I wrote a guest post for Religion in American History:
The nineteenth-century United States was a paradoxical place for Jews. No land on Earth was more open to Jewish immigration. The First Amendment to the Constitution and the disestablishment of state religions meant non-Christians could be citizens and office holders. Yet, Jews were a tiny minority. If discrimination was less common in the U.S. than in nations like Russia, it was nonetheless a reality that democratic ideology could not staunch.