Between 1880 and 1920, more than 2 million Yiddish-speaking Jews from eastern Europe came to New York. Living in close quarters on the Lower East Side, they invented a new kind of eating establishment based on German delicatessens, but which offered foods from across their former homelands. By the early 1900s, Jewish delicatessens had spread across the city, and could soon be found in many major American cities with large Jewish populations, often springing up around the garment districts where Jewish immigrants worked and ran the clothing trade. New York’s immigrant Jews essentially invented kosher delicatessens (nothing like them had existed in eEastern Europe), contributing to and fostering a sense of community and Jewish American identity throughout the twentieth century.

For all uses of photographs by Roman Vishniac contact ICP at: vishniac_archive@icp.org.