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Search terms for online catalog e.g. "United States -- Emigration and immigration -- 19th century" OR "Jews -- Germany -- Migrations" OR "Immigrants -- United States"
The Emigration of German Jews to America in the 19th Century / by Ursula Gehring-Münzel. New York: LBI, 2000, 20 p. [Digitized]
Branching out: German-Jewish immigration to the United States, 1820-1914 / by Avraham Barkai. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1994.
Roads taken: the great Jewish migrations to the New World and the peddlers who forged the way / by Hasia Diner. New York: Yale University Press, 2015.
Between Borders: the great Jewish migration from Eastern Europe / by Tobias Brinkmann. New York: OUP, 2024.
"Our Crowd": the great Jewish families of New York / by Stephen Birmingham. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
Samuel Hirsch: Rabbiner, Religionsphilosoph, Reformer / by Elmar P. Ittenbach. Berlin, 2014. [Samuel Hirsch emigrated in 1866 and became Rabbi of Keneseth Israel, Philadephia, PA.]
Max Lilienthal: the making of the American Rabbinate / by Bruce Ruben. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.
Searching for the Mandls / by June Friedman Entman. St. Augustine, Florida, 2022.A descendant researches how and why a large Central European family migrated around the world over the course of a hundred years beginning in the mid-1800's.
Morgenthau: power, privilege, and the rise of an American Dynasty / by Andrew Meier. New York: Random House, 2022.
Jakob H. Schiff: von der Frankfurter Judengasse zur Wallstreet / by Paul Arnsberg. Frankfurt am Main: Kramer, 1969.
THE OCCIDENT AND AMERICAN JEWISH ADVOCATE: Philadelphia, PA,1843 to 1869. [Online at Jewish Historical Press, NLI]
The Occident and American Jewish Advocate was the first successful Jewish periodical in the United States. it was published by German born Rabbi Isaac Leeser (1806, Westphalia-1868, Philadelphia). The journal gained international recognition and serves as a major window onto the cultural world, religious sensibilities, reading practices and social habits of mid-nineteenth century English speaking Jews, both in North America and beyond.
THE ISRAELITE: Cincinnati, Ohio,1854 to 1871. [Online at Jewish Historical Press, NLI]
THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE: Cincinnati, Ohio,1874FF. [Available on-site at the Center for Jewish History via Proquest Historical Newspapers.]
German-born Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819, Bohemia-1900, Cincinnati) founded The Israelite in 1854, renamed The American Israelite, in 1874. It is the longest-running English-language Jewish newspaper in the U.S. Published weekly in Cincinnati, it aimed to promote Reform Judaism and connect American Jews, especially those in small communities, with Jewish affairs and identity. It's motto:" יהי אורLet There Be Light". The journal quickly gained a wide circulation, helping spread Reform Judaism across North America. Wise’s influence reached beyond Cincinnati, particularly in the growing Jewish communities of the Midwest and South.
DIE DEBORAH: Cincinnati, Ohio,1855 to 1902. [Complete Set Online at Jewish Historical Press, NLI]
DIE DEBORAH: Cincinnati, Ohio,1855 to 1902. [Incomplete Set Online at LBI Library, B 63, volumes 1886 to 1902 only.]
Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900) introduced Die Deborah in 1855 as a German-supplement to his weekly newspaper The Israelite. It was the first Jewish periodical in America devoted to women. Die Deborah was published for 47 years and ceased in 1902, two years after Wise's death. "While ostensibly directed at women, the journal also served the larger needs of 19th-century America's German-speaking Jewry, promoting a program of German identity, bourgeois culture and Jewish Reform." "Die Deborah" published news from the Jewish world, articles on Jewish culture and history, and serialized fiction. The German text appealed to many American Jews who had recently emigrated from central Europe. "Die Deborah" began to decline in importance as more Jews spoke and read English.(Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica).
SINAI: ein Organ fuer Erkenntnis und Veredlung des Judenthums. Baltimore, Philadelphia, PA, 1856 to 1863. [LBI Library, B B353, onsite access via Microfilm only]
From 1856 to 1863, German born Rabbi David Einhorn (1809, Bavaria - 1879, New York), edited and published Sinai, a German-language magazine advocating for radical Reform Judaism. The publication also served as a platform for his anti-slavery views. While opposing interfaith marriage, which he saw as a threat to Jewish continuity, Einhorn rejected traditional practices like wearing phylacteries, observing strict Shabbat prohibitions, and following kosher laws. He believed only the morally-based portions of the Torah should be retained. .
Compilation: Renate Evers, May 9, 2025
Useful search term for locating related archival materials in the CJH online catalog: e.g. "United States 19th century"
Ida Lorie Cahn, “Memoirs, 1843-1913.” (Pasadena, CA., 1913), 16 pages. LBI Archives, Memoir Collection, ME 77. [Digitized]
Cahn was born in Frankfurt in 1837. In 1859 she emigrated to New York to join her sister. She died in 1923. The memoir describes revolutionary events of 1848 in Frankfurt, the career of her brother Viktor as a painter and her emigration to the USA.
Isaac Bernstein, Aufzeichnungen.” (Berlin, 1870?), 15 pages. LBI Archives, Memoir Collection, ME 56. [Digitized]
Bernstein was born in Schildberg (Posen) in 1824. Son of a poor family, he left his parents' home at the age of 13 and studied Talmud at Ostrowo. He became a corn merchant and lost all his money in 1848. He emigrated to the USA, but returned to Germany in 1859..
