Pilgrim Jews

Real fully Torah true observant Jews didn’t come to America in great numbers until the runup to WWII, and especially in the aftermath of WWII.

Prior to WWI the state of American Judaism was very religiously poor and bereft of much real rabbonim.

Spoken like a greenhorn………………..
There was NO mass migration of frum Jews to the US in the run-up to WWII. They were blocked by the changes in immigration laws of 1924.

Far more non-frum, than frum Jews arrived as refugees after WWII and they were more than happy to take the economic help provided by agencies/groups established by non-frum American Jews such as HIAS and B’Nai B’rith.

My maternal side arrived in the US in the 1860s, they came for economic opportunity reasons…my great-great grandfather was sought out in Germany for his particular manufacturing and management skills.

My paternal side came in 1872 from the Pale of Settlement. They were proactive Jewish Pilgrims. Although living in a very frum-Jewish area, they reacted to the Odessa Pogroms of 1871 and the fear that pogroms would spread throughout the Russian Empire. My great-great grandmother’s letters back to the old country (which were used in visa applications by other relatives) explained this fear.

Joseph and many newcomers (defined in my family as those who entered via Ellis Island–we old timers arrived at Castle Garden in Mnahattan) perpetrate this revisionist history that the US was a frum wasteland before WWII. Yes, Jews could easily go OTD, but that happened in Europe as well…especially in the western lands such as Germany with the rise of the Reform movement. Rabbonim were imported, shuls and yeshivos were started in the US. This was mostly the misnagid community. Chassidim were loathe to leave their geographically based dynasty courts. There was no chance of being appointed ‘chief rabbi’ of a city or area in the US. With freedom of religion, the government did not need to have official contact with these rebbes running insular communities of Jewish residents with limited rights.

I come from a long line of misnagdim, but in the 1930s, 40s and 50s they did all in their power to apply political pressure in the US to allow in more Jewish refugees from Europe and sponsor them economically. There was no differentiation by American Jews between frum and non-frum Jews when trying to rescue Jews from the shoah.

Joseph//////////////////
Inventing Facts with no backup…Alternative Facts like Trump

I am one of 972 observant descendants of a frum couple who arrived in NY back in 1872
I grew up in New Haven, which had a long tradition of learned Rabbis leading congregations and yeshivos/day schools since the 1890s
Not all learned rabbis came from Europe. RIETS started training American rabbis back in 1896…they may now be too far left for your taste, but were frum back then.

Lots of Frum Jews in Europe had descendants that were no longer frum by the 1930s..this is not solely an American occurrence..

Joseph

In your first “FACT” you end off “Most intermarried.”
Is this referring to the line preceding it i.e. that ” most [of] …thier children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren” intermarried or the opening ” Most frum Jews who left Europe.. intermarried.”

Either way Im curious as to your source. while Sadly most recent data indicates an intermarriage rate of 58% which can be characterized as “most” as recently aS 1990 it was “only” at 40% which is obviously not “most”
(i’ll grant that this number includes many Jews who arrived (or ancestors did) mmore recently) But I find it surprisng that “most children ” of those who arrived, let alone they themselves intermarried.

Joseph like to present his views as facts, no back up

The website hebrewbooks.org and their long catalogue of seforim authored by american rabbonim indicates that there were very many high caliber talmidei chachamim in america100, even 125 years ago.

Joseph the millions of Jews who emigrated Eastern Europe were for the most part frum. After the assassination of Czar Alexander, the pogroms became so horrific that Jews could no longer bear it. Defying the Gedolim, they began to flee in increasing numbers. The error the Gedolim made was in believing that Eastern Europe would remain a haven for frum Jews.

wiki says torah vadaas was concieved 1917. Wiki says chaim berlin was 1904. Those i know of cud be more

Yeshiva of Brooklyn, too.

But there were precious few yeshivos in prewar America, as most Jewish kids went to pubic school. And most were lost to yiddishkeit forever.

