Thursday, April 19, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
A Time For Healing American Jewry Since World War II by Edward S. Shapiro
In “A Time For Healing American Jewry Since World War II”, the author Edward S. Shapiro notes that After the World War II, in an era in which United States was rebuilding, the American Jews were confronted with additional new challenges such as the tragic loss of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust and the need to help the survivors of the Holocaust to economically and socially integrate themselves. There was also the question of the continuity of the Jewish people, and the role of the Jewish people in the world. The majority of American Jews rejected the doctrine of despair and sought to build and rebuild the future of Yiddishkeit. Within this milieu, the American Jews sought to integrate themselves into the American society as American, to be acculturated, while preserving their Jewish identity.
Given that the Jews of Europe had been decimated, the Jewish community in America became “the most important Jewish community in the world. Nowhere else was there a Jewish community with its numbers, wealth, and intellectual resources”. They sought to support and provide for their brethren who survived the Holocaust and the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael. They also realized the need for a supportive environment for their children that would perpetuate their identity as Jews. In exchange, the author of this piece, Edward Shapiro notes that Allied Powers were not that preocupied with the fate of European Jewry, and they did not take the measures needed to end the slaughter of the Jews in the Nazi death camps. Moreover, Great Britain and US did not agree to admit Jewish refugees and England did not permit a larger number of Jewish refugees to go to Palestine. Even in the aftermath of World War II, the survivors did not have where to go as the opposition against allowing emigration remained. The movies and books that dealt with the theme of the Holocaust would not have an immediate effect in US until a decade later. Shapiro notes that the American attitudes towards immigration reflect trends of indifference from the American public in regards to the Holocaust, as the immigration policy in US was dominated by “nativism” and immigrants were regarded as undesirable. There were certain anti-Semitic sentiments present in US, such as that Jews were at least partially responsible for Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, and there were also anti-Semitic stereotypes present. Internally, these attitudes restricted the social and economic opportunities for Jews. There was also the image of the Jew as a warmonger, that is Americans believed that Jews wanted America to enter the War, because they wanted to look out for their own interests. There was also the belief that Jews in US were “too powerful”.
In terms of the process of acculturation, American Jews sought to integrate themselves in society in various ways. One way was their love for American sports, such as baseball. There were Jewish baseball fans and Jewish writers writing about baseball. There were also Jews who became famous in this field. One example is Hank Greenberg, an exemplary and famous Jewish baseball player who served in the military for four years, after which he made a comeback to the major league. He was the first Jew to be elected in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was proud in being Jewish, and so he earned the admiration of both non-Jew and Jews. The Jews admired him for choosing not to play on Yom Kippur. In 1945, the person who became Miss America was Bess Myerson, the daughter of Jewish immigrant workers, part of the left wing culture of US. She became ''the most famous contemporary Jewish woman'' (p.10). Her achievement was very remarkable because she was the child of poor, radical New York Jewish immigrants who succeeded at a time when there was much anti-Semitism and opposition to ''large scale immigration of Jewish immigration'' (p.10). Another way that Jews sought to integrate themselves was through their participation in the World War. Over half a million Jews served in the armed forces, 11000 Jewish soldiers dead, including Rabbi Alexander Goode, 24000 wounded, and 36000 decorated. This disproved the anti-Semitic accusations that Jews had tried to evade military service. Another way that Jews sought for acceptance is that they emerged determined to combat anti-Semitism. There were attempts to reassure the public that the Jews posed no threat, and they are assimilating into the American society. The American Jews feared that what happened in Germany with the rise of anti-Semitism could also take place in United States. In the media, the movies made during and after the war advocated for tolerance, emphasizing the heterogeneity of the military. The Great Depression movies sought not to put much emphasis on the Jewish identity of actors so as not to stir anti-Semitism. During the war, the Office of War Information encouraged the production of movies with Jewish characters because they thought it would help the war effort. There were movies made in the late 1940’s against religious discrimination and prejudice. The theme of a symbiosis between being American and being Jewish emerged in literature, in books and publications, and the media.
