The Galveston Plan
A.K.A. The Galveston Movement
The Galveston Plan operated between 1907 and 1914 to assist Jews emigrating from Russia and Eastern Europe.
The plan steered them to the Western states, avoiding overpopulated New York and East Coast cities. The Port of Galveston welcomed over 10,000 Jewish emigrants during that time period.
Three people leading the project were Jacob Shiff (the financier and philanthropist), Israel Zangwill (a writer and early Zionist and associate of Theodore Hertzl who then worked with the Jewish Territorial Organization – ITO – to find alternative territory to that of Palestine), and Rabbi Henry Cohen who personally greeted many of the ships and helped distribute them to various western communities.
In 1910, Zangwill explained the importance of this plan, “Every Galveston emigrant therefore will have the mitzvah not only of preventing the closing of our present land of refuge but of opening up new places of refuge to our brethren. Every man who sails to Galveston and settles successfully in the town indicated by our committee is adding to its Jewish population and paving the way for those who will follow him. In this way a home will be ready for our people in case of new historic calamities in the lands of our Goluth… Only a land already half developed like Western America, holds the possibility of receiving and supporting vast numbers of immigrants, and provides by the ever-increasing development of its railway, towns and agriculture, sufficiently profitable opportunities for industry and investment.”
The purpose of the Galveston Plan, in Zangwill’s view, was to establish a home for the Jewish people in the American West.
Information on the cast of characters from Wikipedia.
Above quote from Galveston and Palestine: Immigration and Ideology in the Early Twentieth Century by Gur Alroey (see Articles below).
Articles & Podcasts
- Rabbi Henry Cohen and the Galveston Immigration Movement 1907-1914 by Ronald A. Axelrod
- “A Good Place to Emigrate to Now”: Recruiting Eastern European Jews for the Galveston Movement in 1907; by Joshua J. Furman (note that this is a redacted version. Purchase the full article here.)
- The Galveston Diaspora: A Statistical View of Jewish Immigration Through Texas, 1907-1913 by Bryan Edward Stone
- Out Of the Shtetl. In the footsteps of Eastern European emigranats to America, 1900-1914 by Gur Alroey
- Jewish Migrants En Route from Europe to North America: Traditions and Realities by Lloyd P. Gartner
- The Journey To America By Steam: The Jews of eastern Europe in Transition – Dissertation-by Pamela Susan Nadell
- In Galveston, Texas, a refuge for Jews escaping pogroms — and perhaps a lesson for today’s ‘migrant crisis’ – by Robert Zaretsky (download pdf)
- Galveston and Palestine: Immigration and Ideology in the Early Twentieth Century by Gur Alroey
