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114-525: Hebrew Publishing Company was an American Jewish publishing house based in New York City. The company published a range of Hebrew prayerbooks and other religious works, as well as many Yiddish publications. The company was founded in the early 1900s in the Lower East Side of New York, and later was situated at the former Bank of United States building for over forty years. The company

228-715: A "rival" to the Ashkenazim and help them push the Mizrahim below in the social-economic ladder and behind them, so they won't ever be in line with the Israeli elites of European Jewish descent. He also speaks against the Mapai manner of labeling all the Oriental Jews as "one folk" and erasing their unique and individual history as separated communities; he says that he wonders why the real Easterners of his time who were

342-452: A 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research , approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi , 3% identify as Sephardic , and 1% identify as Mizrahi . An additional 6% identify as some combination of the three categories, and 25% do not identify as any particular category. During the colonial era, Sephardic Jews who arrived via Portugal represented the bulk of America's then-small Jewish population. While their descendants are

456-499: A Jewish state; it had little apparent effect however, with 90% still voting other-than-Republican. In every election since, except for 1980, no Democratic presidential candidate has won with less than 67% of the Jewish vote. (In 1980, Carter obtained 45% of the Jewish vote. See below.) During the 1952 and 1956 elections, Jewish voters cast 60% or more of their votes for Democrat Adlai Stevenson , while General Eisenhower garnered 40% of

570-524: A broad sense and including Mizrahi Jews, North African Jews as well as Sephardim proper. From the point of view of the official Israeli rabbinate, any rabbis of Mizrahi origin in Israel are under the jurisdiction of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel . Sami Michael rejects the terms Mizrahim and Edot HaMizrach , claiming it is a fictitious identity advanced by Mapai to preserve

684-543: A conflation of terms, particularly in official Israeli ethnic and religious terminology, with Sephardi being used in a broad sense to include Middle Eastern and North African Jews, as well as Sephardim proper from Southern Europe around the Mediterranean Basin . The Chief Rabbinate of Israel has placed rabbis of Mizrahi origin in Israel under the jurisdiction of the Sephardi chief rabbis. Following

798-634: A connection to the Jewish communities of Europe and North Africa in their paternal gene pool, suggesting a common Middle Eastern origin between them. In autosomal analyses, the Iraqi Jews , Iranian Jews , Bukharian Jews , Kurdish Jews , Mountain Jews , and Georgian Jews form a cluster. When examined at a more detailed level, the groups can be separated from each other. This cluster plots between Levantine and Northern West Asian populations. Syrian and North African Jews are separate from it and closer to

912-403: A form of Orientalism towards the Oriental Jews, similar to the ways in which Westjuden had labeled Ostjuden as "second class" and excluded them from possible positions of power. The usage of the term Mizrahim or Edot Hamizraḥ ( עדות־המזרח ), Oriental communities, grew in Israel under the circumstances of the meeting of waves of Jewish immigrants from Europe, North Africa,

1026-429: A historical art form. They tell us how Jews have survived being uprooted and transformed. Many immigrant narratives bear a theme of the arbitrary nature of fate and the reduced state of immigrants in a new culture. By contrast, ethnic family narratives tend to show the ethnicity more in charge of his life, and perhaps in danger of losing his Jewishness altogether. Some stories show how a family member successfully negotiated

1140-466: A major role in left-wing politics and, after 1936, in Democratic Party politics. Although American Jews generally leaned Republican in the second half of the 19th century, the majority has voted Democratic since at least 1916, when they voted 55% for Woodrow Wilson . With the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt , American Jews voted more solidly Democratic. They voted 90% for Roosevelt in

1254-454: A major-party ticket when he was chosen as Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore 's vice-presidential nominee. The elections of 2000 and 2004 saw continued Jewish support for Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry , a Catholic, remain in the high- to mid-70% range, while Republican George W. Bush 's re-election in 2004 saw Jewish support rise from 19% to 24%. In the 2008 presidential election , 78% of Jews voted for Barack Obama , who became

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1368-433: A means to define Jews in a world that threatened to overwhelm and absorb Jewish uniqueness. The journal represented the ideals of the menorah movement established by Horace M. Kallen and others to promote a revival in Jewish cultural identity and combat the idea of race as a means to define or identify peoples. Siporin (1990) uses the family folklore of ethnic Jews to their collective history and its transformation into

1482-406: A minority nowadays, they represent the remainder of those original American Jews along with an array of other Jewish communities, including more recent Sephardi Jews , Mizrahi Jews , Beta Israel-Ethiopian Jews , various other Jewish ethnic groups , as well as a smaller number of converts to Judaism . The American Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions , encompassing

1596-687: A minority population of the older Sephardi Jewish families remained influential. Jewish migration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s, as a result of persecution and economic difficulties in parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these new immigrants were Yiddish -speaking Ashkenazi Jews, most of whom arrived from poor diaspora communities of the Russian Empire and the Pale of Settlement , located in modern-day Poland , Lithuania , Belarus , Ukraine , and Moldova . During

1710-516: A per-capita basis for incorporated areas in the US are Kiryas Joel Village, New York (greater than 93% based on language spoken in home), City of Beverly Hills, California (61%), and Lakewood Township , New Jersey (59%), with two of the incorporated areas, Kiryas Joel and Lakewood, having a high concentration of Haredi Jews, and one incorporated area, Beverly Hills, having a high concentration of non-Orthodox Jews. The phenomenon of Israeli migration to

