Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930...

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Rebecca Kobrin

Credit to the Nation

Name: Credit to the Nation
Price: 61.95 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9780674982987

Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930

Rebecca Kobrin

$61.95

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Harvard University Press
26 May 2026

History of the Americas; Social & cultural history; Urban communities; Economic history; Banking

From a leading historian, the story of how entrepreneurial Jewish immigrants transformed commercial banking and enabled the economic and social advancement of Jews in America.

What are immigrants to do when business opportunities abound in their new home, but banks refuse essential financial support? How could they make the journey in the first place without helping hands? In this lively history, Rebecca Kobrin chronicles the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Jewish immigrants who stepped up by doing the lending themselves. Arriving from the Russian Empire and settling primarily in New York, they made livelihoods by assisting fellow Jews so they could purchase passage to the United States and, after arriving, obtain credit that other lenders would not dare provide.

Credit to the Nation traces the novel practices of bankers who not only enabled the flourishing of American Jewry but also revolutionized the US financial industry. Drawing on previously unexamined archival materials in Russian, Yiddish, German, and English, Kobrin tells a story that is also crucial to the history of New York, as immigrant bankers’ financing of real estate transformed wide swathes of the city. Lenders drove a boom in the prices of tenement buildings, but heavy speculation eventually precipitated the downfall of immigrant banking. Kobrin notes in particular the case of the Bank of United States—a private lender catering primarily to Jewish businessmen—which the Federal Reserve refused to bail out from bankruptcy in 1930.

Immigrants’ grasping for credit, and the rise and fall of immigrant banks, gave way to a contemporary banking industry that, ironically, refuses credit to today’s immigrants. Kobrin reminds us that now, as before, the denial of credit pushes entrepreneurial Americans into unregulated money-lending and the trap of endless debt.

By: Rebecca Kobrin
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 19mm
Weight: 599g
ISBN: 9780674982987
ISBN 10: 0674982983
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 26 May 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Rebecca Kobrin, author of Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora, is Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University, where she codirects the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.

Reviews for Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930

You've heard of J. P. Morgan, but what about Sender Jarmulowsky? In her revealing book, Rebecca Kobrin provides a fascinating account of a forgotten cadre of banking titans who left a profound mark on America's financial landscape and on its social fabric, by making it possible for many Jewish refugees to migrate to and thrive in the United States. -- Daniel Schulman, author of The Money Kings Rebecca Kobrin has opened an entirely new chapter in American Jewish history and introduced us to a whole new cast of characters within it. No scholar before her has identified this world of banking as a fundamental aspect of the story of Jewish immigration to America. With deep research and meticulous fealty to the sources, she lays out banking's transnational connections as well as its impact on New York City and on the Jewish immigrants who flocked there to make it their home. -- Hasia R. Diner, author of Hungering for America and Opening Doors With a fervor both celebratory and indignant, Rebecca Kobrin tells the long-suppressed story of the immigrant Jews who created private banks in the Lower East Side, banks that loaned money to immigrant Jews who wanted to open a shop, start a business, even—a giddy ambition!—construct housing in Harlem and elsewhere. Kobrin depicts a financial system based on trust and the triumphantly successful desire to build the Jewish community in the New World. Credit to the Nation is a stirring and necessary addition to the history of America."" -- David Denby, author of Eminent Jews