The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States)

by Richard White

Some of the new Jewish immigrants arriving in the United States were Sephardim from the Mediterranean, but most were Ashkenazi from Eastern Europe, and their arrival distressed some Orthodox Eastern European rabbis as much as it did native-born Americans. In the words of one, the United States (which to many immigrants was the medinah or golden land) was a “trefa [food forbidden by the dietary laws] land where even the stones are impure.” As the rabbis feared, many immigrants came from those already slipping the bonds of piety, and the United States would tempt others to do so. There were immigrants who spent their days in a cycle of prayer and study, but they became a minority in American cities.