urope. These were the Jews of the Pale, Russian and Slavic, far less educated and having far more needs and far more likely to be entering America from a culture of pogroms than their middle class, Central Europe counterparts. The Russian Jews were essentially refugees; many who fled with America in mind did not survive the hazardous journeys across European borders. This did not prevent the numbers from growing by the thousands, aided by improvements in ocean-travel capabilities, though many immigrants traveled in steerage. Established Jewish service and philanthropic communities in Europe and America began to facilitate and organize immigrant assistance (366-7).
Organized opposition to Jewish (and other) immigration to the U.S. came from several American quarters. Though immigrant Jews were to find a significant position in American trade union activism, unions intent on protecting the jobs of their membership from encroachment by "cheap immigrant labor" (369-70), particularly in the wake of World War I. In the 1920s, legislation forma
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