Tells the Jewish immigration experience in America. While it is generally taken for granted that the Jews assimilated easily into the American mainstream, countless never did. This book draws on moving first-hand accounts, including his own family, history, as well as rare documentary evidence to recover the rich life of these immigrants. It was the informal organizations of fellow villagers that provided the newly arrived immigrants with economic help, advice, and a spiritual haven in a frightening new world. Described is the pain and heartache, mixed with a sense of accomplishment of these immigrants as their children climbed the ladder of American success and in the process left the world of their parents behind forever. It also described the heroic efforts of these organizations to rescue East European Jewry from the pogroms and devastation that followed WWI and from the Holocaust and its aftermath. -- Publisher description