What’s It Going to Be, Uncle Sam?

Jewish immigrants were opposed to new immigration restrictions put into place in the U.S. in the 1920s. They responded angrily in the Yiddish press. One such example is this 1924 cartoon by Yosl Cutler in the New York Yiddish satirical weekly, Der groyse kundes (The Big Stick). Uncle Sam sits between good and evil. The good list reads, “Free immigration; tolerance; hospitality; American traditions; kind-heartedness; open-mindedness; idealism.” The evil list reads, “Immigration ban; chauvinism; race hatred; anti-Americanism; hard-heartedness; closed-mindedness; egoism; cruelty; despotism.”