Abraham Cahan’s novel, The Rise of David Levinsky, portrays the rags to riches story of a poor Russian Jew who comes to America in search for a better life. The story starts in a little Russian town of Antomir where David Levinsky grows up poor, having to survive with the support of only his mother since his father died when he was very young. The poverty that had stricken David’s family blocked several options of advancement for himself, almost forcing him to live the life of a Talmud student. As a devout student of the Talmud, he exhibited great religious zeal, sinning as little as possible, and being as pious as he could be; however, the death of his mother and the life he lived in Antomir thereafter caused him to veer off his religious track. Feeling a great sense of loneliness as well, he develops the idea of moving to America to start a new life. Once in America, David learned that his way of life in Antomir was impossible to continue. In order to survive, he had to adapt to the nonreligious ways of American lifestyle.
For David Levinsky, as well as many immigrants who came to America at that time, assimilating to the American lifestyle was extremely difficult. All throughout the novel, even before his arrival in America, David was faced with many obstacles that challenged his faith and sense of culture immensely. He could not simply study the Talmud every day and survive in the state he was in, save the period of time he was shown mighty generosity by Even and many others. In order to pursue an education and a life in America, he had to change the way he viewed his faith. What would seem like an ultimate sin to commit in his younger years would mean little to him in present time. Ultimately, David ended up succumbing to the grip of American life, expanding the growth of his business, and forsaking his Jewish religion.
This abandonment of religion or culture to assimilate to American lifestyle is an act not uncommon to immigrants coming to a new world. Cahan’s story of David’s “rise,” or better yet “fall,” as one of my peers put it, is a representation of how immigrants, who cannot maintain their previous lifestyle in their new settlement, drop the values they originally held in their home country. It is simply best put in the words of the men in the synagogue visited by David in his early American venture: “America is not Russia.”
