Expert on history of Jewish migration to speak at joint JGSI-CJHS hybrid meeting on Sunday, March 23, 2025, in Northbrook

Penn State University Associate Professor Tobias Brinkmann, an expert on the history of Jewish migration, will give two lectures on Sunday, March 23, 2025, at a special joint hybrid meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois and the Chicago Jewish Historical Society. He will be speaking in person at Temple Beth-El, 3610 Dundee Road, Northbrook, Illinois, and online via Zoom.

Temple Beth-El will open at 12:30 p.m. CDT for sign-in and socializing before the lectures begin at 1 p.m. Central Time.

Please register/RSVP by clicking the button at left.

At 1 p.m. CDT, Professor Brinkmann will speak about “Retracing Jewish Journeys: Moving from Lithuania and Galicia to America Before 1914.” This talk will explore the actual journeys of Jewish and non-Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe. Surprisingly little is known about seemingly mundane journeys of migrants. Why did migrants have to hire smugglers to get across the Russian border with Germany? Why did so many migrants from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires travel through Bremen and Hamburg? What was the role of Jewish aid associations? How long did the journey take and what happened if migrants got sick or were rejected at Ellis Island? Professor Brinkmann will discuss the answers to these questions and more through his extensive research including first-person accounts of people such as Chicagoan Bernard Horwich.

At 2:30 p.m. CDT, Professor Brinkmann will speak about “Closing Doors and Permanent Transit: Migrant Journeys After 1914.” The First World War marked a decisive turning point in the history of Jewish migration within and from Eastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were displaced, many permanently, during the war and its violent aftermath. They could not return to their homes, and America was out of reach for many. America’s restrictive national origins quota bills were designed to not so implicitly exclude Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe. What options did “normal” Jewish migrants have? And how did they travel through Europe? How did Jewish migrants manage to reach the United States, and which alternatives existed? Professor Brinkmann will bring our ancestors’ experiences to life through his presentations.

Tobias Brinkmann is the Malvin and Lea Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, and director of the Jewish Studies program. His publications include “Between Borders: The Great Jewish Migration from Eastern Europe” (Oxford University Press, 2024) and “Sundays at Sinai: A Jewish Congregation in Chicago” (University of Chicago Press, 2012), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award 2013. He is also the editor of “Points of Passage: Jewish Transmigrants from Eastern Europe in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain 1880-1914” (New York: Berghahn, 2013).

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