MW…
I see others answered before I saw your post.
There was a yeshiva started in my hometown of New Haven prior to 1920 and it operated for several decades, it was followed by others over the years.
Unfortunately, one of the current Yeshivos in New Haven is mired in scandal and has lost its student body and almost all faculty, while the other has continued to expand and grow.
New Haven had Jewish settlers in Colonial Times and a synagogue chartered by the State of Connecticut in 1840…all religious institutions in CT had to receive charters from the state until the first quarter of the 20th century. It was a center of Jewish learning in the early 20th century as a successful orthodox merchant and manufacturing class wanted to provide the best for their sons, they imported and supported rabbonim, melamdim, shotchim, sofrim, etc. and funded the construction of Jewish institutions. In addition to the yeshiva, a Home for the aged and an orphanage were established in the nineteen teens.

CTL, your family is a shining exception. The Ridbaz, in fact, left Chicago declaring that Judaism would never take hold in America (on the other hand, the main claim of Mordechai Kaplan was that mitzvot such as Shabbat and kashrut had to be “relaxed” so that Jews could make a place for themselves) .

Sweatshops had signs “If you don’t come in on Sat don’t come in on Mon”. Until Torah uMasora was established after WW2 there were no day schools (all of the yeshivot you cite were for older boys – there was nothing for girls) and then they faced enormous opposition from parents who wanted their kids to be “Americans”). Everyone went to public schools, which were bastions of conservatism but also places for inculcating Xtian values. Even when I went to public school in the Sixties there was singing of religious songs near Dec 25 (I was able to get away with not singing by virtue of the fact that there were enough kids to enable me to hide in the crowd).

It should also be noted that merely coming to America at the time was often a rebellion against the rabbinic establishment as only the strongest received heterim. Their children very quickly through off everything. For example, a survey of Brownsville, Brooklyn (then an almost completely Jewish neighborhood) in 1940 showed that only 9% of the Jews went to shul regularly (Jews in Gotham p. 54). The growing discrimination against Jews in employment certainly hastened this trend. It was hard enough for a secular jew to get a good job. In fact, despite being at the top of his class in Harvard Nat Lewin was rejected by a series of firms when he brought up Shabbat. Finally he did what many others did and went into government service before opening his own firm.

Avi:
Hate to burst your bubble, but this is NOT true:
“Until Torah uMasora was established after WW2 there were no day schools (all of the yeshivot you cite were for older boys – there was nothing for girls)”

The New Haven Hebrew Day School (now Southern CT Hebrew Academy) started classes in 1944
My brother-in-law’s eldest sister was enrolled in the first class. his next older sister and he attended through 8th grade. He went on to a yeshiva in NY, and last June he retired after a career as a pulpit rabbi in Massachusetts.

Over the years, that school had a boys high school which closed, but has had a girls high school since the 1960s in continuous operation.

dont forget Rav Mendlowitz.

Avi……………
again, while I mentioned New Haven, you can’t ignore the Maimonides School, founded by The Rav (J.B. Soliveitchik) way back in 1937…still serving Jewish boys and girls 80 years later/

Joseph,
Many would argue that a large part of the Torah world also stands on the shoulders of Rav J.B. Soliveitchik. YU was not always as ‘liberal’ as it is now.

Avi K
No on said it was easy, it does however continue to disprove your statement that there were no day schools in he US prior to WWII and that they did not serve girls
Members of my extended family have attended both day schools I mentioned in CT and Mass.

BTW, in my father’s generation (born 1920) day schools, elementary Yeshivos were not considered so important, the kids went to public schools and learned Torah from 2:30 on and Sundays with private tutors. In my father’s case he learned/was taught by his paternal grandfather who was educated at Brisk in what is now Belarus. My great great grandfather had a storefront school on 15th Ave Boro Park from 1925 until his death in 1938. Most of the students attended public school in the morning. They went on to a year or 2 of full time Yeshiva after high school then college and professions or business. They became successful enough to help found the modern day schools of the post WWII era

For the record my family has been in this country since before WW I and my Wifes family as well.

