About This Webinar
The earliest permanent Jewish settlers in North America arrived in 1654, seeking an escape from persecution, greater political autonomy and economic opportunity, and the promise of religious liberty. Since then, millions of Jews have migrated to these shores and–while wildly diverse in background–they have all shared this same desire for freedom, an ideal central to both America’s promise and its contradictions. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in particular, over two million Jewish men, women, and children fled violence and oppression to join a massive wave of global immigration to the United States. That movement was sharply limited by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which restricted Jewish immigration (as well as immigration from Central and Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia) until reforms in 1965 reopened doors to Jews from the Soviet Union, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and beyond.
In this lesson from our pathbreaking and free-to-use “Stories That Shaped a Nation” curriculum, students explore waves of Jewish immigration to the United States, from the seventeenth century to the very recent past. They examine the push and pull factors that have motivated global migration, as well as the political, cultural, and social forces that have shifted the United States’ openness to immigration over time; and come to consider not only why so many people have left their homes to seek a better life in America, but also their own families’ ties to immigrant histories and communities.
This lesson, which deepens students’ understanding of American history and civics, also engages them in a wide variety of inquiry-based, interactive activities. They analyze primary sources, including poems, political cartoons, and oral testimonies produced by newly-arrived immigrants as well as their political opponents, and write their own “Beginner’s Guide to America,” inspired by an Iranian Jewish immigrant’s version of the same.
Want more sessions to choose from? Check out all of the free, for-credit webinars in Share My Lesson's Summer of Learning 2026 series.