1824-455: A potential 7.0–7.4 million Americans of Jewish descent. Those higher estimates were however arrived at by including all non-Jewish family members and household members, rather than surveyed individuals. In a 2019 study by Jews of Color Initiative it was found that approximately 12-15% of Jews in the United States, about 1,000,000 of 7,200,000 identify as multiracial and Jews of color . The overall population of Americans of Jewish descent

1938-399: A profound impact on the Jewish community in the United States, especially after 1960 as Holocaust education improved, as Jews tried to comprehend what had happened during it, and especially as they tried to commemorate it and grapple with it when they looked to the future. Abraham Joshua Heschel summarized this dilemma when he attempted to understand Auschwitz : "To try to answer is to commit

2052-426: A respectable 35%, but during Bush's re-election attempt in 1992, his Jewish support dropped to just 11%, with 80% voting for Bill Clinton and 9% going to independent Ross Perot . Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 maintained high Jewish support at 78%, with 16% supporting Bob Dole and 3% for Perot. In the 2000 presidential election , Joe Lieberman became the first American Jew to run for national office on

2166-540: A sense of complete identification and solidarity born of our own painful historic experience." During the World War II period, the American Jewish community was bitterly and deeply divided and as a result, it was unable to form a united front. Most Jews who had previously emigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe supported Zionism , because they believed that a return to their ancestral homeland

2280-484: A similar split among Israelis and led to a parallel rift within the pro-Israel lobby , and even ultimately to the United States for its "blind" support of Israel. Abandoning any pretense of unity, both segments began to develop separate advocacy and lobbying organizations. The liberal supporters of the Oslo Accord worked through Americans for Peace Now (APN), Israel Policy Forum (IPF) and other groups friendly to

2394-779: A singular identifiable division during World War II , when they were distinctly outlined in the One Million Plan of the Jewish Agency for Israel , which detailed the methods by which Jews of the diaspora were to be returned to the Land of Israel (then under the British Mandate for Palestine ) after the Holocaust . An earlier cultural community of southern and eastern Jews were the Sephardi Jews . Before

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2508-459: A state's presidential primary election. For congressional and senate races, since 1968, American Jews have voted about 70–80% for Democrats; this support increased to 87% for Democratic House candidates during the 2006 elections. The first American Jew to serve in the Senate was David Levy Yulee , who was Florida's first Senator, serving 1845–1851 and again 1855–1861. There were 19 Jews among

2622-494: A supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair, to sense a ray [of] God's radiance in the jungles of history." Zionism became a well-organized movement in the U.S. with the involvement of leaders such as Louis Brandeis and the promise of a reconstituted homeland in the Balfour Declaration . Jewish Americans organized large-scale boycotts of German merchandise during

2736-475: A survey by the Adva Center, the average income of Ashkenazim was 36 percent higher than that of Mizrahim in 2004. In 2023, journalist Shany Littman believes the dynamics of inequality have reversed, with most Israeli cabinet ministers and City mayors being Mizrahi Jews; also she stated that middle-class Mizrahi women earned more than their Ashkenazi counterparts. The Middle Eastern Jewish populations have

2850-563: A twofold experience—one of the spirit and one of our history.   ... From our Jewish historic experience of three and a half thousand years we say: Our ancient history began with slavery and the yearning for freedom. During the Middle Ages my people lived for a thousand years in the ghettos of Europe.   ... It is for these reasons that it is not merely sympathy and compassion for the black people of America that motivates us. It is, above all and beyond all such sympathies and emotions,

2964-628: Is a variant of Aramaic. As spoken by the Kurdish Jews , Judeo-Aramaic languages are Neo-Aramaic languages descended from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic . They are related to the Christian Aramaic dialects spoken by Assyrian people , which are Syriac Christians who claim descent from Assyria , one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 2500 BC in ancient Mesopotamia . Among other languages associated with Mizrahim are Judeo-Iranian languages such as Judeo-Persian ,

3078-511: Is almost exclusively applied to descendants of Jewish communities from North Africa and Asia ; including Yemenite Jews , Kurdish Jews , Turkish Jews , Egyptian Jews , Syrian Jews , Lebanese Jews , Iraqi Jews , Jordanian Jews , Saudi Arabian Jews , Emirati Jews , Kuwaiti Jews , Bahraini Jews , Qatari Jews , Omani Jews , Algerian Jews , Libyan Jews , Moroccan Jews , Tunisian Jews , Iranian Jews , Bukharian Jews , Afghan Jews , and Mountain Jews . Georgian Jews also fall under

3192-500: Is also common in Jewish religious circles. During the past century, the Sephardi rite absorbed part of the unique rite of the Yemenite Jews , and lately, Beta Israel religious leaders in Israel have also joined Sefardi rite collectivities, especially following rejection of their Jewishness by some Ashkenazi circles. The reason for this classification of all Mizrahim under Sephardi rite is that most Mizrahi communities use much

3306-538: Is always referred to as "Ethnic", while European Jews' work, even if historic in theme, is not, as a result of racism. Most of the "Mizrahi" activists actually originated from North African Jewish communities, traditionally called "Westerners" ( Maghrebi ), rather than "Easterners" ( Mashreqi ). The Jews who emigrated to Palestine from North Africa in the 19th Century and prior started their own political and religious organization in 1860 which operated in Jerusalem

