Mexicans and Jews, There and Here

What is Jewish culture?

The Jews expressed both enchantment and disillusionment upon coming to America, as evidenced in the following:

"Imagine the wonders of America. To begin with, there's the land. It's flowing with milk and honey. People make heaps of money, they make fortunes, they literally scoop up gold! And business is so good, it makes you dizzy. You can do anything you want. If you want a factory, you can set up a factory. If you feel like opening a little store, you open a little store. And the size of the cities! The width of the streets! The heights of the buildings!"
"That's all very well...but tell me: Don't people die in America, just like here? Or do they live on and on?"
"Of course they die, but the way they die- that's what's wonderful."

-Sholem Aleichem, from Beryl Isaac and the Wonders of America

In this quotation, novelist Sholem Aleichem marvels at the possibilities and freedoms that living in America entails. There is a sort of glamor and glory inherent in the country where people are allowed to advance regardless of their background.

Others did not wax as optimistically about the prospect of Jews in America however. Incorporation into the broader American culture, where retaining one's Jewish faith and tradition was not as easy as it had been in the old country, was not seen as a benefit. Instead, the breakdown of a long-established Jewish culture and tradition was seen as something to be deplored:

"Can a minority move about a majority without being absorbed by it?... Our more distinguishable characteristics are going one by one; we are becoming more and more like our neighbors and less distinguishable from them...In the ghetto, it was so simple...To keep the Sabbath, to attend divine services was to flow with the tide. Not to observe the law was to single one out for uncomfortable mistrust and social ostracism."

-Rabbi Morris Harris, 1893 speech

This quotation hints that, although Jews had been a people dispersed across European countries before coming to America, many lived in somewhat secluded shtetls (or towns) where observance of and participation in the faith was made almost inevitable. In the late nineteenth century, however, many Jews left shtetl life behind for economic reasons, or because of persecution. It also is important to note the 1881 assassination of Russia's Czar Alexander II, because it marked the end of a more reformist regime and the start of anti-Jewish pogroms across the country.       

Photograph of Alexander II from info-regenten.de

An interesting phenomenon later observed was that despite freedom from persecution, many of these migratory Jews actually seemed to become less religious over time. According to Jenna Weissman Joselit, visiting Professor of American Studies at Princeton Universtiy, what emerged was a new form of Judaism, as the religion's practitioner's developed a more American flair. "In the alchemy of America," Joselit writes in her study, The Wonders of America, "a new form of Jewish identity emerged- Jewishness- whose expression had as much, and perhaps more, to do with feeling 'Jewish at heart' then with formal ritual." In this study, Joselit shows how, in the first half of the twentieth century, Jews largely abandoned the traditional rituals in favor of a more emotional approach. Some Jews certainly bemoaned the decrease in faith, but this is a clear indication that no culture is static. After all, how was the Jewish religion to keep its old world appeal in a consumption-driven America? All that really happened was that the religion acquired a new form.

Food

Food almost perfectly illustrates the extent to which Jews abandoned certain technical aspects of the culture in favor of a less rigid American plurality. Although kosher cuisine was readily available in certain cities, like New York City, America's Jews frequently became more lax in terms of what they allowed themselves to consume.

What were the culinary restrictions imposed on the Jewish people? Discussion of precise restrictions will be kept to a minimal here. What is worth mentioning is Kashruth. Part of Halakha (Jewish law), Kashruth is an elaborate set of dietary laws that dictate the kinds of foods Jews can consume and their appropriate modes of preparation. For centuries, these laws had been strictly followed with a firm association placed between a Jewish home and a kosher home. 

