Cyrus L. Sulzberger

Born in Philadelphia, Cyrus L. Sulzberger received his general education in public schools and his Jewish education at the Philadelphia Hebrew Education Society. He began his career as a bookkeeper, moving to New York City where he joined an accounting firm. In New York, Sulzberger was involved in municipal politics and Jewish communal leadership. Witnessing the large influx of Jewish immigrants from eastern and southern Europe to New York, Sulzberger helped coordinate the Galveston movement as president of the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society. The Galveston plan, influential among the established Jewish leadership of East Coast metropolises, sought to resettle recent immigrants in cities and towns further into the interior of the country so as to avoid Jewish “over-concentration” in New York and other East Coast cities, which would, they feared, slow Americanization and foster nativist and antisemitic attitudes. Toward that end, philanthropists such as Sulzberger arranged for the arrival of nearly ten thousand Jewish immigrants at the port of Galveston between 1907 and 1914. In all, the Galveston plan led to the establishment of some two thousand Jewish communities across the United States. Sulzberger also held leadership positions at a number of Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Publication Society.