American Jewish Archives Journal, Vol 44, No. 01 (1992)

270 American Jewish Archives
ing each of the all-too-frequent mobilizations. An additional impetus
toward emigration came from the dislocations and economic hard-
ships suffered by the Jewish communities during the 1911 Turkish-
Italian war, the Turkish-Balkan wars of 1912-1914, the outbreak of
World War I, and a series of natural disasters such as fires, earth-
quakes, and epidemics which had been plaguing the crumbling
Ottoman Empire.4
Arrival and Adaptation
Some 3,413 Sephardi immigrants from the European and Asian parts
of the Ottoman Empire arrived in the United States between 1885 and
1908. After 1908 Sephardi immigrants began to arrive in ever larger
numbers, settling in the already overpopulated Lower East Side of
New York, a factor which caused concern both to city officials and to
the Commission of Immigration. In response to this concern, the Jew-
ish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society, operating on funds sup-
plied by Baron de Hirsch, organized the Industrial Removal Office
(IRO) for the purpose of relocating immigrants to less-congested
parts of the country. With the assistance of the Federation of Oriental
Jews of America, many Sephardim were settled in Seattle, Rochester,
New Jersey, Indianapolis, Gary, Montgomery, and Atlanta, while
Judeo-Spanish immigrants were encouraged to reemigrate to Central
and South America. The majority of the immigrants, however,
remained in New York City.5
A study by the American Civic League in 1912 showed that most
of the immigrants were poor and had only a minimal formal educa-
tion, but that their literacy level compared favorably with that of
other ethnic groups. Thus, two-fifths of the Sephardim could read
and write their own language, and another fifth could read but not
write. Ninety percent of the literate group could read the Hebrew
prayerbook. This sorry state of affairs for the descendants of the high-
ly cultured Sephardim of the Golden Age must, of course, be viewed
in the light of the poverty and ignorance of the masses among whom
the majority of the Sephardim lived in the old co~ntry.~
It is a well-established fact that immigrants to a new country start
out by drawing together into groups from the same cities and town-