3420-681: Is demographically characterized by an aging population composition and low fertility rates significantly below generational replacement. However, the Orthodox Jewish population, concentrated in the Northeastern United States , has fertility rates when taken alone which are significantly higher than both generational replacement and that of the average U.S. population. The National Jewish Population Survey of 1990 asked 4.5 million adult Jews to identify their denomination. The national total showed 38% were affiliated with

3534-870: Is estimated that up to 15 million Americans are part of the "enlarged" American Jewish population, accounting for 4.5% of the total US population, consisting of those who have at least one Jewish grandparent and would be eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return . Jews were present in the Thirteen Colonies since the mid-17th century. However, they were few in number, with at most 200 to 300 having arrived by 1700. Those early arrivals were mostly Sephardi Jewish immigrants, of Western Sephardic (also known as Spanish and Portuguese Jewish ) ancestry, but by 1720, Ashkenazi Jews from diaspora communities in Central and Eastern Europe predominated. For

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3648-554: Is the interpretive work of Sam Philipe, a fifth generation Jerusalemite. Refuge in Israel was not without its tragedies: "In a generation or two, millennia of rooted Oriental civilization, unified even in its diversity", had been wiped out, writes Mizrahi scholar Ella Shohat . The trauma of rupture from their countries of origin was further complicated by the difficulty of the transition upon arrival in Israel; Mizrahi immigrants and refugees were placed in rudimentary and hastily erected tent cities ( ma'abarot ) often in development towns on

3762-559: Is thought to be the first to publish a Yiddish-English dictionary. Hebrew Publishing Company was the title of an award-winning novel by the Israeli writer Matan Hermoni  [ he ] . In the book, the novel's protagonist, Mordechai Schuster, a newly arrived immigrant to the United States, works for his uncle at the Hebrew Publishing Company. The novel describes the lives of Jewish immigrants in Manhattan in

3876-608: The American Jewish Yearbook that the American Jewish population totaled 7.15 million, making up 2.17% of the country's 329.5 million inhabitants. In the same year, the American Jewish population was estimated at 7.6 million people, accounting for 2.4% of the total US population, by other organization. This includes 4.9 million adults who identify their religion as Jewish, 1.2 million Jewish adults who identify with no religion, and 1.6 million Jewish children. The American Jewish Yearbook population survey had placed

3990-651: The Anti-Defamation League was asked by the conference to apologize for criticizing ZOA's Morton Klein . The conference, which under its organizational guidelines was in charge of moderating communal discourse, reluctantly censured some Orthodox spokespeople for attacking Colette Avital , the Labor-appointed Israeli Consul General in New York and an ardent supporter of that version of a peace process. As of 2020,

4104-880: The Bukhori dialect , Judeo-Tat , and Kurdish languages ; Georgian ; Judeo-Marathi and Judeo-Malayalam . Bukharian Jews from various countries in Central Asia and the Mountain Jews living in Azerbaijan are also widely fluent in Russian due to several of those countries' former status as republics of the Soviet Union . The Jewish diaspora in the Middle East outside the Land of Israel started in

4218-499: The First Arab–Israeli War , over 850,000 Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews were expelled or evacuated from Arab and Muslim-majority countries between 1948 and the early 1980s. A 2018 statistic found that 45% of Jewish Israelis identified as either Mizrahi or Sephardic . Mizrahi is literally translated as 'Oriental', 'Eastern', מזרח ‎ Mizraḥ , Hebrew for ' east '. In the past, the word Mizrahim , corresponding to

4332-510: The Kaddish . Traditionally, Aramaic has been a language of Talmudic debate in yeshivot , as many rabbinic texts are written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. The current Hebrew alphabet , known as "Assyrian lettering" or "the square script", was in fact borrowed from Aramaic. In Kurdistan , a region which includes parts of Turkey , Syria , Iraq and Iran , the language of the Mizrahim

4446-661: The New York metropolitan area , establishing the world's major concentrations of the Jewish population. In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition, thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines in Yiddish. At the beginning of the 20th century, these newly arrived Jews built support networks consisting of many small synagogues and Landsmanshaften (German and Yiddish for "Countryman Associations") for Jews from

4560-682: The Reform tradition , 35% were Conservative , 6% were Orthodox , 1% were Reconstructionists , 10% linked themselves to some other tradition, and 10% said they are "just Jewish." In 2013, Pew Research's Jewish population survey found that 35% of American Jews identified as Reform, 18% as Conservative, 10% as Orthodox, 6% who identified with other sects, and 30% did not identify with a denomination. Pew's 2020 poll found that 37% affiliated with Reform Judaism, 17% with Conservative Judaism, and 9% with Orthodox Judaism. Young Jews are more likely to identify as Orthodox or as unaffiliated compared to older members of

4674-587: The Republican Party . The 114th Congress included 10 Jews among 100 U.S. Senators : nine Democrats ( Michael Bennet , Richard Blumenthal , Brian Schatz , Benjamin Cardin , Dianne Feinstein , Jon Ossoff , Jacky Rosen , Charles Schumer , Ron Wyden ), and Bernie Sanders , who became a Democrat to run for President but returned to the Senate as an Independent. In the 118th Congress , there are 28 Jewish US Representatives. 25 are Democrats and

