Poland, 1905
Immigrant Rights Activist

Greenstone committed her life to activism and serving recent immigrants. As a teenager in Poland, she unionized workers in her father’s factory. Soon after emigrating at age 18, she became the assistant immigrant arrival agent at Ellis Island, shepherding single women, mothers, and children through the complicated intake process, and speaking out for those who faced deportation. In 1914, at HIAS’ request, she traveled to Riga, Latvia, to inspect a facility constructed to house Jewish emigrants as they waited to journey to America.