The Schweitzer-Guggenheimer Letter Collection. LBI Archives, AR 25837. [Digitized]
125 letters written from 1859 to 1898, in German, English, and Judeo-German, mainly between Isaac Schweitzer and his family in Germany. Isaac Schweitzer (1845–1901), was born in in the village of Mühringen (today Baden Wuerttemberg, Germany). In 1866, he emigrated to the US, where he joined three of his uncles. He first settled in Virginia, where he eventually established a dry goods business. He married Isabella Guggenheimer (1856–1911) in 1875. She was born in Virginia to German-Jewish immigrants. The couple set up a new business in Baltimore, and later moved to back to Frankenthal, where Isaac founded Schweitzer & Wertheimer. The couple had ten children and lived in the German Kaiser Reich for the rest of their lives. Also included in this collection is the family’s story, written by their descendant, Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer; and the original letters’ transliterated texts with English translations.
The Schweitzer-Guggenheimer Letter Collection became part of the online project German Heritage in Letters. The family story is also featured in LBI's online exhibition The Business of Emancipation and on the local website Juden in Frankenthal.
Lazarus Morgenthau, “Lebensgeschichte von Lazarus Morgenthau aus Hürben bei Krumbach von ihm selbst geschrieben. 20 pages : bound notebook; handwritten. Speyer, den 30ten November 1842. LBI Archives, Memoir Collection, ME 1682. [Digitized]
In 1842, Lazarus Morgenthau wrote his memoirs in a mix of High German and Bavarian dialect shortly before marrying Babette Guggenheim. He described a childhood of extreme poverty, an apprenticeship as a tailor in Hürben, and his later success as a cravat maker in Speyer. After his brother Max struck gold in California in 1850 and invested in Lazarus’s German cigar business, it thrived—until high U.S. tariffs forced Lazarus to emigrate to New York in 1866. Though he died in poverty, his descendants rose to prominence: son Henry Morgenthau Sr. was U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide; grandson Henry Morgenthau Jr. served as Treasury Secretary under FDR; and great-grandson Robert Morgenthau was Manhattan District Attorney.
Part of
Morgenthau Family Collection. LBI Archives, AR 4980. 3 folders: family trees and documents. [Digitized]
See also
The diary of Lazarus Morgenthau ed. by his granddaughter Louise Heidelberg. New York, 1933. 122 pages : photocopy of privately published booklet. LBI Archives, DM 213. [Digitized]
Die Lebensgeschichte des Lazarus Morgenthau in zwei Abschnitten, 1815-1897. Krumbach: Heimatverein, 2015. LBI Library, st 12342.
Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty / by Andrew Meier. New York: Random House, 2022. LBI Library, st 15206.
Compilation: Renate Evers, May 9, 2025
Migration und Transnationalität / by Tobias Brinkmann. Paderborn : Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012.
The business of transatlantic migration between Europe and the United States, 1900-1914 / by Drew Keeling., 2012.
Transplanted and transformed: German-Jewish immigrants since 1933 / by Herbert A. Strauss. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
Once a doctor, always a doctor; the memoirs of a German- Jewish immigrant physician / by Heinz Hartmann. Buffalo, N. Y: Prometheus Books, 1986.
Seeking refuge: German Jewish immigration to the Cape in the 1930s, including aspects of Germany confronting its past / designed and compiled by Linda Coetzee, Myra Osrin, Millie Pimstone., 2003.
Transcripts of interviews with 253 German Jewish refugees, who had settled in principal metropolitan areas of the United States during the main period of immigration, 1937-1941. Transcripts, abstracts, and administration records are available online and on microfilm. Digitized interviews are accessible within the record.
Herbert Strauss founded the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration in 1971 in order to study and record the history of the migration and acculturation of Jews in the countries where they settled after fleeing World War II. The Foundation’s Oral History Collection, started in 1971, includes over 250 interviews with German and Austrian Jewish immigrants to the United States. In 1983, the Foundation began interviewing the “second generation,” the children of these immigrants. Some of the second generation interviewees were the children of people interviewed in 1971 for the original oral history project.
Earl G. Harrison Collection (AR 184) [Digitized]
Annual report of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service for the year 1943, accompanied by a report on alien registration and Harrison's speech on immigration and refugee relief efforts.
Upon their immigration to the United States, Julius and Margot Kocherthaler changed their names to Jules and Margot Cortell. Before settling in the United States, they had fled the Nazi dictatorship for Paris. Telegrams and correspondence between France and USA in connection with emigration to the USA from France (1940-1942), including letters from the US Department of State, IRS, HIAS.
Leo Abraham Collection (AR 25425) [Digitized]
The Leo Abraham Collection documents the immigration of Leo Abraham to the United States on the eve of World War II. The collection contains mostly personal papers and correspondence to his family in the time when he attempted to get clearance for their immigration. After 1945, most of the papers in the collection are related to restitution for his loss of property.
Robert Lowy Family Collection (AR 25401) [Digitized]
The Robert Lowy Family Collection details the immigration of the Lowy family to the United States via Belgium. It also features the restitution of the family for its losses and the education of Robert (Ralph) Lowy. Many family members are remembered through the collection's numerous photographs. Aside from photographs and photo albums, the collection includes much correspondence, official documentation, notes and notebooks and some educational certificates of Robert Lowy.
Werner and Gisella Cahnman Collection (AR 25210) [Digitized]
This collection contains material pertaining to the sociologist Werner Cahnman and his wife, the biophysicist Gisella Levi Cahnman. It primarily documents the early years and immigration of Werner Cahnman, as well as his and his wife's careers in the United States. It also illustrates the immigration of family members.