A Different Mirror: Part 3, Chapter 11: The Exodus from Russia Summary & Analysis

According to Takaki, Caliban could have likewise been Jewish. In Russia, Jews were “degraded as the ‘Other’” and faced intense prejudice and violence. They came to the US with no hope of returning to the land from which they’d come. The Russian poor had been brainwashed into believing that Jews were to blame for their problems, rather than the wealthy and oppressive elite. Forced to live in a single region of the country, Jews were prohibited from owning land. Most lived in urban areas and worked in manufacturing or commerce. They faced the terror of pogroms, outbursts of violence where Jews were massacred and synagogues and businesses destroyed.

Pogroms left Russian Jews in search of another homeland, and many found it in the US. By 1914, a third of Jews in Eastern Europe had left, with most moving to America. Rumors spread characterizing the US as a land of freedom and abundance. Thrilled by stories of life there, many Jews became desperate to go, selling practically all their possessions in order to raise money for the journey. Most Jewish immigrants felt that they were participating in a landmark point in Jewish history, where homeless Jews would finally have a land of their own. When the ships carrying immigrants finally arrived on American shores, people were overcome with excitement and wonder at the beauty of the landscape.

Most of these new arrivals had no money, but they tended to be well-educated skilled workers. They usually came in family groups, and about half were women. Most chose to settle in the Lower East Side of New York City, where “a new Jewish community blossomed.” The concentration of Jews in this neighborhood could make it seem as if one had never left Russia in the first place. The neighborhood was a poor “ghetto,” where conditions were cramped, unpleasant, and “prison-like.” The tenements lacked bathing facilities, and on hot summer nights, residents would languish in the park to get some fresh air.

Organizations such as landsmanshafts (lodges) sprang up in the community, and people congregated in bathhouses and cafes. They attended lectures in droves, or went to the movies. The neighborhood had an abundance of peddlers, many of whom were highly educated scholars who had been supported by their wives back in Russia. In the US, many wives insisted that their husbands needed to earn a living themselves. The majority of Jews in New York City worked in the garment industry. Many brought sewing skills with them when they moved to the US, and their arrival coincided with the expansion of garment manufacturing in the country. In the late 19th century, there was an explosion of clothing factories, and Jewish garment workers “revolutionized the way clothes were made and what Americans wore.”

The competitive nature of the garment industry pushed both laborers and contractors to work at incredible speed. Workers would collaborate in teams, with each member forced to keep up with the rapid pace of production. Conditions in these sweatshops were harsh; one female garment worker asserted: “We were like slaves.” Accidents were common, and workers described feeling like extensions of the machines at which they sat. Laboring for 11-15 hours a day, these workers still strived to use their precious moments of free time pursuing pleasure activities like dancing. Many garment workers were young women, who had also worked in the clothing industry back in Russia. Most were single, hoping to get married after a few years of work.

Many of these young women were forced to leave their studies at a fairly young age, even if they wanted to continue, in order to work full-time. In 1911, a terrible tragedy struck at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The building caught fire, trapping 800 workers inside, most of whom were young women. Many of the girls jumped to their deaths rather than be consumed by the heat and smoke, while another 146 died inside. Most of the dead women were Jewish and Italian, and news of the disaster horrified the Lower East Side. Before the fire, many of the women who ended up dying had gone on strike in 1909.

One of the leaders of the strike, Clara Lemlich, was a charismatic teenager who compared the plight of the garment workers to enslaved black people in the South. Although the strikers faced police violence, they remained steadfast, and their courage impressed the wider community. More strikes followed in the months and years to come, and these efforts “represented a watershed in Jewish-American history.” The energy that emerged from them was not just boldly working class, but also distinctly Jewish. The strikes intensified “a shared sense of ethnicity,” and of a particular Jewish-American identity.

For new arrivals, the worst possible thing was to be called a “greenhorn.” Jewish immigrants pursued the goal of assimilation with enthusiasm. They rid themselves of their old clothes, making an effort to dress in the latest American fashions, and set their minds to mastering English. Many people changed their names to more Anglicized versions. Some gave presents during Christmas to demonstrate that they were not greenhorns, and many started taking summer vacations in places like the Catskills. All this was done in spite of the fact that most Lower East Side families had very little money. These immigrants still did everything they could to appear wealthy and assimilated.

Unlike in Russia, Jewish wives in the US largely did not participate in wage labor, instead being charged with running the home. According to one historian, having arrived in the US “Jewish immigrants became increasingly sensitive to bourgeois notions of respectability” as part of their assimilationist mission. Upward mobility came when unionized workers slowly built up the capital to pay for their children’s education. However, it was mostly only boys who received support for their education; their sisters continued to work in sweatshops in order to send their brothers to college. Young women’s earning often also helped support their parents.

By the First World War, colleges in New York City had a high proportion of Jewish students. By 1920, Harvard was 20% Jewish, and this sparked an anti-Semitic backlash. Lowell publicly announced that although Harvard was the least anti-Semitic place in the US, it would still be necessary to restrict Jewish enrollment to the college in order to prevent anti-Semitic feeling from developing among the students. The college established certain criteria designed to ensure there was a Jewish quota each year. Jewish enrollment to Harvard declined to about 10-16% per year through the 1930s. The Irish mayor of Boston, meanwhile, criticized Harvard for this decision, arguing that anti-Semitic restrictions could be an ominous sign of what was to come for Italians, Spanish, Poles, and Irish-Americans.

What happened at Harvard was part of a broader “nativist movement.” In 1924, Congress passed an act that severely limited immigration, particularly from southern and eastern parts of Europe. Where Jews had initially been seen in a fairly positive light, as more came, they began facing harsher and harsher resentment. Anti-Semitic stereotypes proliferated, violence erupted, and Jews faced discrimination from employers who listed their jobs as available to “Christians only.” Anti-Semitic feeling intensified as Jews began leaving the Lower East Side and settling in other areas, such as Harlem, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. However, they tended to move in concentrated groups, keeping established networks of kinship and support.