Escape Goat

While no one can argue that the Holocaust put an end to the Jewish civilization in Europe, that process had begun centuries earlier. A flood of Jews washed across the Atlantic between 1880 and 1924, fleeing the tyranny of the Russian Tsars who condemned Jews to a life of poverty in the countryside. My grandfather was one of 2 million Jews who sought a better life in America. His story is again salient as other peoples crowd our shores. Once again, Jews are singled out as scapegoats, just as when the Tsars and other European leaders blamed their society's problems on a small, powerless group.