The immigration of German Jews in America in the first half of the 19th century

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,25, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: Landeskundeseminar: Being Jewish in the USA, 3 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: About three percent of the population in the United States of today are Jews. Their home is America and they fell and act as Americans. Most of them are descendants of European emigrants who came to America in the mass migration in the first half of the 19th century. Today, scarcely anybody thinks about those days and even worse, many people hardly know anything about it. Well, it was not a long period of time in which the mass migration took place. It only covers about fifty years; yet, fifty important years. Those were the years, when the cornerstone of the Jewish history in America was laid. A history, different to Jewish histories in other countries. In the United States of America, Jews have never been discriminated nor persecuted. They had the same chances than every Gentile in America. This paper shows how the Jewish immigrants gained a foothold in America between the early years of the 19th century and the beginning of the Civil War. Jewish immigrants arrived in America without any money in their pockets. Yet, they had the hope to find a better life in this 'golden country'. In the following it will be discussed how German Jews in America succeeded in business life and politics, and how they dealt with their religion in a country that did not put up any restrictions on them. This paper looks more on the general history. Although a history is always the history of people, it was avoided to tell the history of single persons because it would exceed the limit of this paper. Yet, sometimes the life of some people are given as examples.