Between 1880 and 1924, about two million Jews left the Russian Empire and its poverty and persecution in favor of immigrating to the United States. They arrived matching the description in Emma Lazarus' poem on the Statue of Liberty: they were tired, poor, huddled masses, who did, indeed, yearn to breathe free. Few, if any, spoke English. Almost none were accustomed to electricity or running water inside homes. Most had never even seen a "modern" city until well into their several-thousand-mile sojourn from their hometowns.
Yet, despite lacking work experience to garner a living wage, they settled in and did as Jews have always done: they made do. Unfettered by the oppression and tyranny they'd experienced in the Old World, they took advantage of the freedoms given to every person in the New. Within a generation, though Yiddish could still be heard in many of their homes, the typical Jew had become an assimilated American, striving for and even reaching the American Dream.
This is their tale, as told through the lens of Taylor Shiroff's ancestors. By introducing us to the people in his family, he puts a face on the Eastern European Jewish immigrant. By exploring where they came from, why they left, and how they assimilated into the United States, he tells the story of what it takes to become American.