The Golden Land: The Story of Jewish Immigration to America: An Interactive History With Removable Documents and Artifacts

by Joseph Telushkin

The Golden Land is a museum-in-a-book that devotes a double-page spread--complete with removable letters, documents, and personal effects--to each of the successive waves of Jewish immigration to America, from the Germans and Eastern Europeans in the 19th and early 20th centuries to the refugees from the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s to the Soviet Jews in the 1970s and '80s.America was the first nation where Jews were regarded as citizens from the very beginning, and The Golden Land reveals how they converted opportunity to success in fields from commerce, medicine, and science to movies, music, and literature.

The book includes facsimiles of George Washington’s letter to a community of Jews in Rhode Island, Emma Lazarus’s poem that was later inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, Irving Berlin’s handwritten lyrics for “God Bless America,” a quiz challenging readers to guess the original names of American-Jewish show-business celebrities, and plenty of other materials to give readers a real feel for how America changed the Jews and how the Jews changed America.

Genres: History, Judaism, Jewish, American History

32 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2002

About the author

Joseph Telushkin (born 1948) is an American rabbi, lecturer, and best selling author. His more than 15 books include several volumes about Jewish ethics, Jewish Literacy, as well as "Rebbe", a New York Times best seller released in June 2014

Telushkin was raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Solomon and Hellen Telushkin. He attended Yeshiva of Flatbush where met his future co-author Dennis Prager. While at Columbia University, they authored Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism and Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism.

While at University, Telushkin was an active leader of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. As part of his position, Telushkin visited the Soviet Union where he met with dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov. He was eventually listed by the KGB as an anti-Russian agent.

An Orthodox rabbi by training, Telushkin serves as a spiritual leader of Los Angeles’ Synagogue for the Performing Arts, founded in 1972 by Rabbi Jerome Cutler. He is an associate of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and a former director of education at the non-denominational Brandeis-Bardin Institute. Telushkin is also a Senior Associate with CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and is a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Book Council. He has been on the Newsweek's list of the 50 most influential Rabbis in America since 1997.

Telushkin is the author of sixteen books on Judaism. His book, Words that Hurt, Words that Heal, inspired Senators Joseph Lieberman’s and Connie Mack’s Senate Resolution #151 to establish a National Speak No Evil Day in the United States, a day in which Americans would go for twenty-four hours without saying anything unkind or unfair about, or to, anyone. His book, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History, is one of the best-selling books on Judaism of the past two decades. More than two decades after its publication, the book remains a foundation text for Jews, non-Jews, and prospective converts alike. The first volume of A Code of Jewish Ethics, entitled A Code of Jewish Ethics: You Shall be Holy, which Telushkin regards as his major life's work, was published in 2006. The second volume, entitled, A Code of Jewish Ethics: Love Your Neighbor, was released in 2009.

In 2013, Telushkin was invited by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres to speak before the commission in Geneva.

In 2014, Telushkin released "Rebbe: The life and teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the most influential Rabbi in Modern History" which appeared on all the major best seller lists including New York Times Best Seller list, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly.

Telushkin tours the United States as a lecturer on Jewish topics, and has been named by Talk Magazine as one of the fifty best speakers in the United States. He wrote the episode 'Bar Mitzvah' on Touched by an Angel guest starring Kirk Douglas.

Reviews

[Kiia✦⋆⃰✶✷°⃰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed how the text was constructed. I learned a lot and the little letters, and posters were a fun addition.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph Telushkin is an ecumenically minded progressive sort of Orthodox rabbi, probably best known for his giant book on Jewish Literacy.

This book is just 32 over-sized pages, but is PACKED with amazing photos, removable reproductions of fliers and ship passage tickets, various artifacts, etc. He gives a museum-like experience to the reader. You get as good of a taste of the turn of the century Jewish immigrant experience as any such book could offer.

Wonderful book.

[Laura Galán-Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this fascinating overview of Jewish immigration into the US and the vast contributions they made early in our nation's history. There are multiple fun little pull outs that are replicas of notable documents, letters, ads, cards, etc such as a letter from George Washington to a Jewish community where you can see his handwriting :)

[Laura Craner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like a grown-up lift the flap book. I appreciated all the info, although the form (in my mind) distracted from the book.

[Mary Bronson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a pretty good book. It was like an adult version of a pop up book. I liked reading it and pulling out the letter or flipping open the flaps and reading what they had to say