AHC: Jewish-Majority State in North America With a POD in 1800 or Later?

Have a 19 century severally anti Semitic government (or even better governments) force Jews to leave (Russian empire probably the best Canidate). Then have the Zionist movement form as a result and they will call for the building of a new Jerusalem in the untamed lands of North America ( as their old homeland is currently occupied)
 
It's not Zionism if they don't go to Zion.

They had plenty of antiSemitism in the 19th century but no nucleus of new Zion forming then.

I think the POD has to be more of a pull than a push; some rather liberal Jews in Europe catch the whole Utopian settlement wave, go for a well chosen site in the Midwest somewhere in the mid-19th century, earlier is better, and are successful enough there to draw more Jews to them, enough that they dominate a fair sized area, small for a MW state but fair sized by US Atlantic coast sized, Delaware or so, and gradually it becomes more and more of a draw while Gentiles steer clear. They get enough population to apply for statehood and the nation just accepts it is a largely Jewish state where the Jews will always have the majority. Could be that when the big wave of Russian Jews that largely stayed in NYC area comes, a big part of them will move on to the place. It might well come to be named Zion or some such.

This may also weaken the development of Zionism proper though I don't think it will preempt it completely. It certainly would be a viable alternate destination post WWII if that is not butterflied away. Of course US citizens as a whole may prefer to encourage immigration to Palestine instead, and this sentiment might be shared by New Zionists or whatever they call their state, who might be pretty comfortable without a lot of extra immigration crowding their long-established Utopia.

I'm not suggesting that the wilder elements of Utopianism there would last long, they'd get normalized like Oneida. The place would be pretty culturally similar to the rest of the USA except for a lot of Yiddish or Hebrew names, the persistence of both languages as a living minority tongue (with special legal status probably--surely all state laws would be translated into Hebrew for instance, and Hebrew and possibly Yiddish might be a language court trials are sometimes conducted in, with translators to English on regular duty). Conceivably liberalized versions of Talmudic law would be state law--perhaps defining days as ending with sundown, Saturday so defined being a holy day of rest when no official business can be conducted though movement restrictions would apply only to practicing Jews. I'm not so much suggesting the legal system would enforce Jewish law as that the secular law system, kept open to all regardless of faith or ethnic identity, would leave space for properly Jewish law to operate. Sabbath is enforced by the latter but the state law would never force a Jew to contradict it.

A lot would depend on just how secular the Utopian founders were. I'm thinking they are reasonably pious, but would leave the door open for less pious Jews as long as they don't openly profane things--and they cannot exclude non-Jews and must therefore accommodate them in law. I would think that Utah would be a good model for how it would go--Gentiles might live there but they'd have to like and respect Jews and Jewish custom to be comfortable there. But non-Jews would enjoy Constitutional protections and the lawmakers would have to be careful to be diplomatic about the nature of the order and its enforcement.

I don't think there would be a strong reaction against this, if the founders chose a suitably out of the way location.
 
Hebrew wouldn't be used at all in your hypothetical state. Hebrew had been a dead language for centuries by the 19th century, and Israel only reseructed Hebrew for the sake of Arabic speaking Sephardi Jews ( so the could communicate with Yiddish speaking Ashkenazim Jews). As the united states at the time restricted immigration from Africa and the middle east, there will be no substantial population of Sephardi Jews and thus is no need for the main language to be any thing other than yiddish
 
I initially read the title to mean, a Jewish-majority population in a state of the US :)

So, going with that:

Many of the Western states and the railroads set up offices in Europe to draw immigrants and usually targeted specific immigrant groups. How about one of the railroads getting the bright idea of targeting Jewish areas to draw them to the Great Plains. The landscape would have been similar enough to parts of Eastern Europe that the immigrants would have felt at home and had an advantage over many other populations. Now, have a few prominent Jewish-American leaders hear of the plan, see it as a way to give many of the co-religionists a better life, form an immigration society and pour money into it. Due to the low population density of, say, South or North Dakota, you wouldn't need many immigrants for them to become the majority of the population. In fact, in North Dakota, there were small Jewish homesteading populations in the late 19th century, and the state was promoting itself and drawing German-Russian immigrants at the time. So, a change in focus, could certainly draw more Jewish immigrants.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
What's the most plausible way to get a Jewish-Majority state (either independent nation or a state in a federal union) in North America with a POD of 1800?
Considering that, as far as I know, New York state was about 17% Jewish in 1930, you can try preventing the Holocaust and then having NYC eventually secede from New York state. Then, once U.S. immigration restrictions on Eastern Europe are loosened, you could see millions of Eastern European Jews immigrating to New York City and make it either Jewish-majority or close to it.

Yes, I know that this is a long-shot; however, it's what I came up with right now.
 
post 1900 but there was talk about allowing Jews to flee the nazis and settle in the territory of Alaska. if this happened we would have a Jewish majority in Alaska
 
What's the most plausible way to get a Jewish-Majority state (either independent nation or a state in a federal union) in North America with a POD of 1800?

