Workmen's Circle

oward the end of the nineteenth century, Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States reached explosive proportions. Having endured the hardships of a sometimes harrowing journey across the Atlantic, many among the newly arrived were dumbfounded by what greeted them in America: a land of freedom and opportunity to be sure, but one too of exploitative labor practices, blighted and overcrowded tenements, ethnic rivalries, and the daunting job of assimilating into an unfamiliar new culture. Recognizing the importance of facing these challenges with a unified front, and feeling the resonance of traditional and deeply-held Jewish values emphasizing community and social justice, convocation of progressive-minded immigrants gathered in 1900 to found Der Arbeter Ring or, in English, the Workmen's Circle.