Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939

How did the vast number of Jewish immigrants from different regions of Eastern Europe form their American ethnic identity? To answer this question this book examines how Jewish immigrant hometown associations transformed old-world communal ties into vehicles for integration into American society. Focusing on New York this study explores the organizations' full range of activities, and aims to show how the newcomers exercised a high degree of agency in their growing identification with American society. The book suggests that many immigrants cultivated their own identification with American society to a far greater extent than is usually recognized.

Review :
Soyer brings to his task not only fluency in Yiddish but also finely honed skills as a historian. It may well be the best work on the American Jewish immigrant experience since M. Rischin's pioneering treatment of Jewish New York, "The Promised City"...This book richly deserves the prizes it has won and should be of great interest to all scholars of modern Jewry, religious transitions in modernity, and the problem of immigration. -- Michael Berkowitz "Religious Studies Review" "Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York" challenges accepted interpretations of historical dynamics of acculturation. By recasting immigrant small town associations as major players on the Lower East Side certainly equal to the radical intellectuals and union organizers who dominate Howe's account--and by giving their members speaking parts in the drama of becoming American, the book convinces us of the extent to which Jewish immigrants authored their own lives. Writing from the bottom up, Soyer provokes us to rethink the dimensions of the immigrant experience and its construction. His deep familiarity with both American and Jewish culture, his sensitivity to the nuances of organizational expression and his vision of the complex processes of social change that create ethnic identity make the book compelling reading...[T]his is social history at its best. -- Deborah Dash Moore "Journal of Jewish Studies" In a carefully researched and highly readable account, Soyer presents a detailed discussion of Jewish "landsmanshaftn" (hometown associations) from their origins in East European Jewish communities to their development and transformation in New York City during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Soyer's examination of New York's "landsmanshaftn" demonstrates convincingly that the maintenance of these distinct ethnic associations not only coexisted with but actually facilitated immigrant acculturation. -- Beth S. Wenger "American Historical Review" Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York challenges accepted interpretations of historical dynamics of acculturation. By recasting immigrant small town associations as major players on the Lower East Side certainly equal to the radical intellectuals and union organizers who dominate Howe's account--and by giving their members speaking parts in the drama of becoming American, the book convinces us of the extent to which Jewish immigrants authored their own lives. Writing from the bottom up, Soyer provokes us to rethink the dimensions of the immigrant experience and its construction. His deep familiarity with both American and Jewish culture, his sensitivity to the nuances of organizational expression and his vision of the complex processes of social change that create ethnic identity make the book compelling reading...[T]his is social history at its best. convincingly that the maintenance of these distinct ethnic associations not only coexisted with but actually facilitated immigrant acculturation.