Watch it Now: A Conversation With Author Taylor Shiroff

On June 26th, 2024, HIAS Pennsylvania held a conversation with author Taylor Shiroff, in honor of Immigrant Heritage Month.

Taylor Shiroff is the author of Next Year in America: A Family History of Eastern European Jews in the Old and New Worlds.

About the Book

Between 1880 and 1924, about two million Jews left the Russian Empire and its poverty and persecution in favor of immigrating to the United States. Few, if any, spoke English. Almost none were accustomed to electricity or running water inside homes. Most had never even seen a “modern” city.

Yet, despite lacking work experience to garner a living wage, they settled in. Within a generation, though Yiddish could still sometimes be heard, the typical Jew had become an assimilated American, striving for and even reaching the American Dream. This is their tale, as told through the lens of Taylor Shiroff’s ancestors.