Jewish Immigration: History, Politics, and Policy

As Professor Libby Garland, author of After They Closed the Gates: Jewish Illegal Immigration to the United States, 1921-1965 describes, after the introduction of restrictive immigration policy in the early 1920s, thousands of Jewish immigrants still risked everything to come to the United States with the help of smugglers or forged documents. Although in historical memory these migrants have largely avoided the stigma attached to other “illegal” immigrants under various policy regimes, they shared some of the same motives, risks, and methods for crossing the border.

LBI’s current exhibition, Crossing the Ocean: Three Waves of German-Jewish Immigration to the United States shows that the restrictive immigration system they circumvented was the same one that presented daunting hurdles for so many Jews seeking refuge from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

In this lecture-conversation, Professor Garland will present her research and engage in a conversation with Dr. Michael Levi, drawing connections between her work, Dr. Levi’s own family history of migration to the United States, and larger questions of immigration history, policy, and politics.

Afterward, please join us for a reception in honor of the inauguration of the Levi-Thalheimer Fund for Research and Public History and a chance to view Crossing The Ocean before it closes on October 14.

About the panelists:

Professor Libby Garland is the author of After They Closed the Gates: Jewish Illegal Immigration to the United States, 1921-1965 (University of Chicago Press, 2014), winner of both the American Jewish Historical Society’s Saul Viener Book Prize and the American Historical Association’s Dorothy Rosenberg Prize in 2015. She is a Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center and Kingsborough Community College.

Dr. Michael Levi was the Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Montefiore Medical Center until his retirement. The LBI Archives hold papers documenting his paternal family history as cattle dealers in Ellwangen, Baden-Württemberg, and especially his father Eric Levi’s emigration and service in the US Army during WWII, as well as his mother Inge Thalheimer’s family’s long history as clothing manufacturers in Bensheim, Hessen.

(This event will be held in person at the Center for Jewish History. The event will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube.)