Jewish American Experience

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Jewish American Experience
Introduction
This paper deals with some of the most distinguishable aspects of the American Jewish experience. The Jews incorporation into the American life and the subsequent process of restructuring of the Jewish life is discussed herein. One of the most distinguishable characteristics of the process of incorporation of the Jews into the American culture has been the combination of great and continuous economic and occupational advancement. The Jews were also involved into the public arenas of American life. The primordial components of the Jewish identity marked the public acceptance of the collective Jewish activities.
The Jewish institutions have been in the forefront of the incorporation of the two cultures for the past two or three decades. The way the American Jews manifest their experience through their the religious, educational, communal and political institutions, the public visibility and acceptability evidently felt in the political and intellectual aspects of the nineteenth century American society.
The Jewish experience in the American society is enveloped in the public display and the acceptance of the communal Jewish experience and activities as defined by the Jewish national ethnic terms. The Jewish identity, the collective consciousness, and the collective endeavors were based on the religious symbolism and institutions.
The ideological reforms of the American Jewish in the 19th century were mainly based on the assumptions that the religious reforms were a common practice to the American society at that time. However, the process of incorporation began earlier even before the great immigrations of the 1880 but was muted for a period of two or three generations and resurfaced in the late 1960’s.
History of American Jewish
The history of American Jewish dates back to 1654. History has it that the present Jews in America started from a small number of only two dozen Jews refugees that were feeing from Brazil. Using a ship, these twenty three impoverished souls arrived in New Amsterdam. They were not received well as the then governor Peter Stuyvesant was of the opinion of again chasing them away (Soyer 154). Later on it is worth noting that there are a number of individuals such as Asher Levy who strived to fight for Jews rights. Additional Jews from Holland again arrived, that was in 1655. It is worth mentioning that since Britain took over what is now known as New York, coupled with those who fought for Jews right; situation seemed to be a bit better for the immigrants.
During the colonial period in 17th century, these immigrants lived along Atlantic cost line as well as some few states in the south. Similarly it is worth bringing to light the fact that it was only in the Rhode Island that the Jews were allowed to reside permanently. In 1773, a Synagogue was built which is a memory of Juda Touro. In South Carolina, Georgia, Charleston as well as Savannah, another community of Spanish-Portuguese community established themselves in these regions (Sarna & Golden 2). At around 1745, a congregation well known as the Mikveh Israel organized it self in Philadelphia. After the revolution in America, the Richmond Jews community came to being.
It is worth noting that a second set of Jews in America constituted those from Germany. These individuals originated from a background that was incorporated and liberated. What made these set of Jews to emigrate include a set of interrelated factors such as poverty in rural places, strict government legislation concerning issues relating to marriage, scarcity of natural resource-land, unemployment as well as government restriction on domicile. These new immigrant together with those German Jews that were there before started moving westwards hence establishing communities in Chicago,, St. Paul and Cincinnati. There population tremendously increased as most of the immigrants were young in age.
Poland and Russian Jews also constituted the largest American Jews. This group of individuals fled their country due to pogroms which refers to very strict laws and persecutions. The communities that originated from these countries are Warsaw, Odessa, Vilna and the Lodz. Restrictions on employment, coupled with those previously mention factors that made German Jews migrate also played a bigger role in making Jews of Russian and polish origin to move to America. The strict laws and persecution in Russia in the years 1881 to 1884 and 1903 and 1906 resulted to a very huge number of Russians to move to Europe as well as U.S.A. it is worth noting some differences in Russian and German migration; the former came as family members while the later move as young single men (Sarna & Golden 7).
The Russian immigrants upon arrival settled in urban area and found themselves as majority in industrial sector. This made them amass capital that made them indulge in business. They brought a Yiddish culture that was expressed through journalism, poetry as well as other forms of art.
Lastly, during the span of the first and Second World War more Jews communities did migrate and joined their relatives living in U.S.A. Jews of eastern origin especially Syria and Iran also did move to America on the same note during the fall of USSR, more Russian did migrate to U.S. At present there are million of Jews in America.
Immigration and the struggle
The Jews immigrants were accepted by the Native American society especially at the onset of the first half of the 19th century. The Jews were allocated the Eastern seashore which was a reserve for territorial expansion. They were also incorporated into the social life, their activities, mainly religious and to some extent philanthropic.
At the end of the 19th Century, the mass immigration of the Jews into America which increased the fear in the predominant WASP group network. This fear was attributed to the eminent cultural and social ambience. The initial tolerance was susceptible to undermining by the influx of immigrant groups. This marked the beginning of the American Jewish struggle.
Religion
The American Society had no official religion as in the case of Israel, this posed a big challenge to the American Jews. This resulted into a distinctive American attitude to the religious and the Jews diversification. This was even included the American Promulgations later, as explained in Eisenstadtis (51) that in 1810, the Congress passed the Sunday Mail law which decreed that the mail should be delivered on Sundays. The American constitution had the regards to all the religious groups as sacred. The Americans had a pluralistic orientation in which they built a collective identity. This led to the development of political and the basic orientations that had religious non-conformity. The fusion of the Political values with the religious sentiments imbued both the social and political realms of American life and the construction of the American collectivity resulted in a very unique American society. The orientation of the American value system was made to be very strong with greater emphasis on the achievement and equality on the basis of the republican liberties. This disestablished the American society from any official religion.
The Non-orthodox have a complex kind of experience, at some point they experienced the tendency to return to the traditional customs with religious origins such as the candle lighting on the Hannuka and the Sabbath, or alternatively, the celebration of the traditional values of life such as circumcision, the bar mitzvah, marriage and the funerals. The Jews were in most cases searching for the expression of their Jewish identity (Dara 172). The activities of the Jews took place in the central public and political space. The Jews conduct such activities in the languages of their respective countries of residence and the intellectual discourse of the societies.
The idea that the American society was very open to the religious sentiments however did not mean a total acceptance to any religious intrusion by foreign religious cultures. The toleration that was given to the Jewish participation into the American was subjected to religious and social tension that developed between the Jewish and some sectors of the American society.
Anti-Semitism
The anti-Semitism erupted as a result of the competition between the Jews immigrant groups and the Natives or the American-born workers for the limited jobs during the difficult times of econom...