American Nativist Reaction to Jewish Immigration in the 1900s

The American nativist reaction to the new waves of Jewish immigration in the early 1900s was not kind to the Jewish immigrants. In 1908 the Dillingham Commission was created which reported about the rising immigration to the United States. The Commission stated that immigration was the cause of rising urban crime, reduced literacy rates, and urban slums that were developing in cities. The Commission wanted tighter immigration policies on literacy tests for immigrants. They drafted up the legislation and both House of Congress passed the legislation. However, President Howard Taft vetoed it as did Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

When the Bolshevik Revolution occurred, the tide of anit-immigration movements picked up steam. An American Communist Party was established in the U.S. which prompted further anger from nativists. In June 1918, the Espionage Act was amended by Congress to include an offensive language against the United States government. An addition 2,000 people were arrested because of the new provisions of this act and most of them were immigrants and most of them were Jews. From 1919 to 1920, anti-communist and soviet policies were established, leading to the arrests of suspected radicals and many of them were Jews as well. American nativists equated Bolsheviks with Jews and while in some cases it was true that Jews were sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause, this stereotype only created further hatred against Jews.

Many books were published during this 1920s period in which authors claimed that the Jews had started the Bolsheviks movement on a quest for world domination which was looked at with hatred by the American public.

One of the most renowned anti-Semitic people in the United States during this time period was the car manufacturer, Henry Ford. Ford helped finance an anti-Semitic booklet called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" which claimed that Jews had a plot for world domination. Ford's private newspaper called the "Dearborn independent" and his published book called "The International Jew" both took quotes and excerpts from the booklet and blamed the Jews for problems that Americans had with the economy. In 1927 a suit was brought forth against Ford for libel and Henry Ford was forced to issue a public apology.

During World War One, immigration to the United States was stopped which severely affected Jewish immigration policies. In 1915 Jewish immigration numbers were only at 26,000 people and by 1916 those numbers had dropped to only 15,000. Once the war was over, huge numbers of immigrants came into the United States including 190,000 Jewish immigrants in 1920. Anti-immigration policies picked up once again and during the Warren G. Harding administration, immigration policies came into full affect. The Johnson Act was passed in which immigration numbers were capped at 350,000 immigrants who could enter the country for the year. The immigration policies led to a significant decrease in Jewish immigrants. In 1920, 190,000 Jews entered the country; in 1921, 43,000 Jews entered, and only 7,000 in 1926.

The 1900s also saw discrimination against Jews pick up tremendously in the United States. Lodges, hotels, social clubs and various other places denied entry to Jews. Ivy League schools decreased the percentage of Jewish students that they would take in. Medical schools decreased their quotas for Jewish students as well. Jewish students who were lucky to get into graduate schools found them having a tough time getting employment once out of school.

In the late 19^th century, Jews were trying to devise a policy to bridge the gap between the Orthodox and Reform movement. In the late 1800s, the Jewish Theological Seminary was born in which the movement was made up of American Reform rabbis who wanted to increase their Jewish practices yet still accommodate their secular lifestyle. The result of this seminar was the Conservative Movement, started and founded by Solomon Schechter who was a European Jewish scholar. Around 1865 he traveled around Europe and brought up in a Hasidic family, Schechter wanted to pursue his Jewish upbringing yet maintain western culture. He enrolled at Oxford University and Berlin University. In 1890 he became a professor of Judaic studies at Cambridge University. In 1901, the Jewish Theological Seminar movement invited Solomon Schechter to be their director and speaker of the movement. By 1910, Schechter had established a council of 12 rabbis and had faculty surrounding him.

Schechter's principles revolved around having flexibility within the Jewish religion that was not as rigid a lifestyle as the Orthodox yet having more religion in a person's life than that of Reform. Jewish tradition under Conservative would keep rituals and traditions and the idea of the Jewish people as a nation. In 1913 he set up the United Synagogue of America which branched out the Conservative movement across the country.