“Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history,” was an observation made by Pulitzer prize winning historian Oscar Handlin. On Wednesday, Nov. 1, the entire junior class journeyed to the American Jews’ “Plymouth Rock,” New York’s Lower East Side, to relive the past. This trip is an integral part of their unit of study on the various waves of immigration to the United States.

The first stop was the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where students were broken up into separate groups to learn about the immigrant experience through different lenses. One group, “Sweatshop Workers,” explored how many immigrants tried to balance work, family and observing their religion, all while living within the cramped tenements. A second group, “Hard Times,” discovered how two families, one Jewish and one Italian, were able to survive different economic depressions between 1863 and 1935. The last group, “Victoria Confino,” visited with 14 year old Victoria, who was living in the tenement in 1916. Students enjoyed asking her questions in order to gain a better perspective on life in the tenements.

On their way to the Eldridge Street Synagogue, due to many requests, the group made a pit stop at The Pickle Guys. Many students loaded up on containers of their favorite flavored pickles straight out of the barrels. At the Eldridge Street Synagogue tour, they were able to learn more about a magnificent historic landmark, a shul opened in 1887, built by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. This institution serves as a marker of the largest wave of Jewish immigration to the Lower East Side. Their guide shared stories of Jewish immigrant life and explained the great architecture and historic preservation which is on-going at the museum. This annual trip, coordinated by history department chair Cary Reichardt, continues to be a highlight for juniors and the chaperones who accompany them.