A side note JTS and YU almost merged twice, The first time it was real close and Im not sure why it failed. At the time their Hasghfa was similar and JTS even threw out Mordechai Kaplan for his Philosophies

CTL, I did not write that there were absolutely none. There were a handful but it was a drop in the bucket. The fact of the matter is that while at the time of the Great Immigration the vast majority of East European Jews were observant for the vast majority Shabbat observance went out the window already in the first generation for economic reasons. There were even vatikin minyanim on Shabbat for people who went to work! The second generation through out most of the rest but remained culturally Jewish because of the spread of discrimination. This was answered by Jewish fraternities and sororities, Jewish neighborhoods and Jewish business firms (also new merit-based civil service rules made some public offices Jewish-dominated). The third and generation did not keep anything but still generally married within the group Now that is also out. This has been compared to the four sons. The chacham is the immigrant, the rasha is his son who wanted to be American and throw off “foreign ways”, the simple is his son who does not know very much except for what little he heard from his grandfather, the son who does not know how to ask is his son who is totally ignorant Jewish and now there is a fifth son who is not even present.

Joseph, actually “Torah uMadda” is an extension “Torah im Derech Eretz”. In fact, the Hildesheimer Rabbinic Academy in Berlin required the equivalent of an academic HS diploma and students also studied in the university. Amongthem were Rav Soloveichik and the last Lubavitcher rebbe (who woirked as an electrical engineer in the Bklyn navy Yard before becoming the rebbe).

CTLawyer

Many jews who did not go to the Goldena Medina left the Shtel for the big cities as well. Places like Vienna and Warsaw became large jewish cities fairly quickly. Jews were not really even allowed in Vienna until about 1850, and it was almost 200,000 by 1939

Actually most jews in Warsaw were Bundist, meaning Socialist, Non-Zionistic wanting equal right in Poland

It was the Bund who was really behind the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but other joined later

AviK……….
Lawyers know that it is important to be precise in speech and written words.
If I were alone in a room and speaking to someone on my phone, I might say that there is nobody else in the room with me. I would not say nobody is there(here), because I am somebody.

CTL, what about weasel words (e.g. “effective”, “constructive”) or the famous, non-existent “reasonable man”. In fact, George C. Christie wrote an article in the Duke U Law Review titled Vagueness and Legal Language and Timothy A. O. Endicott wrote a book called Vagueness in Law that argue that vagueness is the Law’s stock in trade.
What about saying that nobody goes to a certain restaurant because it is too crowded? LOL (BTW, for what it is worth Yogi passed away on Yom Kippur night).

Don’t blame him. Yogi never said half the things he said.

My great grandfather came in 1905 to northern NJ and set up shop as a rav, shochet and mohel. He was a chabadnik of some yichus, and functioned as an outreach professional at the turn of the century. They had been wealthy until his daughter, my bubby needed a halizta . They were held up for all they had, so perhaps they were economic migrants, but the virulent anti semitism of the last czar could also have been a factor. Zeidi, came in 1907. The yorzeit for the people of his shtetl is Lag Bomer. They were murder en mass by the nazis and others y”s.

On the other side of my ancestry, around the same time, my grandfather came and worked on a farm in Connecticut for eight years before he could pay the passage for grandma. They came from a place close enough to be called “near Warsaw” but far enough that they were rural folk, and that farming was the natural fit for him, but the poverty must have been severe. They settled in Brownsville Brooklyn and were members of Adas Israel of Brownsville and New York. I have led a futile search of those early years, but some of my past runs through Connecticut and Brooklyn. That I am a shomer torah umitzvos is a statistical fluke.

There is a book “Chachmei Israel of New England” that collects the stories of many like my great grandfather, that settled in nidach outbacks (sorry CTL) and had functional single generation frum kehilos