Emma Lazarus, 1849-1887

Jewish poet Lazarus’ words, taken from “The New Colossus,” are on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” She wrote some of the earliest works on antisemitism in Russia and in the United States. Though she died a decade before the First Zionist Congress, Lazarus advocated for a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Drawing: T. Johnson and W. Kurtz