Bridging Three Worlds

"Between 1848 and 1914, approximately 100,000 Jews emigrated from Hungary to the United States. They came in two waves. The first group, catalyzed by the 1848 revolutions against the Austrian monarchy, consisted mainly of political dissidents and well-educated cosmopolitan, middle-class Jews seeking greater personal, religious and political freedoms in the New World. The second and much larger group, which began to arrive around 1880, consisted primarily of unskilled laborers and lower middle-class artisans and tradespeople, beckoned to America by the promise of vast economic opportunity".