Hues of adjustment: Landsmanshaftn in inter-war New York and Tel-Aviv

Jewish History

Volumn 20, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 41-67

  Helman, Anat ^a  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

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EID: 33746133883     PISSN: 0334701X     EISSN: 15728579     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10835-005-5980-0     Document Type: Article

References (189)

1. See Ira Rosenwaike, Population History of New York City (Syracuse, 1972), 188, 129.
2. Aryeh Yodfat, Shishim shenot hitpathutah shel Tel-Aviv (Tel-Aviv, 1969), 15, 23, 43.
3. Eli Lederhendler, "New York City, The Jews, and 'the Urban Experience'," People of the City: Jews and the Urban Challenge: Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. 15, Ezra Mendelsohn, ed., (New York and Oxford, 1999), 52.
4. Michael Romann, "The Shift of the Demographic and Economic Center from Jerusalem toTel-Aviv," in Hagit Lavsky, ed., Jerusalem in Zionist Vision and Realization (Jerusalem, 1989), 220-222 (in Hebrew).
5. See Hannah Kliger, Jewish Hometown Associations and Family Circles in New York (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992), 44, 46.
6. Beth S. Wenger, New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise (New Haven and London, 1996), 145.
7. Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America (Baltimore and London, 1997), 81.
8. Daniel Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939 (Cambridge MA and London, 1997), 201.
9. See Sorin, Tradition Transformed, 81-82.
10. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 204.
11. Steven M. Lowenstein, Frank-furt on the Hudson: The German-Jewish Community of Washington Heights, 1933-1983, Its Structure and Culture (Detroit, 1989), 105, 192, 198.
12. Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (New York and London, 1976), 189.
13. Michael R. Weisser, A brotherhood of Memory: Jewish Landsmanshaftn in the New World (New York, 1985), 5, 32.
14. Letter from 1922 - Tel-Aviv Jaffa Municipal Historical Archive (hereafter: TAA), 2/50a.
15. Letter from 1926 - TAA, 3/83b.
16. Letter from 1933 - TAA 4/2623b.
17. Letter from 1937 - TAA, 4/2624c.
18. Memorandum from 1932 - General Zionist Archive, J18/103.
19. And see Yoav Gelber, New Homeland: Immigration and Absorption of Central European Jews, 1933-1948 (Jerusalem, 1990), 479 (in Hebrew).
20. For instance Haaretz, June 13th, 1926 and June 18th, 1926.
21. The Association of German Immigrants is the exception. See, for instance, Gelber, New Homeland, 237-290.
22. Hannah Kliger, "In Support of Their Society: The Organizational Dynamics of Immigrant Life in the United States and Israel," in Kerry M. Olitzky, ed., We Are Leaving Mother Russia (Cincinnati, 1990), 33-453,
23. compares New York's landsmanshaftn only to later Israeli ones. A comparison of Bialystok landsmanshaftn in New York, Buenos Aires and Tel-Aviv was conducted by Rebecca A Kobrin, Conflicting Diasporas, Shifting Centers: Migration and Identity in a Transnational Polish Jewish Community, 1878-1952 (Ph.D. dissertation, the University of Pennsylvania, 2002), 84-151.
24. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 44.
25. Moshe David Gaon, Oriental Jews in Eretz-Israel (Jerusalem, 1928), 233 (in Hebrew).
26. See Gelber, New Homeland, 237, 240-242.
27. See Howe, World of Our Fathers, 185.
28. Letters from 1938 and 1939 - TA A, 4/3838. "However, organizations representing specific regions or towns proliferated after the large wave of immigration wave to the State of Israel; on which, see, for instance, Ma'ariv, November 13th, 1949, and May 12th, 1950."
29. Protocol from 1939 - TAA, 4/3838.
30. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 19, 81-84.
31. On the contribution of ethnic networks to upward mobility also see Shelly Tenenbaum, "Immigrants and Capital: Jewish Loan Societies in the United States, 1880-1945," American Jewish History, 76/1 (1986), 77.
32. See Hagit Lavsky, "Ha-'omnam kayam kesher mahuti beyn yehudim vekapitalism? Ha-mikreh ha-eretz Yisraeli," in Menahem Ben-Sasson, ed., Religion and Economy: Connections and Interactions (Jerusalem, 1995), 389-396 (in Hebrew).
33. Letter from Tarpav - TAA, 3/83b.
34. Letter from 1931 - TAA, 4/3021.
35. Letter from 1925 - TAA, 3/81a.
36. Letter from 1926 - TAA, 3/81a.
37. Also correspondence from 1938 - TAA, 4/3022.
38. Letter from 1932 - TAA, 4/1397.
39. Letters from 1930-1932 - TAA, 4/1396.
40. Letter from 1938 - TAA, 4/3837.
41. Letter from 1933 - TAA, 4/3837.
42. Gaon, Oriental Jews, note 4, 233.
43. See Wenger, New York Jews, 145-148.
44. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 12-13, 161.
45. Kobrin, Conflicting Diasporas, 104-106.
46. Letter from Tarpab - TAA, 2/39a.
47. Letter from 1925 - TAA, 3/158a. Poster from 1931 - The Poster Collection in the National and University Library, V1970/16.
48. Letter from 1938 - TAA, 4/3837.
49. Kobrin, Conflicting Diasporus, 148, 139.
50. Letter from Tarpab - TAA, 2/39a.
51. Gaon, Oriental Jews, 234.
52. Also see Letter from Tarpag - TAA, 2/52a.
53. Letter from 1937 - TAA, 4/4159.
54. And see Gelber, New Homeland, 275-290.
55. See Howe, World of Our Fathers, 184.
56. Jonathan D. Sarna, "The Evolution of the American Synagogue," in Robert M. Seltzer and Norman J. Cohen, eds., The Americanization of the Jews (New York and London, 1995), 223.
