Deborah Dash Moore is the Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of a trilogy covering the history of American Jews in the twentieth century, beginning with the experience of Jews in New York City, then moving on to GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (2004), and ending with histories of Jews in the postwar decades. Her books have regularly garnered awards, including most recently a National Jewish Book Award for the coedited work, City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, With a Visual Essay by Diana L. Linden (2012). Her most recent book is Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People (2017).
Why is the Jewish poet, Emma Lazarus' poem, "The New Colossus" on the Statue of Liberty? This lecture looks at the tangled history of Jewish immigration to the United States, at those who came, why they came, their attitudes toward other immigrants, their conflicts with other Jews.