JAHM Second Avenue Serenade: Rediscovering the Yiddish Rialto

From 1881 - 1924, almost 1.5 million Ashkenazi Jews escaped the oppression of the Pale of Settlement and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. But did you know more than 20,000 Sephardic Jews mainly from Turkey, Syria, Greece, and the Balkans ALSO settled in the neighborhood? A 1936 Columbia University study described the area “around Rivington and Allen Streets in New York City’s Lower East Side” as “the most vibrant Sephardic hub in the nation.”