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Immigration

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Collection

Writing Home: A Letter from an Early American Jew

Learn about Jewish immigration and the development of the Jewish community in America through a 1790s letter, originally written in Yiddish by Rebecca Samuel to her parents in Hamburg, Germany, describing her life in Petersburg, Virginia.

The Immigrant Experience in NYC, 1880-1920 (Module #1)

Consider the economic and social forces that shaped Jewish immigrants' everyday lives and meet real-life workers and factory owners.

Angela Merkel

Macchiatos with Merkel

Maya Franks

This lady is my German RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg), and let’s not even discuss what would happen if I were to bump into RBG at a coffee shop. For anyone who might not know, Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany (2005-present), and is the first woman to hold the position. 

Jamaica Kincaid / Yelena Akhtiorskaya

Immigrant Authors

Bridging Two Worlds

Yelena Akhtiorskaya

Yelena Akhtiorskaya transmuted her own family’s immigrant experience into her ambitious debut novel, Panic in a Suitcase.

Stosh Cotler

An unconventional CEO with tattoos, a black belt, and a reputation as a radical social activist, Stosh Cotler has mobilized Jewish Americans to fight for immigration reform, racial equality, and workers’ rights.

Hannah Sandusky

Called “the angel” and “the saint” by her patients, midwife Hannah Sandusky was remarkable both for the sheer number of births she oversaw and for the respect that male doctors granted her for her skills.

Lena Barber

One of the few midwives to continue working in Baltimore after the 1924 ordinance that required they be licensed and registered, Lena Barber kept detailed records of hundreds of her deliveries.

Rosa Fineberg

Rosa Edelhurst Fineberg kept detailed records of her work as a midwife that shed light on the lives of Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century.

Matilda and Bernice Blaustein

While 150,000 women eventually served in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in World War II, Matilda Blaustein was remarkable both as one of the first to volunteer and because she was joined in the service by her daughter, Bernice.

Marillyn Tallman

Marillyn Tallman helped Jews make new lives for themselves during some of the most monumental conflicts of the twentieth century.

Galina Nizhnikov Veremkroit

Galina Nizhnikov Veremkroit risked her own safety to become one of the first female refuseniks to protest for the right to leave Soviet Russia.

Shannie Goldstein

Shannie Goldstein used her creativity to outsmart the KGB, bringing information to and from refuseniks in the Soviet Union.

Barbara Gaffin

Barbara Gaffin brought international attention to the desperate circumstances of Ethiopian Jews and helped whole communities flee to Israel.

Mrs. Zelickson

We know little about the Canadian pioneer woman known as Mrs. Zelickson. She came to Canada in 1891 and settled in Southern Saskatchewan in the Jewish pioneer colony of Hirsch. In the year 1925, she responded to an on-going discussion in the magazine Nor'-West Farmer on the topic of what a woman was worth. Her response combined a healthy dose of humor and self-assuredness.

Sarah Thal

Sarah's husband had brothers living in Milwaukee who sent home glowing reports of the conditions in America. Intrigued, Sarah and Solomon immigrated to America in 1882.

Flora Langerman Spiegelberg

Willi along with his five other brothers had already established a thriving mercantile business in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Spiegelbergs were so financially successful that their wives and children were able to live luxuriously. For instance, by 1880, Willi and Flora, had the first house in Santa Fe with running water and gas appliances.

Anna Marks

Anna Rich Marks was born in Russian-occupied Poland in 1847. Raised in poverty and haunted by the constant threat of pogroms, she left Poland and traveled to England where she met and married Wolff Marks in 1862, at age fifteen. The couple ventured to America, eventually settling in Eureka City, a rich mining area sixty miles south of Salt Lake City. Anna Marks made her fortune in real estate. She owned controlling interests in two mines near Eureka and was known to have invested money in diamonds as well. Anna Marks died of a heart attack in Eureka City on April 19, 1912.

Betty Spiegelberg

Levi Spiegelberg followed his brother Solomon to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1848. Together they formed the partnership of Spiegelberg Brothers, an extremely successful merchant enterprise. Like many pioneer Jewish men, Levi wished to marry within his faith. Those who could afford the expense, often returned to Europe to find a Jewish bride. Betty married Levi in 1848. She arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the early 1860's after taking the railroad to the end of the Missouri and then traveling up the steep Santa Fe Tail by ox train.

Anna F. Solomon

Anna worked side by side with her husband. She ran Solomonville's store and the local hotel, all while raising their six children in a refined and cultured home in the midst of the desert southwest. Anna died in San Diego, California, in her late eighties on May 4, 1933.

Fanny Jaffe Sharlip

Fanny Sharlip was born in the small town of Borosna, Russia. In her memoirs written in 1947, she characterizes herself as a child "always hungry for knowledge. I asked too many questions. I was told over and over again that it was not healthy to know too much. I could not be harnessed by telling me that children don't have to know. That only made me more curious." Fanny loved school and was an excellent student. "I was very happy as only a child my age could be; I lived and breathed school.

Rachel Calof

Rachel first landed in New York. From there, she and Abraham journeyed to join his family already living on homesteads in North Dakota. They arrived in Devil's Lake in 1894. Rachel's memoir highlights her growing regard for her husband and her own struggle in adapting to the difficult conditions in which found herself. The early years were especially difficult—no privacy, extreme financial hardship, minimum fuel and food to get through the harsh winters.

Fanny Brooks

Fanny Bruck was born in 1837, in the small village of Schweidnitz, Germany, one of six children. Fanny was well educated and graduated with high honors. She was only 16 years old when she met Julius Brooks, a young man who had been lured to America by stories of the Gold Rush in 1847 and who had returned after five years to visit his family. They married in Breslau, Germany, on August 18th, 1853, and journeyed to America.

Ingeborg B. Weinberger

Ingeborg B. Weinberger has worked much of her life with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), helping new immigrants and refugees to resettle in the United States.

Sarah Kappelman Harris

Sarah Kappelman Harris divides her life into three parts: her family, her work with Hadassah, and her work with HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society).

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