By Christian Rodriguez

In 1880, 6 million of 7.7 million Jews lived in Europe with 3% living in the U.S. 73% of Jews between 1880 and 1920 came from the Russian Empire. Jews were forbidden to own land and jobs were scarce. Jewish community councils were forced to increase taxes on their own people. This caused the Jews to migrate to the U.S. When they migrated, they started off as peddlers, selling small goods for cheap prices.

The overcrowded, poorly lit and ventilated tenements of the Lower East Side were once home to hundreds of thousands of recent Jewish immigrants. The Jewish families usually lived in the dumbbell style tenements in the mid 1800s, tenement buildings were hurriedly and inexpensively built in the Lower East Side to quickly accommodate hoards of new immigrants.

Fear of contagious diseases assisted nativists in the United States in their efforts to restrict foreign immigration. The 1890s was a decade of massive immigration from eastern Europe. When 200 cases of typhus appeared among Russian Jewish immigrants who had arrived in New York on French steamship in 1892, public health authorities acted swiftly. They detained the 1,200 Russian Jewish immigrants who had arrived on the ship and placed them in quarantine to keep the epidemic from spreading. The chairman of the U.S. Senate committee on Immigration subsequently proposed legislation severely restricting immigration, including the imposition of a literacy requirement.

When Jews migrated to the U.S, there was an effort to negotiate their place without sacrificing their Jewish identity Many went to English classes at night, adopting American dress and customs. Ultimately, they were learning to fit in, to think like an American and be American.

It was a flood of gang members and criminals of all types, and was particularly known as the home turf of flamboyant gangs of Irish immigrants.

Suffering from persecution. Living conditions were horrible Dictatorship Famine Living poor Opportunity Assimilation Movements Jobs

Jews continue to advance in every field. Bankers, scholars, judges, artists, and writers continued rising to prominence and making their impact on American life.