Jews are commonly viewed as the archetypal success story of immigrants who made it through education. However,we must keep in mind that Jewish experience is largely shaped through Jewish writers and scholars. In reality, most east European Jews who were able to move up the social ladder accomplished this through businesses in the garment, fur, shoe and retail trades. School was a short term affair for most Russian Jewish children and most jobs did not require diplomas. For instance, in 1908 only 3,000 of 109,000 Russian Jewish pupils in New York City were attending high school and only 5% of these graduated from high school. Furthermore, in the first decade of the 20th century less than 1% of the college aged Russian Jews ever reached college. Hence, the reality was that extended schooling was more a luxury than a commodity among east European Jews in the early 20th century thus making it unlikely that a significant amount of them were able to move up the occupational ladder through educational means.