Bialystoker Unterstitzungs Verein

... As soon as Bialystoker Jews began arriving in the United States, they formed their own organizations and societies, which united and strengthened the Bialystoker community, absorbing the larger Jewish population. These groups, working separately and _ together, extended the Bialystoker /andsmanschaft’s influence throughout America. As mentioned earlier, the first organized society was the ‘‘Bialystoker Unterstitzungs Verein” established in 1864. What follows is a list of almost fifty societies founded between 1868 and 1949. Although most of them no longer exist, they made a major contribution to the development of the /andsman- schaft, its relief work and other communal activities that served Jews from Bialystok for almost a century:

... In fact, Bialystoker Jews lived in America starting in the 1850’s. We found a charter issued by the State of New York dated 1864, to a “‘Bialystoker Unterstitzungs Verein,” an aid society for Bialystoker Jandsleit that existed two years and then fell apart because of con- flicts among the members. I uncovered this document quite by accident, when I was elected president of the ‘““Bialystoker Somach Noflim” in 1925. ...