ABSTRACT
Before the 1870s, the American Jewish community was composed largely of first and second generation German Jews who had come to these shores between 1820 and 1870, with the remainder—some of Sephardic origin—descendants of the original Spanish and Portuguese settlers of the colonial period. The transition from a foreign-born, immigrant group to an Americanized second and third generation community has important consequences for the structure of the Jewish community, and for the ways in which American Jews live. For the first time in the history of the American Jewish community, a third generation Jewish population is facing the American scene without large-scale outside reinforcement. It is this fact that sets up the framework for an understanding of the phenomenon of our Jewish poor, and the invisible character of Jewish poverty. In American society, the problems associated with an aged population are serious.
