Judaism's Modernization in America The Jewish way of life has been affected in a tremendous way by the people of the United States of America. By the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there were only 2500 Jews in America. For forty years beginning in 1840, 250,000 Jews (primarily from Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia) entered this country. Anti-Semitism and economic woes in Eastern Europe went from bad to worse after the pogroms of 1881-1882. Almost three million Eastern European Jews left between 1881 and 1914, two million (85%) of which decided to come to America, where they thought "the streets were paved with gold." They were wrong. Because of this intercontinental migration, the socialcharacterization of Jews in America changed drastically. Beforethe move, the largest group in the early eighteenth century werethe Sephardic Jews. They lived in the coastal cities as merchants,artisans, and shippers. The Jews who predominately spoke Germancame to America over 100 years later, and quickly spread out overthe land. Starting as peddlers, they moved up to businesspositions in the south, midwest, and on the west coast. New YorkCity had 85,000 Jews by 1880, most of which had German roots. Atthis time in American history, the government accepted many peoplefrom many different backgrounds to allow for a diverse population;this act of opening our borders probably is the origin of thedescriptive phrase "the melting pot of the world." These German Jews rapidly assimilated themselves and their faith. Reform Judaism arrived here after the Civil War due to the advent of European Reform rabbis. Jewish seminaries, associations, and institutions, such as Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College, NewYork's Jewish Theological Seminary, the Union of American HebrewCongregations (UAHC), and the Central Conference of AmericanRabbis, were founded in the 1880s. America was experimenting with industry on a huge scale at the time the Ea...
