Rabbi Eric Silver, Interviews with Jews in Utah, Accn 998

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and he points out that none of these immigrant communities have made it beyond four 0eneration. That within each of the four generations there was a gradual di~inuation of whatever it was that made them existentially Jewish. Ergo, for example, the Spanish Jews came here because they wanted to be Jews. Being Jewish was very important to them. So they settled in places like the deep South, New York, New England. Names like Shashas, Touro, Sheftall, and so forth, these are naDes that figure prominently in American history. Just allowin0 for natural growth, there should be millions of Sephardim running around in the woods these days. There aren't, because the second generation tried to Americanize, the third even more so, and by the time we got to the fourth generation, there was a withering away. Ditto for the German immigrations, then the Eastern European immigrations. The Eastern European immigrants who came here during the latter part of the 19th, early 20th century came here and they were concerned with making a living, trying to survive. ifuat is it that Sam Levinson said his father discovered when he came here? He said it was three things that he discovered: One, the streets were not paved with gold, as they had been led to believe over in Europe; secondly, most of the streets weren't e ven paved at all; third, he was the guy who 186