Elka Klein Memorial Lecture: “Roads Taken: Jewish Peddlers and the Great Migration to the New World” by Professor Hasia R. Diner

From the end of the eighteenth century to the 1920s, one-third of European Jewry crossed a national boundary in search of new homes. Most crossed the Atlantic to North America. The men among them turned to peddling as the best way to meet their goals, leading the way to a population diffusion through the continent.

Professor Diner is the author of numerous books on the history of American Jews, American women, and immigration. She is the editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the Jewish Diaspora.