Olympics United States of America (U.S.A.) Song : Carry the Flame Juliana Meyer - former South African

The United States of America is commonly called the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States The country is situated mostly in central North America. The U.S.A has 50 states making up the United States 48 of the states lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is a cluster of islands in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.

The first Jew to set foot on American soil was Joachim Gans in By 1776 and the War of Independence, around 2,000 Jews lived in America, most of them Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin. Until the 1830s the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina was the most numerous in North America. With the large scale immigration of Jews from Germany in the 19th century, they established themselves in many small towns and cities. A much larger immigration of Eastern European Jews, 1880–1914, brought a large, poor, traditional element to New York City. Refugees arrived from Europe after World War II, and many arrived from the Soviet Union after Jews in the United States began to organize their communities in the early 19th century. Early examples include a Jewish orphanage set up in Charleston, South Carolina in 1801, and the first Jewish school, Polonies Talmud Torah, established in New York in In 1843, the first national secular Jewish organization in the United States, the B'nai B'rith was established.

In New York City, Shearith Israel Congregation is the oldest continuous congregation started in 1687 having their first synagogue erected in 1728, and its current building still houses some of the original pieces of that first building. In the 1940s Jews comprised 3.7% of the national population. Today the population is about 5 million—under 2% of the national total—and shrinking because of small family sizes and intermarriage. The largest population areas are New York (2.1 million in 2000), Los Angeles (668,000), Miami (331,000), Philadelphia (285,000), Chicago (265,000) and Boston (254,000).

Jews have had an enormous influence in Hollywood. By the 1930s Jews dominated the film industry as almost all of the major production companies were owned and operated by eastern European Jews. These companies include – Columbia (Jack and Harry Cohn), – Goldwyn (Samuel Goldwyn—born Samuel Goldfish, 1882), – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Louis B. Mayer and Marcus Loew), – Paramount (Jesse Lasky, Adolph Zukor, and Barney Balaban), – Twentieth Century-Fox (Sol Brill and William Fox), – United Artists (Al Lichtman), – Universal (Carl Laemmle), and – Warner Brothers (Sam, Jack, Albert, and Harry Warner).

Many of the Jewish folk songs are based on the original Yiddish. The Sephardi community has many tunes originating from Spain and Portuguese The Ashkenazi community have a range of songs (mostly Yiddish) originating from Eastern Europe.

Crown HeightsNew Jersey Eldridge Street – New York Origional B’Nai Israel Temple Galveston - Texas Temple Beth Jacob Galveston - Texas Touro – Rhode Island