Click Here To Read: The U.S. Capitol raid exposes the myth and pathology of American exceptionalism by Ronald W. Pruessen on the Conversation website on January 7, 2021 rump Supporters at Union Station Columbus Circle along 1st Street at Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Washington DC on Wednesday morning, 6 January 2021 Image: Elvert Barnes Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
1. The first Jews to set foot in North America arrived in New York as a group of 23 in 1654.
2. Congregation Shearith Israel, founded in New York in 1654, was the first synagogue in the colonies. It was the sole purveyor of kosher eat until 1813.
3. By the late 19th century, there were over 5,000 kosher butchers and 1,000 slaughterers in New York.
4. In 1902, the Beef Trust raised the price of kosher meat on the Lower East Side from 12 to 18 cents per pound. After butchers’ boycotts proved ineffectual, 20,000 Lower East Side women stole meat from kosher butcher shops and set it on fire on the streets
in protest. The Forward supported their efforts, running the headline “Bravo, Bravo, Bravo, Jewish women!” Continue reading Jews in North America
Click Here to Read: Hijacking History: Fifty years ago today in Leningrad, a small group of Soviet Jews was tried for attempting a daring escape to Israel. Eerily, their story is relevant again—this time, for American Jews by Izabella Tabarovsky on the Tablet website on December 24, 2020.
Jewish Emgiration from the USSR, before and after the First Leningrad Trial. Image: Azk0702 Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