57. Jenna Weissman Joselit, New York's Jewish Jews: the Orthodox Community in Interwar Years (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1990), 27.
58. Letter from Tarpag - TAA, 2/1.
59. Letter from Tarzat - TAA 4/3207.
60. Letter from Tarpab - TAA. 2/79c.
61. Letter from 1933 - TAA, 4/23r.
62. Letter from Tarzaz - TAA, 8/779.
63. Davar, April 13th, 1927.
64. See Nahum Karlinsky, "The Hasidic Community in Safed during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century as Immigrant Society," in David Assaf, Joseph Dan and Immanuel Etkes, eds., Studies in Hasidism (Jerusalem, 1999), 172-189 (in Hebrew).
65. See Karlinsky, "Hasidic Community" 181, and note 33, 173.
66. See Howe, World of Our Fathers, 185.
67. Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 204.
68. See Anat Helman, " 'Even the Dogs in the Streets Bark in Hebrew': National Ideology and Everyday Culture in Tel-Aviv," Jewish Quarterly Review, 92/3-4 (2002), 359-382.
69. Haaretz, November 2nd, 1923.
70. Letter from 1924 - TAA, 2/37.
71. See Thomas Sowell, Immigration and Culture: A World View (New York, 1996), 102.
72. Memorandum from 1935 - The Lavon Institute, IV-250-72-1-1514.
73. Doar Hayom, August 5th, 1934. Yedi'ot 'iriyat Tel-Aviv, Sefer Hashanah Tarzat (1939), 146.
74. See Nicholas Deakin, In Search of Civil Society (Basingstoke and New-York, 2001), 4.
75. Lawrence E. Cahoone, Civil Society: The Conservative Meaning of Liberal Politics (Malden and Oxford, 2002), 220, 225.
76. Quoted by Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 29-30.
77. Also see David T. Beito, " 'This Enormous Army': The Mutual-Aid Tradition of American Fraternal Societies Before the Twentieth Century," in David T. Beito, Peter Gordon and Alexander Tabarrock, eds., The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society, (Ann Arbor, 2002), 182-203.
78. On the importance of organizational activity for successful and rapid immigrant adjustment see Samuel Baily, Immigrants in the Land of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City (Ithaca NY, 1999), 219-220, 222.
79. See Robert M. Seltzer, "The Ironies of American Jewish History," in Robert M. Seltzer and Norman J. Cohen, eds., The Americanization of the Jews (New York and London, 1995), 8.
80. Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 113.
81. See Hasia R. Diner, Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place in America (Princeton and Oxford, 2000), 139.
82. See Diner, Lower East Side Memories, 138-139.
83. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 80.
84. See Ernst Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil society and Its Rivals (London, 1994), 203.
85. See Kliger, Jewish Hometown Associations, 51.
86. Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 106.
87. See Moshe Lissak, The Elites of the Jewish Community in Palestine (Tel-Aviv, 1981), 17 (in Hebrew).
88. See Larry Diamond, "Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation," Journal of Democracy, 5/3 (1994), 11.
89. Richard Dagger, "Metropolis, Memory and Citizenship," in Engin F. Isin, ed., Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City (London and New York, 2000), 25-47.
90. James Holston and Arjun Appadurai, "Cities and Citizenship," Public Culture, 8/2 (1996), 188.
91. Letter from 1936 - TAA, 4/2674.
92. Letter from Tarpad - TAA, 2/57.
93. Letter from Tarpab - TAA, 2/39a.
94. For comparison see Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 114, 143.
95. See Sorin, Tradition Transformed, 110.
96. Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 84-85, 115, 128-129.
97. Howe, World of Our Fathers, 184.
98. Letter from 1932 - TAA, 4/3837.
99. Protocol and memorandum from 1935 - Lavon Institute, IV-250-72-1-1514.
100. Cahoone, Civil Society, 11-12.
101. See Howe, World of Our Fathers, 189.
102. See Howe, World of Our Fathers, 184.
103. Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 122-125.
104. See Lederhendler, "New York City," 50-54.
105. See Diner, Lower East Side Memories, 138-139.
106. See Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, The Origins of the Israeli Polity (Tel-Aviv, 1977), 341 (in Hebrew).
107. Letter from Tarpab - TAA, 2/39a.
108. Letter from Tarzab - TAA, 4/3781.
109. Letter from 1922 - TAA, 2/6c.
110. Letter from 1922 - TAA, 2/2b.
111. Letter from 1925 - TAA, 3/76b.
112. Letter from 1936 - TAA, 4/2624b.
113. Letter from 1937 - TAA, 4/2624c.
114. Letter from 1933 - TAA, 4/2623b.
115. Letter from 1934 TAA, 4/2624a.
116. On the symbolic meaning of street names see Amit Pinchevski and Efraim Torgovnik, "Signifying Passages: the Signs of Change in Israeli Street Names," Media, Culture and Society, 24/3 (2002), 365-367.
117. Maoz Azaryahu, "The Power of Commemorative Street Names," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 40 (1996), 320-321, 313, 328.
118. See Stephen Castels and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (New York and London, 1998), 30-32.
119. See Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge, 1997), 167-168.
120. See Lowenstein, Frankfurt on the Hudson, 254.
121. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 51.
122. Gellner, Conditions of Liberty, 126.
123. See Lowenstein, Frankfurt on the Hudson, 105, 254, 257.
124. See Diner, Lower East Side Memories, 138-139.
125. See Howe, World of Our Fathers, 185.
126. See Castels and Miller, The Age of Migration, 32, 29.
127. See T. K. