish institutions to cancel his promotional appearances. New York's Jewish Museum goes ahead with plans to mount a controversial exhibition called "Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art" despite demonstrations in front of the museum and threats of boycott by some Jewish leaders.
2002
H. Robert Horvitz shares a Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about the genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death. Daniel Kahneman wins the prize in economics for integrating insights from psychological research into economic science.
2002
16-year-old figure skating champion Sarah Hughes captures a gold medal at the Winter Olympics, dazzling spectators with feats never before accomplished by a female skater.
2003
The space shuttle Columbia explodes on its way back to earth, killing all seven of its astronauts, including, Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut.
2003
The U.S. and Great Britain launch a military attack on Iraq. After massive bombing, the coalition forces seize limited military control of the country. Hussein flees but is captured in December.
2003
Award-winning architect Daniel Liebeskind wins a competition to design a tower to replace the destroyed World Trade Towers. The competition to design a memorial to victims of the September 11, 2001 attack is won by Michael Arad, a young, relatively unknown architect.
2003
The central organization of Reform Judaism in the North America changes its name from Union of American Hebrew Congregations to Union of Reform Congregations.
2003
An interdenominational "bet din" (Jewish religious court), the only one of its kind, is established in Los Angeles.
2003
MSNBC reports that the singer Madonna has begun preaching the virtues of kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) to singer Britney Spears. In recent years, kabbalah has become popular with celebrities, who study at the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles.
2003
New York's only Spanish-language Jewish newspaper, "Tora Tropical: Judaismo con Sabor Latino" (Judaism with a Latin Flavor) publishes its first issue, and is handed out in Jewish community centers and synagogues in New York and Miami.
2003
"The Jewish Journey," an exhibition of Frederic Brenner's photographs, opens at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and includes more than 140 of his photographs of Jews in the Diaspora.
2004
American Jewry reaches a milestone: the 350th anniversary of Jewish settlement in North America.
2004
Violence intensifies in U.S. and British-occupied Iraq. In two of the worst terrorist attacks of the year, commuter trains are bombed in Spain and militants attack a school in Beslan, Russia, murdering over 300 civilians, including 172 children. A humanitarian crisis continues to unfold in the Darfur region of Sudan and the surrounding region as hundreds of thousands fleeing persecution gather in refugee camps. In December, a catastrophe occurs when a huge tsunami strikes in Southeast Asia, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of lives.
2004
In the field of major contenders for the Democratic nomination for president are several candidates who are Jewish or who have Jewish connections: Senator Joseph Lieberman, an observant Jew; Howard Dean, who is married to a Jew; and Senator John Kerry, who has Jewish ancestors and a brother who converted to Judaism.
2004
The issue of same-sex marriages makes headlines when the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that only full marriage rights for gay couples would conform to the state's constitution. San Francisco issues marriage licenses to gay couples. Here and there, other localities follow suit to make a statement about civil rights, even as the legality of same-sex marriages remains in question in almost all states. Group weddings of same-sex couples take place in Massachusetts, New York, California, and elsewhere, presided over by activist clergymen, including rabbis.
2004
Mel Gibson releases "The Passion," a fictionalized and graphic treatment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, to box office success. Jewish groups and many Christian theologians criticize the film as being historically inaccurate and for perpetuating the myth that Jesus was killed by the Jews.
2004
The United Jewish Communities releases a study that finds that Jewish charitable foundations lag far behind other non-profit organizations in the numbers of women who hold top executive positions.
2004
Detroit Pistons head coach and 1964 Olympic medalist Larry Brown is named head coach of the 2004 U.S. Olympic basketball team. The only American to ever play and coach in the Olympics, he is the only person in history to win an Olympic gold medal in basketball as both a player and coach (as an assistant coach at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics).
copyright 2005 the Center for Jewish History