In America, the connection between these two things was strongly eroded. However, for a time, eating kosher did enjoy a kind of renaissance in America. Kosher eat-outs became popular during the 1930's, during which 5,000 Delicatessens dotted the landscape of New York City alone. For many, these delis became a habitual place to procure fast, easy, and relatively inexpensive meals on a Thursday or a Saturday, when Jewish mothers desired a break from the routine. Adding to the kosher allure was the fact that many non-Jews partook as well. In addition, there were Jewish vegetarian restaurants and dairy restaurants. These distinctions (vegetarian verses dairy) were sometimes used interchangeably, somewhat obscuring their respective functions, but what is important to note is that they both provided an appropriate alternative. One of special distinction was Ratner's, founded in 1905 and located on New York's Lower East Side, first on Pitt Street and later on Delancey. The restaurant served numerous vegetarian, kosher meals, with names as intricate and delectable as potato pirogen and kashe varnitchkes.

image of Ratner's from Ronsaari.com

Technological advances also contributed to the kosher renaissance. A greater number of kosher products eventually lined the aisles of America's supermarkets. Beef frye, kosher white bread, and Crisco vegetable shortening (for which "the Hebrew race has been waiting 4,000 years") serve as some examples. With the advent of these products, what differentiated kosher food from non-kosher food was not the food itself, but rather the manner in which it had been prepared. 

Ultimately, however, these successes did not last. Despite kosher eat-outs and a greater availability of products like Crisco, what eventually resulted was a greater trend towards non-kosher eating. Indeed, kosher cooking, for the vast majority of Jews, came to be regarded as something to be observed on special occasions, like holidays.

Holidays and Festivities
 
Holidays are important to the culture of a people because they show what is valued and what is deemed worthy of celebration. We will discuss weddings, bar mitzvahs, and confirmations, among other celebrations. Other more religion-based holidays like Passover, Chanukah, Purim, Shavuoth, and Sukkoth are culturally significant as well, but be will be left to the religious domain of the website.

Like many other cultures brought into American society, young Jewish Americans largely adhered to the newfangled American concept of marrying for love. This may have dismayed some Jewish parents used to the old world schadchen system, in which a marriage broker arranged marriages between men and women. Under this system, all women married. In America, not all were certain to do so.

In addition to the greater freedom permitted in marriage, greater celebration was attached to the event as well. Traditionally, a small, simple family affair that took place in the home, an American Jewish marriage amounted instead to a lavish event in which no expense was spared.

Reminiscing about her wedding, one Jewish New York woman recounted, "I was married on Clinton Street. It was a big hall. The nicest wedding you could have. I had about twenty carriages standing by the door and my husband kept paying but he didn't have enough so he had to ask my uncle to lend him fifty dollars. He had to pay the cook, pay this one and that one. To stop all the paying we had to leave the wedding early." In this typical narrative, splendid expenditures were channeled into weddings, even when the funds themselves were in scant supply.
 

Consumer-driven American society seemed to encourage this trend. Resplendent, shimmering halls like Victoria, Clinton, and Pythagoras Halls were in no short supply in places like New York City. Jewish clergy exhibited little enthusiasm regarding this trend. Claiming it eroded the sanctity of marriage, they argued that wedding ceremonies should be brought instead to the synagogue, although this had not been the traditional wedding setting in the Old World either. Alarmed at cultural changes, these rabbis, ironically enough, proposed alternatives outside of the tradition.

On a slight side note: If these wedding ceremonies were accused of parting from the norms in Jewish culture, the greater demise of Jewish marriages later on no doubt set off another alarm. Through the opening decades of the twentieth century, Jewish divorce rates approached those of their American counterparts. By its very nature, divorce runs counter to the emphasis Jewish culture places on legacy through children and preservation through faith. America's urban landscape in some respects altered the character of Jewish value systems.

Here we will leave the wedding and return to its antecedent: the bar mitzvah, a custom dating back to the thirteenth century when a thirteen-year-old boy is called to the Torah for the first time, and is often required to make a speech to display his erudition.

In many respects, the transformation of bar mitzvah in America runs parallel to what happened to the Jewish American wedding. In old world countries, this rite of passage had been celebrated as a modest affair with a simple meal and little fanfare. A Jew from Romania remembers the event as "no ceremony at all...There was a little herring, some kichel, and a few drops of schnaps, and that was that." Like weddings, the affair was traditionally simple and observed in the home.

