At first, researching the Jewish immigrants was intimidating because they were not a group I was particularly knowledgeable about.  In fact, I had never studied Jewish immigration prior to this class.  To me, they had always been one united wave of immigrants.  It was interesting to have a closer look to see how the Jews differed from one another: religiously and oddly enough (at least to me), economically.  Although it was difficult to find Jewish politicians from the late nineteenth century (Mayor Laguardia was kind of Jewish on a technicality, but he was a practicing Episcopalian), I found it interesting that there were people like Jacob Schiff who was upper class and Emma Goldman who was middle class, contrasting with the working class. Yet, they created closely knit groups that gave charity within the confines of the community.  While the research itself was daunting (if you type in “Jews in New York City” into Google, you’ll get approximately 5.8 million results), I’m glad to be a part of this group because there was so much to learn.