The immigrants clearly had difficulties in syncing their traditionalism with the bustling and rambunctious New York atmosphere. Here are some voices …

“America is good only for the boors and the ignorant …the Jewish community is deceived by its makhers and knakers (operators and big wheels)” – Hebrew writer corresponding with a Yiddish newspaper in Poland

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of scholars, nor standeth in the way of the enlightened, nor sitteth in the seat of the learned. But his delight is money, and in the accumulation of wealth does he mediate day and night … For money answereth all things, but the poor man’s wisdom is despised”  – Parodist

“The orthodox Jewish faith is absolutely inflexible. If you are a Jew of the type to which I belonged when I came to New York, and you attempt to bend your religion to the spirit of your new surroundings, it breaks … The very clothes I wore and the very food I ate had a fatal affect on my religious habits. – Protagonist in Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsnky

Russian Immigrants being welcomed by the outstretched arms of their Americanized relatives: "A Happy New Year" Alfred and Elizabeth Bendiner Collection / Courtesy of Library of Congress

I contend that Conservatism emerged the victor during the 1880-1920 period. I do not assert this claim simply because of the Conservatism’s apparent balance and receptiveness. As much as the Jews clung to the Yiddish culture and religious customs, the immigrants were often concerned with steering themselves away from financial turmoil; they turned to assimilation, or “Americanization” as Robert Seltzer puts it, to realize their slim hopes for economic and social prosperity. Clearly the very act of immigration elicited the need to adapt to a new society which in turn facilitated the metamorphosis of the Jewish faith during the period that we are discussing. Eastern European Orthodoxy simply could not keep abreast with the changing times and drastic switch of societies.