by Emilia Decaudin

The Lower East Side is a Manhattan neighborhood located on the East River in the downtown portion of the island. For the past one-hundred and fifty years, the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City has been known as a destination for lower-class immigrants seeking to settle in the United States, particularly Old World Jewish immigrants looking for a new home and a new life. This migration has been chronicled not just by academic historians, but also by Hollywood filmmakers through movies that give us a unique perspective that couldn’t otherwise be provided by the records and technology of their time. In this essay, I will provide the reader with an overview of the history of the Lower East Side and its Jewish immigrant community interwoven with illustrations of this history from the 1976 film Hester Street.ⁱ

Residential construction in the Lower East Side began “in earnest” in the 1830s, but it was only until the 1850s when immigrants moved to the neighborhood, as wealthier residents left to settle farther uptown.ⁱⁱⁱ The majority of incoming foreigners were primarily from Germany, but as the 19^th century progressed, Jews from Eastern Europe rose to comprise the majority of newcomers.^iv By 1914, the Lower East Side was “New York’s densest Jewish neighborhood;” by 1916 it had a population of 353,000 Jews.^v

In Hester Street, we can see the large amount of both culturally orthodox and “integrated” Jews that live and work in the vicinity of the main character, Yankel / “Jake.”^vi His recently disembarked wife, Gitl, represents another addition to the growing number of Jewish immigrants in the neighborhood.

Eastern European Jews immigrated to the Lower East Side and the United States at large for multiple reasons. They saw America as a golden opportunity and even called it “goldene medine” or “golden land.”^vii Economic conditions in the Old World effected by the Industrial Revolution led to mass Jewish unemployment and even starvation.^viii These conditions were exacerbated by laws enacted by many nations that restricted the rights of Jews and forced them to live in certain areas an in certain ways.^ix Ethnic rivalries and hatred from other people-groups culminated in pogroms, or organized attacks on Jewish communities, which grew worse during times of economic distress.^x Over 800 Jews died in a single pogrom in the city of Odessa, in modern Ukraine.^xi The United States was seen as a way out of this violence: nearly one-third of Eastern Europe Jews managed to emigrate to the United States between 1880 and 1924, averaging 20,000 a year from 1881 to 1892 and 37,000 a year from 1892 to 1903.^xii

When Gitl moves in to Jake’s apartment, she is flabbergasted by the relative opulence of his lifestyle.^xiii She sees common household items as luxuries, and Jake’s relatively modest salary as a fortune akin to winning the lottery every week. For an Eastern European Jew coming from poverty, the economic promise of the “land of opportunity” is enough to cause families to separate as Jake and Gitl did.

Some Jewish immigrants did not actively practice their religion in the New World, and instead advocated for the separation of Jewish religion and Jewish culture.^xviii

Jewish immigrants were quick to carve out their own space in the Lower East Side and create a community that was a synthesis of the Eastern Europe where they came from and the New York they were going to. Jewish communities in the Old World were dense, exclusive, and devout, and rabbis feared that emigrants would lose their piety if in the “trefa medinah”: unclean land.^xiv However, this did not stop them from leaving, and it did not stop them from starting synagogues, kosher butchers and bakeries, and other vessels of their religious tradition in the Lower East Side and other Jewish neighborhoods.^xv The Meserich Synagogue at 415 East 6th Street is an example of this imported religious tradition, opened in 1910 by a congregation founded in 1888.^xvi

They practiced this separation in their own daily lives, neglecting to don the Kippah, curl their sideburns, or eat kosher. Many Jews in New York continue to follow this practice of “Jewish secularism,” neglecting the strict religious practices while maintaining the Jewish / Yiddish culture. When I asked a secular Jewish friend of mine about this duality of the Jewish identity, he told me that he did not feel he was any less Jewish for not following these customs, although some orthodox Jews try to promote the idea that people like him should feel less Jewish.

The tension between Jake and Gitl’s respective stances on integration is a primary plot point in Hester Street.^xix When we are first introduced to Jake, we see him dancing, drinking, and eating liberally with his friends. He does not wear a Kippah, he does not seem to be making any extra effort to eat Kosher, and he calls himself by his American nickname, Jake, instead of his native Yankel. Gitl, on the other hand, continues to cover her hair when outside the house, is reluctant to learn or speak English, and insists on calling Yankel and their young son Yossef by their Yiddish names. Jake hates this, and can’t understand why Gitl clings to traditional values as she does. In the end, they are unable to resolve their differences, and Jake divorces Gitl in order to mary Mamie while Gitl marries the more traditional Bernstein. Gitl is not entirely immune to the transformative effects of the New World, however, and is shown at the end of the movie to let out her hair and call her son by his American nickname, Joey.

