Immigration: 2. Jewish

Prejudice Passed On

As Irish and Italian immigrants became more accepted in America, they feared the next groups of immigrants; the Jewish and the Chinese. 

Jewish Life in Russia - A Different Mirror- page 263

Many people in America were prejudiced against Jewish people. Their religion was different to the Christianity of the Catholics and Protestants. They dressed differently and spoke differently. Some believed Jewish people were secretly trying to take over the USA and spread harmful ideas such as communism. 

Henry Ford

Henry Ford's father was born in Ireland. However, he wrote of "The International Jew: the Foremost Problem" and believed that the Jews wanted to take over the world. 

https://youtu.be/FXBGK3OQIi8?si=NfZ4eiU9O96PNooK

Father Couglin 

Father Couglin was a Catholic priest who became hugely popular on American radio when radio was first invented.

Both of Father Couglin's parents had Immigrated from Ireland and faced discrimination. However, now their son raised fear of the Jewish immigrants now coming into the country. 

https://youtu.be/lvtKolUaMO4?si=StWOtWOWMD5cutGr

The St Louis

Gallup's first questions about refugees were asked in January 1939, just a couple of months after the Nov. 9-10 events, which came to be known as Kristallnacht, when Nazi party officials, Hitler Youth and other Germans carried out waves of violence against Jewish synagogues, businesses and Jewish residents in their homes. The events accelerated the attempts of European Jews to flee Germany and proximate countries and to emigrate to nations such as the U.S. 

Yet, even though nearly all Americans condemned the Nazi regime's terror against Jews in November 1938, that very same week, 72% of Americans said "No" when Gallup asked: "Should we allow a larger number of Jewish exiles from Germany to come to the United States to live?" Just 21% said "Yes."

Was the persecution of Jews in Europe “their own fault”? Some 65% of Americans said the Jews were partly or entirely to blame. (April 1938) In the wake of the Nazis’ horrific Kristallnacht pogrom, should America admit more German Jews? 94% disapproved of the pogrom, but 72% were against admitting refugees. (November 1938) Should the US admit 10,000 children from Germany? 67% said no. (January 1939)

The US (and other countries in the Western Hemisphere) could have saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis. They didn't. At one point, the US literally turned away a ship of 900 German Jews. Shortly afterward, it rejected a proposal to allow 20,000 Jewish children to come to the US for safety.

At the time, the US didn't know how terrible the Holocaust would become. But Americans did know that Nazis were encouraging vandalism and violence against Jews — many Americans had been alarmed by Kristallnacht in 1938, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt had issued a statement condemning it. But America didn't feel strongly enough about the mistreatment of Jews to allow them to find a safe harbor in the US.

On May 13, 1939, 935 people — almost all of them German Jews — set sail from Hamburg, Germany on a ship called the St. Louis. The St. Louis was headed for Cuba, but for most of the Jews aboard, the ultimate destination was the United States. The US could have agreed to allow the passengers of the St. Louis to land and wait in America for their visas to be processed.

After a few days of the St. Louis sailing in circles off the coast of Miami, the negotiations with the Cuban government fell apart for good. The ship started back across the Atlantic Ocean, and the refugees were divided up and sent to various European countries. The luckiest St. Louis passengers were sent to Great Britain; all but one of them survived the war there. The rest went to the Netherlands, Belgium and France — all countries that would later be invaded by the Nazis and their Jews sent to the camps.

254 of the passengers on the St. Louis died in the Holocaust.

Greenhorns 

Page 280 & 281 = Multicultural America

Page 282 = names

"Pro America Rally" at Madison Square Garden

https://youtu.be/NC1MNGFHR58?si=Z8Bsms0P36jSl6DM

https://youtu.be/r4zRZ7XLYSA?si=5doCJmp0_hAAsrfl

Fivel Goes West 

With America joining the war in 1941, those praising Hitler and the Nazis became seen as unpatriotic and supporting the enemy.