History of the Jews in Denver

The history of the Jews in Denver, Colorado extends from the discovery of gold in 1858 to the present day. Early Jewish pioneers were largely of German backgrounds and deeply involved in politics and local affairs, and some were among the most prominent citizens of the time. Beginning in the 1880s, the influx of Jewish immigrants to the United States from Eastern Europe expanded the Denver Jewish community and exposed cultural rifts between Jews from German-speaking versus Yiddish-speaking backgrounds. As Denver became a center for those seeking tuberculosis treatment, Jews were among those who came seeking healing, and the Jewish community set up two important organizations that aided not only sick Jews but also the sick poor of all backgrounds. In the early 20th century, the Orthodox community in the city's West Side attracted religious new immigrants and built up a number of communal institutions. The community, especially the poor in the West Side, had to deal with antisemitism—sometimes violent—and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado. Beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the 1970s, the community started to spread from the West Side to the East Side and then to the suburbs. The community remains vibrant today, and as it has rapidly grown in the past decades so have the number of educational, recreational, and religious organizations and institutions that serve it.