Upon visiting the Lower East Side today, one can see that secularization has won out, compared to places such as Borough Park where orthodoxy still stands strong. While in the area, I’ve encountered many secular Jewish people, but it is difficult to tell the area used to have the densest population of Jews in New York by looking at just the buildings by themselves. Aside from a few synagogues and the Hester Street market, most buildings are generic storefronts and apartments, as many of the original tenements have been torn down since the age of Jewish immigration. It takes some effort to determine where neighboring Chinatown starts and where it ends — many Chinese immigrants have moved into areas that used to be populated solely by Jews.

I believe that this aspect of the Lower East Side demonstrates an ideal that is unique the American Experiment. An immigrant has come to the United States, made a home for themselves, and established their culture. Over time, that culture was synthesized with and became a part of American culture, and to this day continues to be mixed with other immigrant cultures as they partake in the same cycle. I can go to a Jewish deli for a bagel, and then to a Chinese restaurant for General Tso’s chicken, without leaving the same block. This is an example of the multicultural and opportunal message that America continues to broadcast to the rest of the world.

Gitl’s acceptance of American values while still maintaining a link to the old world through Bernstein is an example of a proper characterization of the neighborhood by Hollywood: as an intersection of cultures and a force for secularization.^xxi Gitl did not, at the end, consider herself less Jewish for neglecting to respect the same traditions that she had previously held in such high regard, but more Jewish for being able to serve as an integrated example of Jewish culture for other immigrants and for the rest of America. The Jewish people I know that live in the Lower East Side all lead lives that exemplify this kind of multiculturalism. Most of them are in positions that require them to represent the interests of people very much like themselves (usually in politics or non-profits). They are not only able to empathize with those people, but can partake in aspects of their cultural while also sharing their Jewish culture and heritage with them.

The Lower East Side of Manhattan is a diverse neighborhood shaped by Eastern Europe Jewish immigration in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Through the process of secularization, it has become a nexus for multicultural commingling between the descendants of Jewish immigrants, other immigrants, and “native” New Yorkers. The beginnings of this process can be see in the 1976 film Hester Street, where only a synthesis of American and Jewish culture “gets the girl,” rather than either a complete embrace of one culture at the complete expense of the other. We should all strive to rise to this level of both open-mindedness and self-preservation, in order to maintain America’s strength as a diverse nation that does not succumb to any one culture, ideology, or religion, but instead finds a way to distill the best parts of all these.

Bibliography

Brazee, Christopher D. “East Village/Lower East Side Historic District Designation Report.” Designation Report. East Village/Lower East Side Historic District: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, October 9, 2012. http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/2491.pdf.

Diner, Hasia R. Jews in America. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1999. http://ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=160246&site=ehost-live.

Ken, Beyond My. Katz’s Delicatessen. Digital Image, March 16, 2011. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katz%27s_Delicatessen.jpg.

Silver, Joan Micklin. Hester Street. Drama, Romance, 1976.

Team Dustizeff. Meserich Synagogue. Digital Image, October 4, 2008. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WSTM_Team_Dustizeff_0087.jpg.

References

ⁱ Joan Micklin Silver, Hester Street, Drama, Romance, (1976).

ⁱⁱ Ibid. Poster.

ⁱⁱⁱ Christopher D. Brazee, “East Village/Lower East Side Historic District Designation Report,” Designation Report (East Village/Lower East Side Historic District: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, October 9, 2012), 6, http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/2491.pdf.

^iv Ibid.

^v Hasia R. Diner, Jews in America (New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1999), 61, 80, http://ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=160246&site=ehost-live.

^vi Silver, Hester Street.

^vii Diner, Jews in America, 52.

^viii Ibid., 53.

^ix Ibid.

^x Ibid., 53–54.

^xi Ibid., 54.

^xii Ibid.

^xiii Silver, Hester Street.

^xiv Diner, Jews in America, 56–57.

^xv Ibid., 57.

^xvi Brazee, “East Village/Lower East Side Historic District Designation Report,” 23.

^xvii Team Dustizeff, Meserich Synagogue, Digital Image, October 4, 2008, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WSTM_Team_Dustizeff_0087.jpg.

^xviii Diner, Jews in America, 67.

^xix Silver, Hester Street.

^xx Beyond My Ken, Katz’s Delicatessen, Digital Image, March 16, 2011, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katz%27s_Delicatessen.jpg.

^xxi Silver, Hester Street.