Boston's Jewish History

Boston’s early Jewish history is different from other cities on the American eastern seaboard. This combination of on-site guides and virtual lecture explores the reasons for this, and then traces the history of Boston’s Jewish neighborhoods, concentrating on the City of Boston. We will learn about the Central European origins of Boston’s earliest Jewish community, and the history of their synagogues. As they became settled here, they began to migrate to new areas of the city, and then the face of Jewish Boston changed with massive immigration from Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1920. These new immigrants made their mark in different neighborhoods of the city, before large portions of the Jewish community migrated to the suburbs in the mid-twentieth century.

As you follow from home, our guides will show you some of the most important sites of Boston’s Jewish history in these neighborhoods, with a mix of live on-site visits and photos and lecture presentations.

*Our guides will be live and on site while you tune in from home!