In the aftermath of the World War II, Shapiro notes that Jews learned that they had to fight for their own survival as they could not take their physical survival for granted. As the Six Day War of 1967 threatened to decimate nearly one quarter of the Jewish people, Jews remembered that they had encountered such threats before. Yet, in spite of the challenges they encountered, Jews in America believed that they will be able to contribute and succeed in the American society, and “Jewish survival became the most important Jewish imperative” (p. 27).
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Jewish Life in New York
“New York as the Promised City”
As the Eastern European Jews emigrated to United States, an interesting
phenomena that occurred was the formation of a “transitional culture” (p.
69) which helped the new immigrants adjust, as they were adapting their
traditions to the new environment. United States was a new territory, with
a different class structure, and it provided a different context for the
Jewish tradition. Yet, in this environment, the new Jewish immigrants
formed Jewish communities and aspired to rise above.
The Jewish immigrants formed communities especially on the Lower East Side
in the 1880’s, and in the 1890’s, in the Harlem, East Bronx, and the
Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Boro Park, and Brownsville. There
were also Jewish neighborhoods in Boston, Philadelsphia, Chicago,
Rochester, Cleveland, and Detroit. Furthermore, areas such as the Lower
East Side, North End of Boston, and West Side of Chicago, served as
“fertile ground of cultural sustenance and renewal (p. 70). One of the
impediments that existed in living in New York was that though it was
American’s largest city, it was also crowded. During the 1900’s, the
immigrant population in New York made up 75% of the population,
outnumbering the American-born. The Jewish immigrants who came to New York
from Eastern Europe, in 1870’s, chose to remain on the Lower East Side, a
“twenty-square-block area south of Houston Street and east of the Bowery”
(p. 70). As time progressed, the percentage of Jews living on the Lower
East Side declined, from 75% in 1892, to 50% in 1903, and to 23% in 1916.
There were 542,000 Jews in 1910. The Jewish quarter was so crowded that
Jacob Riis remarked that only in Bombay and Calcutta there were higher
densities. There were also housing problems due to overcrowding in dumbbell
tenements.
The ghetto that was forming on the Lower East Side enabled Jews to get
jobs. In 1910, the garment industry was located here, with 70% of nation’s
women clothing and 40% of men’s clothing. The owners of the factories for
the garment industry were owned by German Jews. In 1897, 60% of New York
Jewish labor force was working in the apparel field, and 75% of the workers
in the industry were Jews. The needle industry operated in three ways,
through the family system, where family members were diving the work,
through outside manufacture, and finally through the sweatshop system.
Though the work was very demanding, with long hours of work, those employed
like this could communicate in their own language with each other and could
perform their religious duties. The Jewish immigrants who arrived between
1899 and 1914 were distinct from other immigrant groups because they
possessed higher industrial skills. They helped expand the garment trade in
New York. Jews worked in jobs such as hat and cap makers, furriers,
tailors, and milliners. Peddling was also very popular, and pushcart
vendors dreamed of one day being able to open a real store. Other jobs
opened to Jews were in seltzer companies, seltzer being considered the
“worker’s champagne”, in the kosher food industry, as the community needed
kosher butchers and shokhetim, supervisors, in preparation of holiday
foods. There were also jobs in construction industry, the remodeling
business, the garment industry, and the general ethnic economy.
Other issues that immigrants faced were the high rent, which constituted
about 30% of a family’s income, stressful jobs and the struggle to adjust
to the new life, and poverty. There were husbands who would come to the
United States alone, leaving behind their wives and children, without any
support, and in United States they would get a new family and desert their
previous family, their children having to grow up in broken homes. Given
this, these children were at risk. According to the statistics, in 1898
Jews had the lowest rate in the nation in terms of physical violence, but
for “white color crimes, such as fraud, forgery, and embezzlement” the rate
was higher (p. 84). There were also false ideas that Jews would control the
white slave trade and prostitution, which much stemmed from antisemitism.
There existed however, like in any poor districts, “gangsters, pimps, and
whores” (p. 85).
