9781422280171

Newly arrived immigrants pose for a photograph around 1910.

intolerable. The view that Jews were “Christ-killers” licensed their persecution throughout much of European history. They were herded into ghettoes and were then distrusted as a race apart. In reality, their only crime was to have fallen afoul of people’s perennial fear and suspicion of what they do not understand—and this made Jews an easy scapegoat when things went wrong. America may have offered a lifeline to all these immigrant groups, but the benefits have by no means been only on one side. The newcomers brought with them the skills (as craftspeople, farmers, artists, inventors, and so on) that they had acquired in their distant homelands. They also brought with them the immeasurable gift of energy. Their drive and enthusiasm gave enor- mous impetus to a fast-growing U.S. economy, an impetus that—thanks to successive waves of immigration—was ceaselessly renewed.

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