First edition. 854 pp., index,  all chapter initials hand illuminated, edges gilt, full page plates with tissue guards, hundreds of illustrations and portraits. Gilt stamped black leather rubbed on edges.

Member's Numbered copy A-118. Each copy with a unique frontis portrait of the subscriber with name done by hand calligraphy.

The History of the Jews of Chicago is a fascinating, comprehensive story of Chicago's Jewish society thru 1924. Jews came to Chicago from virtually every country in Europe and the Middle East, but especially from Germany and Eastern Europe. Unlike most other immigrant groups, Jews left the Old Country with no thoughts of ever returning to lands where so many had experienced poverty, discrimination, and even sporadic massacres.

Jews began trickling into Chicago shortly after its incorporation in 1833. A century later Chicago's 270,000 Jews (about 9 percent of the city's population) were outnumbered only in New York and Warsaw. By the end of the twentieth century, approximately 270,000 Jews lived in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Hebrew Description