As opposed to their Eastern European brethren who were more traditional,
the German Jews were more Americanized, having been in the country for a
longer time. The German Jews worried that the ways of the Eastern European
Jews might lead to anti-Semitism, so they sought to Americanize them and
they wanted them to give up their “cultural distinctiveness” (p. 86)
As the Eastern European Jews emigrated to United States, an interesting
phenomena that occurred was the formation of a “transitional culture” (p.
69) which helped the new immigrants adjust, as they were adapting their
traditions to the new environment. United States was a new territory, with
a different class structure, and it provided a different context for the
Jewish tradition. Yet, in this environment, the new Jewish immigrants
formed Jewish communities and aspired to rise above.
The Jewish immigrants formed communities especially on the Lower East Side
in the 1880’s, and in the 1890’s, in the Harlem, East Bronx, and the
Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Boro Park, and Brownsville. There
were also Jewish neighborhoods in Boston, Philadelsphia, Chicago,
Rochester, Cleveland, and Detroit. Furthermore, areas such as the Lower
East Side, North End of Boston, and West Side of Chicago, served as
“fertile ground of cultural sustenance and renewal (p. 70). One of the
impediments that existed in living in New York was that though it was
American’s largest city, it was also crowded. During the 1900’s, the
immigrant population in New York made up 75% of the population,
outnumbering the American-born. The Jewish immigrants who came to New York
from Eastern Europe, in 1870’s, chose to remain on the Lower East Side, a
“twenty-square-block area south of Houston Street and east of the Bowery”
(p. 70). As time progressed, the percentage of Jews living on the Lower
East Side declined, from 75% in 1892, to 50% in 1903, and to 23% in 1916.
There were 542,000 Jews in 1910. The Jewish quarter was so crowded that
Jacob Riis remarked that only in Bombay and Calcutta there were higher
densities. There were also housing problems due to overcrowding in dumbbell
tenements.
The ghetto that was forming on the Lower East Side enabled Jews to get
jobs. In 1910, the garment industry was located here, with 70% of nation’s
women clothing and 40% of men’s clothing. The owners of the factories for
the garment industry were owned by German Jews. In 1897, 60% of New York
Jewish labor force was working in the apparel field, and 75% of the workers
in the industry were Jews. The needle industry operated in three ways,
through the family system, where family members were diving the work,
through outside manufacture, and finally through the sweatshop system.
Though the work was very demanding, with long hours of work, those employed
like this could communicate in their own language with each other and could
perform their religious duties. The Jewish immigrants who arrived between
1899 and 1914 were distinct from other immigrant groups because they
possessed higher industrial skills. They helped expand the garment trade in
New York. Jews worked in jobs such as hat and cap makers, furriers,
tailors, and milliners. Peddling was also very popular, and pushcart
vendors dreamed of one day being able to open a real store. Other jobs
opened to Jews were in seltzer companies, seltzer being considered the
“worker’s champagne”, in the kosher food industry, as the community needed
kosher butchers and shokhetim, supervisors, in preparation of holiday
foods. There were also jobs in construction industry, the remodeling
business, the garment industry, and the general ethnic economy.
Other issues that immigrants faced were the high rent, which constituted
about 30% of a family’s income, stressful jobs and the struggle to adjust
to the new life, and poverty. There were husbands who would come to the
United States alone, leaving behind their wives and children, without any
support, and in United States they would get a new family and desert their
previous family, their children having to grow up in broken homes. Given
this, these children were at risk. According to the statistics, in 1898
Jews had the lowest rate in the nation in terms of physical violence, but
for “white color crimes, such as fraud, forgery, and embezzlement” the rate
was higher (p. 84). There were also false ideas that Jews would control the
white slave trade and prostitution, which much stemmed from antisemitism.
There existed however, like in any poor districts, “gangsters, pimps, and
whores” (p. 85).
As opposed to their Eastern European brethren who were more traditional,
the German Jews were more Americanized, having been in the country for a
longer time. The German Jews worried that the ways of the Eastern European
Jews might lead to anti-Semitism, so they sought to Americanize them and
they wanted them to give up their “cultural distinctiveness” (p. 86)
Friday, February 24, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
My Jewishness as an Invisible Jew
You ask:
Who am I, where am I from?