In America, however, the bar mitzvah became much more extravagant. Elaborate invitations and magnificent party halls marked the occasion. There seemed to be more emphasis placed on food then on the boy's learning. As with the wedding, the materialistic tendencies of the Jewish American bar mitzvah celebration could be said to detract from the sanctity of the occasion.

Also interesting was the commencement of confirmation celebrations on American soil. A product of Reform Judaism's attempt to equalize the gender lines in the early 1800's, confirmation ceremonies typically took place in the spring and witnessed a sort of group bar mitzvah for girls. Although in retrospect these confirmation ceremonies are often seen as responsible for reinforcing, and not relegating, gender stereotypes, the ideology behind them was still noble.

Interestingly, they too have a connection to the Jewish American wedding ceremony. Like both the wedding and the bar mitzvah before it, great emphasis was placed on the event's material aspect, so much so that the intended spiritual focus was forsaken in favor of a kind of competition with the other girls for gifts and dresses.

The connection between the two ceremonies (wedding and confirmation) goes even further. Some wedding ceremonies sought to equalize gender lines as well, this time with the introduction of double ring-giving ceremonies, in which the bride presented the groom with a ring of his own. Again, this practice was an element of Reform Judaism that gained popularity in America, where ideas of gender equality were similarly gaining ground.

In conclusion, ideas of progressivism and consumerism from both cultures played into one another.

Entertainment

Attempting to write about Jewish American entertainment is almost as overwhelming a task as writing about Jewish American culture. Only a brief introduction will be given here. 

As Irving Howe explains in his book, World of Our Fathers, Yiddish novelists "Mendele, Sholem Aleichem, and Peretz, the classic trio of Yiddish literature, were producing major works in Poland and Russia" in the late nineteenth century." Many of these works described life in the shtetl, but were significant works nonetheless.

In contrast to this exalted literature, many early Jewish attempts at writing in America fell into the category of shundromanen, or cheap popular romances- literature without any real merit. Only time would tell whether these new works would eventually hark back to old world accomplishments or draw closer to the American literary tradition.

Following Jewish migration to America, a number of different literary movements arose. Again, we will only go through some of the major movements, leaving aside many of the individual writers. 

One of the earliest literary movements to arise was that of the sweatshop writers. In many respects, this movement seemed to bear more relevance to the socialist movement than to any great advance in literature. Later Jewish writers came to regard it as a mere extension of the Jewish Socialist movement, and its work as propaganda with little literary merit.

The next movement to emerge somewhat shifted the literary focus. The poets of yiddishkeit, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, merged both socialist and nationalist themes. Unlike those before them, they were more interested in establishing ties with the traditional culture of the Eastern European Jews. Searching for and establishing the Jewish identity was a matter of greater concern.

Following this movement, came "Di Yunge" (The Youth). A little magazine, "The Youth" felt neither at home in America or in the land that had been left behind, and instead decided to shift the focus to creating real, world-class literature. In this respect, they differed from the yiddishkeit poets before them who had attempted to map out a Jewish American identity. Instead, European poets were turned to as writers worthy of emulation. The voice of the poet emerged, and unlike that of earlier movements, this poet's voice was an individual voice, and not a mere extension of the teeming masses. What resulted, however, was a group of poets with greater distance from their people.

The last major literary movement that will be discussed here is In Zikh, which again, served as a kind of reaction to that which came before it. This time, the cause of reaction was "Di Yunge," which it viewed as "too poetic, too cut off from the blunt realities of Jewish experience, too devoted to the poem as a smoothed-out and nicely-rounded form." Like "Di Yunge" before them, these Introspectivists would write about individual matters of the heart, but they would not be quite so cut off from the Jewish American culture of which they were a part. Distinctly Jewish themes were not needed; any concern could be a Jewish concern.

Obviously, there are numerous other elements to Jewish American entertainment, but literature was chosen as the focus here. Theatre and music undoubtedly had their own evolution in America as well, due to both outside and inside influences.