From the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, a significant number of Eastern European Jews immigrated to America, with a particularly large concentration of them settling in New York City, most notably the Lower East Side of Manhattan. This wave of immigrants ultimately effected substantial change and influence on the culture and character of New York.
Initial influxes of Jewish immigrants during this time consisted of people from shtetls who had no previous experience with urban life. The most religious Jews, namely prominent rabbis and their followers, refused to immigrate to America due to their belief that America was spiritually deprived and operated solely under the drive to make money. As more economic, social, political, and spiritual circumstances changed in Europe, greater numbers and more varied types of Jews immigrated to the U.S. As the European economy declined and religious persecution abounded, Jewish immigration to America saw a sharp increase. Soon enough, over half of the Eastern European Jewish immigrants to New York had experience in an urban environment and could be classified as skilled workers.
With the dramatic rise in Eastern European Jewish immigration, numbers of Irish and German immigrants living in certain parts of the city diminished, and the Lower East Side became the most densely populated, congested district in NYC. Although most Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe settled in the Lower East Side, new urban infrastructure brought many of these immigrants to move to other areas like Brooklyn, uptown Manhattan, and the Bronx. These Jews mostly lived in cramped, dark tenements and slums, not acquiring much improvement upon the living conditions of the Lower East Side. In addition, although Jews migrated to other areas of the city, the Lower East Side remained the center for Jewish American intellectual, cultural, and political life.
As anti-Semitic sentiment grew in the late 1800s, leaders of the well-established German Jewish community began voicing their grievances towards Eastern European Jews and their “uncouth” and foreign ways of living. These German-Jews consequently set out to Americanize these Eastern European Jews, establishing organizations and agencies, most notably the Educational Alliance, to train these immigrants for jobs and citizenship. Eastern European Jewish immigrants initially resented the German Jews and their organizations because of their frequent condemnation of Yiddish language and culture. However, once these organizations began to accept Yiddish, eventually providing classes in Yiddish culture and language, Eastern European Jewish immigrants demonstrated new enthusiasm for these programs.
A lot of anti-Semitic remarks were made about the crime rates among the Eastern European Jewish population in the Lower East Side; although no violent crime really occurred within this community, some serious criminal activity, notably prostitution, took place. As a result, the German Jews in uptown Manhattan also created associations to decrease crime and poverty while increasing Jewish quality of life.
In time, eastern European Jews in New York started establishing their own dominance. A majority of them gained a strong foothold in manufacturing, particularly in the garment industry, and many of them formed socialist labor unions. These socialists spoke out about issues of social justice and gave a new sense of brotherhood to the eastern European Jewish community in the city. They started to exercise greater political influence as voters, putting many Jewish and Jewish-advocating candidates in office. Jews in the Lower East Side became progressively more secular while still maintaining their core religious identities and beliefs. Although Judaism definitely saw a decline in New York among the eastern European Jewish demographic, this decline stopped as Judaism became steadily Americanized.
The eastern European Jewish community in NYC ultimately established a great cultural influence. Their unique enthusiasm for learning and intense value of knowledge drove them to get an extensive education, and they contributed greatly to NYC’s theater scene with both common and, later, more sophisticated Yiddish drama.
