[Avodah] Which way to Jerusalem?

[Simon Montagu]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 6:05 AM, David Riceman <driceman at optimum.net> wrote:

>  Me:
>
>>
>>> When I was young I was told that we use the reverse of the course our
>>> ancestors took to get here, which is why we don't use the great circle
>>> route.
>>>
>>
>> RZS:
>>
>> From which direction did Jews (let alone "our" ancestors -- whose?) arrive
>> in San Francisco?  Did they come from the east or the south?  Should shuls
>> in Texas and surrounding states point towards Galveston?
>>
>>
>>  I asked those same questions, and was told that the bulk of American
> Jewry arrived via the east coast, and the bulk of Jews in the west came via
> the east.  I don't know how this explanation would hold up in the era of
> migration via airplane, but it does explain, for example, why Bavel and EY
> are each north of the other.
>
> But we were talking about Bostonians (before the high tech migration).
>
>
In hachei namei. I don't know about the first Jews on the east coast of the
USA, but the large-scale immigration at the end of the 19th century came by
ship from Northern Europe, and would have come in a direction closer to the
great circle than the rhumb line to Jerusalem.
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