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4788-732: The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) tried to counterbalance the power of the liberal Jews. On October 10, 1993, the opponents of the Palestinian-Israeli accord organized at the American Leadership Conference for a Safe Israel , where they warned that Israel was prostrating itself before "an armed thug", and predicted and that

4902-509: The full spectrum of Jewish religious observance . Depending on religious definitions and varying population data, the United States has the largest or second largest Jewish community in the world, after Israel . As of 2020, the American Jewish population is estimated at 7.5 million people, accounting for 2.4% of the total US population. This includes 4.2 million adults who identify their religion as Jewish, 1.5 million Jewish adults who identify with no religion, and 1.8 million Jewish children. It

5016-564: The "thirteenth of September is a date that will live in infamy". Some Zionists also criticized, often in harsh language, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres , his foreign minister and chief architect of the peace accord. With the community so strongly divided, AIPAC and the Presidents Conference, which was tasked with representing the national Jewish consensus, struggled to keep the increasingly antagonistic discourse civil. Reflecting these tensions, Abraham Foxman from

5130-491: The 1930s to protest Nazi Germany . Franklin D. Roosevelt 's leftist domestic policies received strong Jewish support in the 1930s and 1940s, as did his anti-Nazi foreign policy and his promotion of the United Nations . Support for political Zionism in this period, although growing in influence, remained a distinctly minority opinion among Jews in the United States until about 1944–45, when the early rumors and reports of

5244-723: The 2009 Statistical Abstract of Israel, 50.2% of Israeli Jews are of Mizrahi or Sephardi origin. Anti-Jewish actions by Arab governments in the 1950s and 1960s, in the context of the founding of the State of Israel, led to the departure of large numbers of Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. The exodus of 25,000 Mizrahi Jews from Egypt after the 1956 Suez Crisis led to the overwhelming majority of Mizrahim leaving Arab countries. They became refugees . Most went to Israel. Many Moroccan and Algerian Jews went to France. Thousands of Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian Jews emigrated to

5358-422: The 435 US Representatives at the start of the 112th Congress ; 26 Democrats and 1 ( Eric Cantor ) Republican. While many of these Members represented coastal cities and suburbs with significant Jewish populations, others did not (for instance, Kim Schrier of Seattle, Washington; John Yarmuth of Louisville, Kentucky; and David Kustoff and Steve Cohen of Memphis, Tennessee). The total number of Jews serving in

5472-603: The 6th century BCE, during the Babylonian captivity , which also caused some Jews to flee to Egypt. Other early diaspora areas in the Middle East and North Africa were Persia , Yemen and Cyrene . As Islam started to spread in the 7th century CE, Jews who were living under Muslim rule became dhimmis . Because Jews were seen as " People of the Book ", they were allowed to practice their own religion, but they had an inferior status in an Islamic society. Even though Jews in

5586-436: The American Jewish population is, depending on the method of identification , either the largest in the world, or the second-largest in the world (after Israel ). Precise population figures vary depending on whether Jews are accounted for based on halakhic considerations, or secular, political and ancestral identification factors. There were about four million adherents of Judaism in the US as of 2001, approximately 1.4% of

5700-642: The Arab world saw themselves (including the ones with family background of converts) and were seen as fundamentally a part of the wider collective of the Jewish people, and they maintained their identity as the descendants of the ancient Israelite tribes. Some Mizrahim migrated to India , Central Asia , and the Caucasus . After the establishment of the State of Israel and subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War , most Mizrahim were either expelled by their Arab rulers or chose to leave and emigrated to Israel. According to

5814-532: The Arabic word Mashriqiyyun ( Arabic : مشريقيون , 'Easterners'), referred to the natives of Turkey, Iraq and other Asian countries, as distinct from those of North Africa ( Maghribiyyun ). In medieval and early modern times, the corresponding Hebrew word ma'arav ( מערב ) was used for North Africa. In Talmudic and Geonic times, however, this word ma'arav referred to the land of Israel, as contrasted with Babylonia . For this reason, many object to

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5928-580: The Democrat, with only 45% support, while Republican winner Ronald Reagan garnered 39%, and 14% went to independent (former Republican) John Anderson . During the Reagan re-election campaign of 1984, the Republican retained 31% of the Jewish vote, while 67% voted for Democrat Walter Mondale . The 1988 election saw Jewish voters favor Democrat Michael Dukakis by 64%, while George H. W. Bush polled

6042-480: The Eastern European Jewish peasants from the villages weren't labeled as "Mizrahi" in Israel, despite fitting it more than the Oriental Jews who were labeled that way. Michael is also against the inclusion of Oriental Jewish communities who do not descend from Sepharadic Jews , as "Sepharadim" by the Israeli politicians, calling it "historically inaccurate". He also claims that his work as an author

6156-551: The House of Representatives declined from 31 in the 111th Congress . John Adler of New Jersey, Steve Kagan of Wisconsin, Alan Grayson of Florida, and Ron Klein of Florida all lost their re-election bids, Rahm Emanuel resigned to become the President's Chief of Staff; and Paul Hodes of New Hampshire did not run for re-election but instead (unsuccessfully) sought his state's open Senate seat. David Cicilline of Rhode Island

6270-486: The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), Mizrahi Jews are less likely to pursue academic studies than Ashkenazi Jews. Israeli-born Ashkenazim are up to twice as likely to study in a university as Israeli-born Mizrahim. Furthermore, the percentage of Mizrahim who seek a university education remains low compared to second-generation immigrant groups of Ashkenazi origin, such as Russians. According to