Where am I going, where is my home?
Am I a Jew? Am I like you or unlike you?
What about my mother, and my mother’s mother…?
You say:
In a simple world, there is only one logic answer,
Chose between Yes or No.
You tell the truth, it can’t be both
Or perhaps…..in your mind,
You think that made up words will get you by?
I tell:
Who believes in poetry and songs?
In a surreal world, where broken links are whole…
I am a devoted Jew,
My mother is a Jew,
My mother’s mother is a Jew,
And I was born in shul,
They even taught me Torah
In the womb,
I have a Jewish home…
I’m not a homeless vagabond.
In black and white, before your eyes,
I stand as if I’m crazy, so bizarre,
Can you judge me as unworthy or
Will you take pity on me,
because I cry and sigh?
I’m a dismal soul; I’m an orphan,
I lost my mom, I lost my mind
Wandering from place to place
With no identity, no destination
Perhaps as a chutzpahdik,
I come to you and say
That the Torah is my home,
And as you shoo me away,
I leave and I return, I stay….
But if in my eyes, you find
The deepest sadness of the times
Can you tell me then:
What kind of Jew am I?
Times have passed,
The years were trampling over
My Jewishness—the mutilated victim,
And now it’s a homeless survivor
Who is broken, paralyzed by the cold,
With an identity shattered into pieces
For many generations, hidden away
And so its storyline can’t be told….
For lost neshamahs deprived
Of their beauty
And broken hearts in exile,
Scattered around,
Have served as its abode,
And it faded away,
Somewhere in between
Existence and non-existence
From ancient times, my Jewishness
Floated towards you
Like a tragic love letter
A message in a bottle
Washed ashore by a powerful storm
It emerged from underground
As the last breath of a lost soul
Who perished, having been
…buried alive,
For many years, countless times,
And it was left like that
With no food, no water.
Becoming today
The memory of the lost whispers of….
Shema Yisrael!
From the valley of dry bones
My Jewishness got resurrected
Like a stranger with no name
With no recollection,
Whose life has been erased
And instead, left like that,
Deserted, forgotten in time,
In anonymous shadows,
It metamorphosed
And now it’s like a fantasy, a dream,
Preserving the hidden calling from within.
By logical and tangible means
You won’t find it.
But if submerged in a mikvah
It will emerge again
Like a newborn,
And the Yiddishkeit will guide it.
And so, as bizarre as it seems
My Jewishness came forth like this
From the exile of
The coldest winter months
From the latest hour of the night
It survived, both dead and alive,
Shlepping alone,
Through penury, through madness
Hunger stricken, filled with tears,
Shaking, trembling—like a fugitive.
The story of my Jewishness
Started with the Children of Israel.
It was like Abraham in Canaan,
The call of one G-d, and not idolatry.
And then like Joseph,
My Jewishness was sold and jailed in Egypt,
And then like Moses, it had a speech impediment,
It needed a Joshua to speak for it.
Then it hid its origins like Esther
To save its people,
And it emerged again shortly just to
Hide itself from countless
Other oppressors
And the Spanish Inquisition.
And so hidden, it continued on,
And then it was reborn in the ghetto
And then it lived in the shtetl
In different forms,
It was hidden
From storm after storm
And ultimately,
It perished in the Holocaust
Along with the six million,
But my Jewishness will be reborn
Like the moon, it waxes and wanes,
But it never fades away,
And it comes back
In a different shape or form,
To live again
Among its Jewish brethren.
And so, as an imperfect Jew
That to you I may seem
Don’t deny my Jewishness,
And let it live.
As I fade away
In the ancient yesterdays
Like an invisible Jew, forget me not,
For many generations
And generations may pass
And yet, in a different life,
I will come back,
Metamorphosed,
From an invisible Jew
Into the stranger that
Found Yiddishkeit, like Ruth.
From invisible dreams,
My lost and broken-hearted Jewishness,
Learned to hope.
So take these broken pieces that are left,
And bestow on them a Hebrew name
So they’d be whole
As a Jewish soul
When they call out to you:
Shalom, and Shema Yisrael!
You ask:
Who am I, where am I from?
