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In Galveston, descendants of a forgotten Jewish migration keep their community’s story alive

JL;DR SUMMARY The Galveston Movement was a forgotten chapter of Jewish migration to the United States that is currently being preserved by the descendants of those immigrants in Galveston, Texas. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish ImmigrationJewish HeritageEastern European JewsGalvestonGalveston MovementJacob SchiffBnai IsraelImmigrant StoriesHenry CohenTexas Jewish History

Places mentioned

Galveston, Texas, United States
"Shelley Nussenblatt Kessler, a descendant of Jewish immigrants who came to America as part of the Galveston Movement in the early 20th century, sits in Galveston, Texas, with a biography of the citys famous rabbi, Henry Cohen."
Houston, Texas, United States
"GALVESTON, Texas More than a century ago, this busy Gulf Coast port and longtime vacation destination 50 miles southeast of Houston welcomed so many European immigrants including some 10,000 Jews it earned the moniker The Ellis Island of the West."
Charleston, South Carolina, United States
"Charleston, South Carolina, which had a long-established Jewish community, was considered but city leaders there only wanted Anglo-Saxon immigrants."
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
"New Orleans was also in the mix but there were concerns about periodic outbreaks of yellow fever."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 68564
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-11-27 05:30:46 UTC
Curated 2025-11-27 08:31:32 UTC