6384-540: The Israeli response; the great majority came to accept the war as necessary. Similar tensions were aroused by the 1977 election of Menachem Begin and the rise of Revisionist policies, the 1982 Lebanon War and the continuing administrative governance of portions of the West Bank territory. Disagreement over Israel's 1993 acceptance of the Oslo Accords caused a further split among American Jews; this mirrored

6498-867: The Jewish community. Many Jews are concentrated in the Northeastern United States, particularly around New York City . The world's largest menorah is lit annually at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan , while the largest menorah in New Jersey is similarly celebrated in Monroe Township , Middlesex County . Many Jews also live in South Florida , Los Angeles , and other large metropolitan areas, like Chicago , San Francisco , or Atlanta . The metropolitan areas of New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami contain nearly one quarter of

6612-402: The Jewish sub-ethnicities, Israeli officials, who themselves were mostly Eastern European Jews, transferred the name to them, though most of these immigrants arrived from lands located further westward than Central Europe. Mizrahi is subsequently among the surnames most often changed by Israelis, and many scholars, including Avshalom Kor , claim that the transferring of the name Mizrahim was

6726-525: The Jewish vote for his reelection, the best showing to date for the Republicans since Warren G. Harding 's 43% in 1920. In 1960, 83% voted for Democrat John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon , and in 1964, 90% of American Jews voted for Lyndon Johnson , over his Republican opponent, arch-conservative Barry Goldwater . Hubert Humphrey garnered 81% of the Jewish vote in the 1968 elections in his losing bid for president against Richard Nixon . During

6840-539: The Labour government in Israel. They tried to assure Congress that American Jewry was behind the Accord and defended the efforts of the administration to help the fledgling Palestinian Authority (PA), including promises of financial aid. In a battle for public opinion, IPF commissioned a number of polls showing widespread support for Oslo among the community. In opposition to Oslo, an alliance of conservative groups, such as

6954-427: The Middle East and North Africa formed strong attachments to the areas in which they lived, they were seen as a community which was clearly distinct from other communities. For example, while Musta'arabi Jews in the Arab world were influenced by the local culture, e.g. they started speaking variants of the Arabic language and ate their own versions of the same food, they did not adopt Arab identity. Instead, Jews in

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7068-481: The Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, followers of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Temani (Yemenite) rites. In modern Israeli usage, it refers to all Jews from Central and West Asian countries, many of them Arabic-speaking Muslim-majority countries. The term came to be widely used more by Mizrahi activists in the early 1990s. Since then in Israel it has become an accepted semi-official and media designation. Before

7182-528: The Midwest. Gradually the Cincinnati Jewish community would adopt novel practices under the leadership Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise , the father of Reform Judaism in the United States, such as the inclusion of women in minyan . A large community grew in the region with the arrival of German and Lithuanian Jews in the latter half of the 1800s, leading to the establishment of Manischewitz , one of

7296-410: The Mizrahim retained culture, customs and language distinct from their Ashkenazi counterparts. The collective estimate for Mizrahim (circa 2018) is at 4,000,000. The cultural differences between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews impacted the degree and rate of assimilation into Israeli society, and sometimes the divide between Eastern European and Middle Eastern Jews was quite sharp. Segregation, especially in

7410-642: The New York Times to describe him as "the most obscure bestselling author." In 1980, the company was acquired by Charles Lieber (1921–2016) from the Werbelowsky (Werbel) family. Lieber was a protege of Alfred Knopf , had been an executive at Random House , and was owner of textbook publisher Aldine Atherton. Hundreds of the company's publications have been digitized by the Yiddish Book Center research institute. In its early years,

7524-512: The Nixon re-election campaign of 1972, Jewish voters were apprehensive about George McGovern and only favored the Democrat by 65%, while Nixon more than doubled Republican Jewish support to 35%. In the election of 1976, Jewish voters supported Democrat Jimmy Carter by 71% over incumbent president Gerald Ford 's 27%, but during the Carter re-election campaign of 1980, Jewish voters greatly abandoned

7638-402: The Sephardi Jews exiled from Spain resettled in greater or lesser numbers in the Arab world , such as Syria and Morocco. In Syria, most eventually intermarried with, and assimilated into, the larger established communities of Musta'rabim and Mizrahim. In some North African countries, such as Morocco, Sephardi Jews came in greater numbers, and so largely contributed to the Jewish settlements that

7752-400: The State of Israel, over 850,000 Jews were forced from Arab Lands and Iran. The desperate refugees were welcomed by Israel. By Act of the Knesset: 30 Nov, annually, is the Departure and Expulsion Memorial Day. Memorial donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, With support from the World Sephardi Federation, City of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Foundation" The sculpture

7866-485: The US is often termed Yerida . The Israeli immigrant community in America is less widespread. The significant Israeli immigrant communities in the United States are in the New York City metropolitan area, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. According to the 2001 undertaking of the National Jewish Population Survey , 4.3 million American Jews have some sort of strong connection to the Jewish community, whether religious or cultural. Mizrahi Jews The term Mizrahi

7980-432: The US population. According to the Jewish Agency , for the year 2023 Israel was home to 7.2 million Jews (46% of the world's Jewish population), while the United States contained 6.3 million (40.1%). According to Gallup and Pew Research Center findings, "at maximum 2.2% of the US adult population has some basis for Jewish self-identification." In 2020, the demographers Arnold Dashefsky and Ira M. Sheskin estimated in

