Above, a boy stands before the oldest surviving synagogue building in New York City, located at 172 Norfolk Street. What was then a neighborhood fixture brimming with debates about Jewish identity and rite has, like many other Lower East Side synagogues, since faced…
In January 1904, Henry Jonas of Butte, Montana, wrote to the Industrial Removal Office (IRO) in New York, asking for their help sending a man named A. Pickholz from New York in order to work in Butte’s booming copper mines,…
Today, many think of summer camp as a uniquely Jewish phenomenon. In reality, Jewish educational camps developed as a branch of American organized camping. At the turn of the 20th century, camping was a major tenet of American Progressivism and the Fresh Air Movement, which sought to provide relief for poor immigrants in overcrowded cities during the…
The Jewish population in the U.S. currently makes up just under 2.5% of the total population, with an even lower percentage keeping kosher. Yet, over 40% of the packaged food produced in the U.S. is labeled as kosher, and American food production…