Former is hard, latter is fairly easy. Like DanMcCollum said, and as I've explored the idea in the past (but haven't posted the TL, which is very much a work in progress). A Western state or prairie province could easily get a large wave of Jewish immigration in the late 19th century, and the tiny base populations involved could make the place majority Jewish without too much trouble.

I'm not sure that Jewish-majority is possibly with a PoD of 1800 - maybe Napoleon tries to encourage Jews to move somewhere? But even though we technically have 3 years before the Louisiana Purchase, in practice France is probably still going to do it, and 3 years isn't a lot of time, and I don't see the US reacting super well to France encouraging Jews to immigrate to an American holding. It's hard to do Haiti or one of the sugar islands, if the Caribbean even counts as North America.

I've also played with the idea of immigration to Alaska by Jews under Russia, but I just can't find any reason why the tzars would allow, let alone encourage, mass Jewish migration.

It's not Zionism if they don't go to Zion.

They had plenty of antiSemitism in the 19th century but no nucleus of new Zion forming then.

...Zionism, per se, starts in the mid 19th century. There was a strong faction of the World Zionist Congress that wanted a Jewish state anywhere - famously, Argentina (both the pampas and Patagonia) and "Uganda" (actually part of Kenya today) were proposed and considered seriously. Herzl, in fact, was notionally in favor of such a plan.

Despite the poor name, Zionism has more to do with the awakening of a Jewish national identity, in response to national awakenings across Europe, which together with scientific racism saw attempts by Jews in the West to assimilate to be increasingly rebuffed. The conclusion that the Jewish nation needed a Jewish [national] state came quickly, by way of the doctrine of nation-states which would see, for example, agitation by Czechs in Austria-Hungary for their own state, stuff like that.

I think the POD has to be more of a pull than a push; some rather liberal Jews in Europe catch the whole Utopian settlement wave

Interesting idea, though probably religious rather than liberal: utopianism was mostly driven by religion, and the liberal Jews of Europe were fiercely secular, if not outright anti-religious. But definitely a cool direction.

Hebrew wouldn't be used at all in your hypothetical state. Hebrew had been a dead language for centuries by the 19th century, and Israel only reseructed Hebrew for the sake of Arabic speaking Sephardi Jews ( so the could communicate with Yiddish speaking Ashkenazim Jews). As the united states at the time restricted immigration from Africa and the middle east, there will be no substantial population of Sephardi Jews and thus is no need for the main language to be any thing other than yiddish

The revival of Hebrew has nothing to do with Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews; it is a wholesomely Ashkenazi and Zionist endeavor, aimed replacing the "language of the Diaspora" with the "language of Zion", swapping the old Jew, oppressed and weak, for the New Jew, strong and self-directing. Hebrew was promoted in Palestine from the first Zionist settlements in the 1870s, despite major Mizrahi and Sephardi immigration only coming after 1948, as various Middle Eastern countries saw pogroms in response to the formation of Israel.

Also, a lot of the assimilated, secularized Jews that spearheaded Zionism didn't (or wouldn't) speak Yiddish, preferring French, German, English, etc. Though probably most of the people who actually settled did speak Yiddish. For reference, the official language of the first World Zionist Congresses was German, and all notes were taken in that language, and delegates were urged to speak in it.

Also: a pet peeve of mine: you should have written Ashkenazi Jews or Ashkenazim; Ashkenazim Jews is like writing "Germans doctors"
 
Hmm... maybe one of the Tsars is even more antisemitic than in OTL and deports lots Jews to Alaska, which is then bought by either America or Britain and incorporated into the US/Canada.
 
Rhode Island had a significant and prominent Sephardic Jewish community and one of the oldest Synagogues, they originally came from Latin America/Dutch Americas and Barbados.

Newport was one of the five most busy ports with great industry at the time of the American revolution and then it waned. Rhode Island is small enough, the Jewish population old enough and the industry was great enough that "crypto Jews" from throughout the Americas could migrate there as a Ladino region that increasingly incorporates Ashkenazi Jews who leave in droves in the late 19th and 20th century to work on factories.

George Washington laid the groundwork for positive relationships with Jews in this new nation with Touro Synagogue. It's be cool to see that motivate more migration as like this first great stronghold and consolidated state advantageously beckoning the Sephardic communities from the Americas and North Africa to come and build a life.

At this time the Jews of Fez were heavily oppressed and poor, their relationship with the sultan who recognized the US was waning and if it's done in time a mass exodus of Jews by the time of Yazid could butterfly away the massacre.

Into the 19th century as industrialism provides opportunities for some Jews on the coast to thrive interior Jews flee to urban mellahs to survive and this could cause further fleeing.

As slavery wanes and as connections are sustained Curacao Jews and others come to establish themselves and spread in mercantile trades coming into a familiar Latin-Arab Ladino stage with a strong economy.

Ashkenazi come later to reinforce numbers.

Of course it's important to recognize the need for non-Jews in such a state. Early tribes that made treaty by about the late 18th early 19th century were quite mixed with black free people. Encouraging black freemen and mixed people from Latin regions of partial Jewish ancestry to Rhode Island could provide a strong labour force willing to work with rather than against Jewish economic domination.
 
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