8094-409: The United States in large numbers due to antisemitic laws and restrictions in their countries of birth. They primarily became merchants and shop-owners. Gradually early Jewish arrivals from the east coast would travel westward, and in the fall of 1819 the first Jewish religious services west of the Appalachian Range were conducted during the High Holidays in Cincinnati , the oldest Jewish community in

8208-769: The United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other countries in the Americas. Today, as many as 40,000 Mizrahim still remain in communities scattered throughout the non-Arab Muslim world , primarily in Iran, but also Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. There are few Maghrebim remaining in the Arab world. About 3,000 remain in Morocco and 1,100 in Tunisia. Other countries with remnants of ancient Jewish communities with official recognition, such as Lebanon, have 100 or fewer Jews. A trickle of emigration continues, mainly to Israel and

8322-699: The United States. 9 May 2021, the first physical memorialization in Israel of the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from Arab land and Iran was placed on the Sherover Promenade in Jerusalem. It is titled the Departure and Expulsion Memorial following the Knesset law for the annual recognition of the Jewish experience held annually on 30 November. The text on the Memorial reads; "With the birth of

8436-525: The area of housing, limited integration possibilities over the years. Intermarriage between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim is increasingly common in Israel and by the late 1990s 28% of all Israeli children had multi-ethnic parents (up from 14% in the 1950s). It has been claimed that intermarriage does not tend to decrease ethnic differences in socio-economic status, however, that does not apply to the children of inter-ethnic marriages. Although social integration has increased, disparities persist. A study conducted by

8550-577: The category of Mizrahi. Indian Jews are sometimes labeled as Mizrahi, though members of the community have identified themselves as a separate category. Mizrahi Jews of the Mashriq , consisting roughly of Egypt , Sudan , the Arabian Peninsula , and the Arab regions of the Levant , may be referred to as Mashriqi Jews. These various Jewish communities were first officially grouped into

8664-553: The collapse of the Bank of United States in 1932, Hebrew Publishing Company took over the bank's headquarters building at 77 Delancey Street. In 1976, after over forty years at the Delancey Street location, the company moved out from its Lower East Side location. Among their perennial publications were the prayer books edited and translated to English that the company commissioned from Paltiel (Philip) Brinbaum . These books led

8778-500: The company geared its productions to newly arrived Orthodox Jewish immigrants who were fluent with Yiddish and Hebrew. The company produced books, educational textbooks, greeting cards, and sheet music. The company also offered a range of books to assist the new immigrants with integrating into American society. The first publication of the Hebrew folk song Zum Gali Gali was released by the Hebrew Publishing Company in 1939. The company

8892-528: The conflict between ethnic and American identities. After 1960, memories of the Holocaust , together with the Six-Day War in 1967 had major impacts on fashioning Jewish ethnic identity . Some have argued that the Holocaust highlighted for Jews the importance of their ethnic identity at a time when other minorities were asserting their own. In New York City, while the German-Jewish community

9006-429: The dominant Ashkenazi community. Furthermore, a policy of austerity was enforced at that time due to economic hardships. Mizrahi immigrants arrived speaking many languages: Mizrahim from elsewhere brought Georgian, Judaeo-Georgian and various other languages with them. Hebrew had historically been a language only of prayer for most Jews not living in Israel, including the Mizrahim. Thus, with their arrival in Israel,

9120-493: The early 20th century as they engage in petty trade or work as laborers, living in poverty and overcrowded housing. The immigrants read the cheaply produced literature (known as shund in Yiddish) and sentimental stories published by the Hebrew Publishing Company. American Jewish American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish , whether by culture , ethnicity , or religion . According to

9234-410: The elections of 1940, and 1944, representing the highest of support, equaled only once since. In the election of 1948, Jewish support for Democrat Harry S. Truman dropped to 75%, with 15% supporting the new Progressive Party . As a result of lobbying, and hoping to better compete for the Jewish vote, both major party platforms had included a pro-Zionist plank since 1944, and supported the creation of

9348-714: The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the various current communities of Mizrahi Jews did not identify themselves as a distinctive Jewish subgroup, and many considered themselves Sephardis, as they largely followed the Sephardic customs and traditions of Judaism with local variations in minhagim . The original Sephardi Jewish community was formed in Spain and Portugal , and after their expulsion in 1492 , many Sephardim settled in areas where Mizrahi communities already existed. This complicated ethnography has resulted in

9462-461: The establishment of the state of Israel, Mizrahi Jews did not identify themselves as a separate Jewish subgroup. Instead, Mizrahi Jews generally characterized themselves as Sephardi , as they follow the customs and traditions of Sephardi Judaism (but with some differences among the minhag "customs" of particular communities). That has resulted in a conflation of terms, particularly in Israel and in religious usage, with "Sephardi" being used in

9576-684: The ethnic as opposed to the religious sense. In some Arabic countries, such as Egypt and Syria, Sephardi Jews arrived via the Ottoman Empire would distinguish themselves from the already established Musta'rabim, while in others, such as Morocco and Algeria, the two communities largely intermarried, with the latter embracing Sephardi customs and thus forming a single community. In the Arab world (such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan), Mizrahim most often speak Arabic . Most of

