by Linda K. Jacobs | Aug 31, 2015 | Uncategorized
Orientalism and the Early Syrians In my forthcoming book about the nineteenth-century Syrian colony of New York City (Strangers in the West), I purposely have not focused on Americans’ orientalist attitudes toward Syrians. Reporters regularly described their...
by Linda K. Jacobs | Aug 24, 2015 | Uncategorized
Even today, successful women entrepreneurs are as rare as hen’s teeth. Imagine what it took for a nineteenth century woman from a conservative Arab immigrant community to become one of the premier jewelers in New York. Marie El-Khoury was that woman. The Azeez Family...
by Linda K. Jacobs | Aug 16, 2015 | Uncategorized
The friends eventually went their separate ways. In early 1894, Haddad went to Europe to participate in the Antwerp fair and then returned to Syria, while Kheiralla decided to settle down in Chicago and become a “spiritual healer” as a way to make a living. His...
by Linda K. Jacobs | Aug 8, 2015 | Uncategorized
Most early Syrian immigrants to the United States led relatively straightforward lives: they followed a limited number of occupations, practiced the faith of their fathers, married within the community, and had children. Those who strayed from the path make for...
by Linda K. Jacobs | Aug 1, 2015 | Uncategorized
There are more than 300,000 Chaldeans in America today, with large communities in Detroit and San Diego; in the nineteenth century, there were virtually none. The Chaldeans, sometimes called Assyrians or Nestorians, are Christians from Iraq and other Middle Eastern...
