HALUKKAH OUT WEST

With the opening up of the west to American settlement, Jews too joined in the migration. Along with the new Jewish communities that were established in this period, centers were also organized to deal with Jewish social and economic problems as well as halukkah. Therefore, new halukkah centers emanated from such places as Cincinnati and Denver. But it was from California that a majority of halukkah contributions originated, with San Francisco being the largest center in the western US – a result of the Gold Rush of the late 1840s. It was also from San Francisco that many of the pilgrimages to Palestine had come, such as that of Hyam Joseph in 1851, who went along with a Jewish notable from Philadelphia, IA Lehman. In the tiny pueblo of Los Angeles, the local Hebrew Benevolent Society, part of which was devoted to halukkah, was established in 1854 by Phillip Newmark, a prominent German Jewish merchant in the city, and Samuel Labatt, Sephardi merchant and pioneer from Houston. By the late 1860s, a certain Haim Sneersohn became the first emissary to reach Los Angeles by way of Washington and many other cities across America, and by the 1870s, it was said that halukkah emissaries to America had succeeded in making contact with Jewish communities from Maine to California.