1940's Government and Politics | America's Response to the Holocaust

The Jews in America.

Jews were among the first European settlers in America and have played a role in the development of the United States since colonial times. Anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews based partly upon long-standing myths about their role in Christ's crucifixion, accompanied their arrival in America. Serious incidents of discrimination against them, however, did not erupt until the great wave of Jewish immigration from Russia and Eastern Europe began around the turn of the twentieth century. In the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan began to direct its venom at Jews as well as blacks and Catholics. The Immigration Act of 1924, by locking in immigration quotas from 1890, intentionally limited the number of Jews allowed into the United States. By the 1930s Hitler's terror campaign against the Jews of Germany was underway and well known. As huge numbers of Jewish refugees sought entry into the United States, American anti-Semitism...