A landsmanshaft (also landsmanschaft; plural: landsmanshaftn) was a Jewish benefit society, or Hometown society of immigrants from the same town or region. These organizations were set up during the great migration of Jewish people to the United States from the 1880s through 1923. The immigrants could not speak English and often had trouble becoming accustomed to life in the U.S. The landsmanshaftn functioned as a kind of "social clearinghouse" for Jews from shtetls, providing employment as well as aid when sick and burial plots.