Where am I going, where is my home?
Am I a Jew? Am I like you or unlike you?
What about my mother, and my mother’s mother…?
You say:
In a simple world, there is only one logic answer,
Chose between Yes or No.
You tell the truth, it can’t be both
Or perhaps…..in your mind,
You think that made up words will get you by?
I tell:
Who believes in poetry and songs?
In a surreal world, where broken links are whole…
I am a devoted Jew,
My mother is a Jew,
My mother’s mother is a Jew,
And I was born in shul,
They even taught me Torah
In the womb,
I have a Jewish home…
I’m not a homeless vagabond.
In black and white, before your eyes,
I stand as if I’m crazy, so bizarre,
Can you judge me as unworthy or
Will you take pity on me,
because I cry and sigh?
I’m a dismal soul; I’m an orphan,
I lost my mom, I lost my mind
Wandering from place to place
With no identity, no destination
Perhaps as a chutzpahdik,
I come to you and say
That the Torah is my home,
And as you shoo me away,
I leave and I return, I stay….
But if in my eyes, you find
The deepest sadness of the times
Can you tell me then:
What kind of Jew am I?
Times have passed,
The years were trampling over
My Jewishness—the mutilated victim,
And now it’s a homeless survivor
Who is broken, paralyzed by the cold,
With an identity shattered into pieces
For many generations, hidden away
And so its storyline can’t be told….
For lost neshamahs deprived
Of their beauty
And broken hearts in exile,
Scattered around,
Have served as its abode,
And it faded away,
Somewhere in between
Existence and non-existence
From ancient times, my Jewishness
Floated towards you
Like a tragic love letter
A message in a bottle
Washed ashore by a powerful storm
It emerged from underground
As the last breath of a lost soul
Who perished, having been
…buried alive,
For many years, countless times,
And it was left like that
With no food, no water.
Becoming today
The memory of the lost whispers of….
Shema Yisrael!
From the valley of dry bones
My Jewishness got resurrected
Like a stranger with no name
With no recollection,
Whose life has been erased
And instead, left like that,
Deserted, forgotten in time,
In anonymous shadows,
It metamorphosed
And now it’s like a fantasy, a dream,
Preserving the hidden calling from within.
By logical and tangible means
You won’t find it.
But if submerged in a mikvah
It will emerge again
Like a newborn,
And the Yiddishkeit will guide it.
And so, as bizarre as it seems
My Jewishness came forth like this
From the exile of
The coldest winter months
From the latest hour of the night
It survived, both dead and alive,
Shlepping alone,
Through penury, through madness
Hunger stricken, filled with tears,
Shaking, trembling—like a fugitive.
The story of my Jewishness
Started with the Children of Israel.
It was like Abraham in Canaan,
The call of one G-d, and not idolatry.
And then like Joseph,
My Jewishness was sold and jailed in Egypt,
And then like Moses, it had a speech impediment,
It needed a Joshua to speak for it.
Then it hid its origins like Esther
To save its people,
And it emerged again shortly just to
Hide itself from countless
Other oppressors
And the Spanish Inquisition.
And so hidden, it continued on,
And then it was reborn in the ghetto
And then it lived in the shtetl
In different forms,
It was hidden
From storm after storm
And ultimately,
It perished in the Holocaust
Along with the six million,
But my Jewishness will be reborn
Like the moon, it waxes and wanes,
But it never fades away,
And it comes back
In a different shape or form,
To live again
Among its Jewish brethren.
And so, as an imperfect Jew
That to you I may seem
Don’t deny my Jewishness,
And let it live.
As I fade away
In the ancient yesterdays
Like an invisible Jew, forget me not,
For many generations
And generations may pass
And yet, in a different life,
I will come back,
Metamorphosed,
From an invisible Jew
Into the stranger that
Found Yiddishkeit, like Ruth.
From invisible dreams,
My lost and broken-hearted Jewishness,
Learned to hope.
So take these broken pieces that are left,
And bestow on them a Hebrew name
So they’d be whole
As a Jewish soul
When they call out to you:
Shalom, and Shema Yisrael!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)