9690-542: The fact that some of them were denied the right to vote or hold office in local jurisdictions, Sephardi Jews became active in community affairs in the 1790s, after they were granted political equality in the five states where they were most numerous. Until about 1830, Charleston, South Carolina had more Jews than anywhere else in North America . Large-scale Jewish immigration commenced in the 19th century, when, by mid-century, many German Jews had arrived, migrating to

9804-455: The first African American to be elected president. Additionally, 83% of white Jews voted for Obama compared to just 34% of white Protestants and 47% of white Catholics, though 67% of those identifying with another religion and 71% identifying with no religion also voted Obama. In the February 2016 New Hampshire Democratic Primary , Bernie Sanders became the first Jewish candidate to win

9918-579: The first time, the English Plantation Act 1740 permitted Jews to become British citizens and emigrate to the colonies . The first famous Jew in US history was Chaim Salomon , a Polish-born Jew who emigrated to New York and played an important role in the American Revolution. He was a successful financier who supported the patriotic cause and helped raise most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution. Despite

10032-541: The formation of new centers, as Jewish school enrollment more than doubled between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, while synagogue affiliation jumped from 20% in 1930 to 60% in 1960; the fastest growth came in Reform and, especially, Conservative congregations. More recent waves of Jewish emigration from Russia and other regions have largely joined the mainstream American Jewish community. Americans of Jewish descent have been successful in many fields and aspects over

10146-488: The horrors of the Holocaust. This attention was based on a natural affinity toward and support for Israel in the Jewish community. The attention is also because of the ensuing and unresolved conflicts regarding the founding of Israel and the role for the Zionist movement going forward. A lively internal debate commenced, following the Six-Day War . The American Jewish community was divided over whether or not they agreed with

10260-494: The largest producers of American kosher products and now based in New Jersey , and the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the United States, and second-oldest continuous published in the world, The American Israelite , established in 1854 and still extant in Cincinnati. By 1880 there were approximately 250,000 Jews in the United States, many of them being the educated, and largely secular, German Jews, although

10374-538: The late 19th and early 20th centuries abandoned a racial definition of Jewishness in favor of one that embraced ethnicity. The key to understanding this transition from a racial self-definition to a cultural or ethnic one can be found in the Menorah Journal between 1915 and 1925. During this time contributors to the Menorah promoted a cultural , rather than a racial, religious, or other views of Jewishness as

10488-504: The many notable philosophical, religious and literary works of the Jews in Spain, North Africa and Asia were written in Arabic using a modified Hebrew alphabet . Aramaic is a Semitic language subfamily. Specific varieties of Aramaic are identified as " Jewish languages " since they are the languages of major Jewish texts such as the Talmud and Zohar , and many ritual recitations such as

10602-810: The mid-20th century, there were American Jews who were among the most active participants in the Civil Rights Movement and feminist movements. A number of American Jews have also been active figures in the struggle for gay rights in America . Joachim Prinz , president of the American Jewish Congress , stated the following when he spoke from the podium at the Lincoln Memorial during the famous March on Washington on August 28, 1963: "As Jews we bring to this great demonstration, in which thousands of us proudly participate,

10716-659: The most liberal programs of the New Deal . They continued as a major element of the New Deal Coalition , giving special support to the Civil Rights Movement . By the mid-1960s, however, the Black Power movement caused a growing separation between blacks and Jews, though both groups remained solidly in the Democratic camp. While earlier Jewish immigrants from Germany tended to be politically conservative ,

10830-546: The number of American Jews at 6.4 million, or approximately 2.1% of the total population. This figure is significantly higher than the previous large scale survey estimate, conducted by the 2000–2001 National Jewish Population estimates, which estimated 5.2 million Jews. A 2007 study released by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute (SSRI) at Brandeis University presents evidence to suggest that both these figures may be underestimations with

10944-488: The other 3 are Republicans. All 10 Jewish Senators are Democrats. Additionally, 6 members of President Joe Biden 's cabinet are Jewish ( Secretary of State Antony Blinken , Attorney General Merrick Garland , DNI Avril Haines , White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain , Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas , and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ). Members of the American Jewish community have included prominent participants in civil rights movements. In

11058-461: The peripheries of Israel. Settlement in moshavim (cooperative farming villages) was only partially successful, because Mizrahim had historically filled a niche as craftsmen and merchants and most did not traditionally engage in farmwork. As the majority left their property behind in their home countries as they journeyed to Israel, many suffered a severe decrease in their socio-economic status aggravated by their cultural and political differences with

11172-438: The pre-existing Jews were assimilated by the more recently arrived Sephardi Jews. Either way, this assimilation, combined with the use of the Sephardi rite, led to the popular designation and conflation of most non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities from Western Asia and North Africa as "Sephardi rite", whether or not they were descended from Spanish Jews, which is what the terms "Sephardi Jews" and "Sfaradim" properly implied when used in

11286-719: The rite of the Sephardim, perceived as more prestigious. Even before this assimilation, the original rite of many Jewish Oriental communities was already closer to the Sephardi rite than to the Ashkenazi one. For this reason, "Sephardim" has come to mean not only "Spanish Jews" proper but "Jews of the Spanish rite", just as " Ashkenazim " is used for "Jews of the German rite", whether or not their families originate in Germany. Many of

