The article examines the connections and interdependencies between early Jewish defensive efforts against anti-Semitism and the parallel support for Eastern- and Southeastern European Jewish emigrants. Jewish transit through the German Empire to the US provoked and accelerated anti-Semitic agitation against German Jews. Thus, migration aid as a form of engagement motivated by humanitarianism became part of the defenses against anti-Semitism. The foundation of the C.V. in 1893 and the Aid Organization of the German Jews in 1901 mark the advent of a differentiation between defensive efforts and migration aid.