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Anti-Semitism and persecution have existed for Jews throughout their history, and in all of the countries in which they have settled. In the 1400s, Jews in Spain were persecuted and banished; many took refuge in the United States and the Ottoman Empire. Though Jews have been in America since before colonial times (some Jews made the passage with Christopher Columbus), it was during the early 1800s that European Jews began coming to America in waves, primarily to escape economic troubles and anti-Semitism in their homelands. Many came from Germany and settled in towns and cities, or became itinerant peddlers. The next wave came from Russia. A series of pogroms (persecutions) in 1881 and the passing of the May Laws of 1882 which restricted the rights of Russian Jews sent another group of immigrants to American shores. Russian Jews came to the United States in droves until Congress restricted immigration in 1924. By 1920, the...