11400-551: The same period, great numbers of Ashkenazic Jews also arrived from Galicia , at that time the most impoverished region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a heavy Jewish urban population, driven out mainly by economic reasons. Many Jews also emigrated from Romania . Over 2,000,000 Jews landed between the late 19th century and 1924 when the Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration. Most settled in

11514-507: The same religious rituals as Sephardim proper due to historical reasons. The prevalence of the Sephardi rite among Mizrahim is partially a result of Sephardim proper joining some of Mizrahi communities following the 1492 Alhambra Decree , which expelled Jews from Sepharad ( Spain and Portugal ). Over the last few centuries, the previously distinctive rites of the Mizrahi communities were influenced, superimposed upon or altogether replaced by

11628-477: The same town or village. American Jewish writers of the time urged assimilation and integration into the wider American culture , and Jews quickly became part of American life. Approximately 500,000 American Jews (or half of all Jewish males between 18 and 50) fought in World War II , and after the war younger families joined the new trend of suburbanization . There, Jews became increasingly assimilated and demonstrated rising intermarriage . The suburbs facilitated

11742-568: The systematic mass murder of the Jews in Nazi-occupied countries became publicly known with the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps . The founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948 and recognition thereof by the American government (following objections by American isolationists) was an indication of both its intrinsic support and its response to learning

11856-521: The use of Mizrahi to include Moroccan and other North African Jews. During the 1940s, before Israel's establishment, the demographer Roberto Bachi used the categories of "Mizrahim" and " Ashkenzim " in his ethnic classification of the Yishuv . In the 1950s, the Jews who came from the communities listed above were simply called and known as Jews ( Yahud , يهود in Arabic) and to distinguish them in

11970-482: The wave of Jews from Eastern Europe starting in the early 1880s were generally more liberal or left-wing and became the political majority. Many came to America with experience in the socialist, anarchist and communist movements as well as the Labor Bund , emanating from Eastern Europe. Many Jews rose to leadership positions in the early 20th century American labor movement and helped to found unions that played

12084-492: The world after the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in Israel. Several other major cities have large Jewish communities, including Los Angeles , Miami Baltimore , Boston , Chicago , San Francisco and Philadelphia . In many metropolitan areas, the majority of Jewish families live in suburban areas. The Greater Phoenix area was home to about 83,000 Jews in 2002, and has been rapidly growing. The greatest Jewish population on

12198-503: The world's Jews and the New York City metropolitan area itself contains around a quarter of all Jews living in the United States. According to a study published by demographers and sociologists Ira M. Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky in the American Jewish Yearbook, the distribution of the Jewish population in 2020 was as follows: The New York City metropolitan area is the second-largest Jewish population center in

12312-496: The years. The Jewish community in America has gone from being part of the lower class of society, with numerous employments barred to them, to being a group with a high concentrations in members of the academia and a per capita income higher than the average in the United States. Scholars debate whether the historical experience of Jews in the United States has been such a unique experience as to validate American exceptionalism . Korelitz (1996) shows how American Jews during

12426-618: Was called " The Western Jewish Diaspora Council " ( Hebrew : ועד העדה המערבית בירושלים ). Many Jews originated from Arab and Muslim countries today reject Mizrahi (or any) umbrella description, and prefer to identify themselves by their particular country of origin, or that of their immediate ancestors, such as "Moroccan Jew", or prefer to use the old term Sephardi in its broader meaning. Today, many identify non-Ashkenazi rite Jews as Sephardi – in modern Hebrew Sfaradim – mixing ancestral origin and religious rite. This broader definition of "Sephardim" as including all, or most, Mizrahi Jews

12540-492: Was described as having the greatest staying power of any Yiddish publisher. The predecessor to the Hebrew Publishing Company was originally formed in 1883 as Rosenbaum & Werbelowsky, Inc. The current company was founded in 1901 by Joseph Werbelowsky and his son David Werbelowsky. The company also operated a bookstore. The company was founded in the Lower East Side of New York circa 1924. They were located at 50-52 Eldridge Street in 1924, and 632-34 Broadway from 1928. After

12654-524: Was elected as the House Minority Whip , the first Jewish Republican to be selected for the position. In 2011, he became the first Jewish House Majority Leader . He served as Majority Leader until 2014, when he resigned shortly after his loss in the Republican primary election for his House seat. In 2013, Pew found that 70% of American Jews identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party , with just 22% identifying with or leaning toward

12768-529: Was the only Jewish American who was newly elected to the 112th Congress; he had been the Mayor of Providence . The number declined when Jane Harman , Anthony Weiner , and Gabby Giffords resigned during the 112th Congress. As of January 2014 , there were five openly gay men serving in Congress, and two are Jewish: Jared Polis of Colorado and David Cicilline of Rhode Island. In November 2008, Cantor

12882-418: Was the only solution to the persecution and the genocide which were then occurring across Europe. One important development was the sudden conversion of many American Jewish leaders to Zionism late in the war. The Holocaust was largely ignored by American media as it was happening. Reporters and editors largely did not believe the stories of atrocities which were coming out of Europe. The Holocaust had

12996-492: Was well established 'uptown', the more numerous Jews who migrated from Eastern Europe faced tension 'downtown' with Irish and German Catholic neighbors, especially the Irish Catholics who controlled Democratic Party politics at the time . Jews successfully established themselves in the garment trades and in the needle unions in New York. By the 1930s they were a major political factor in New York, with strong support for

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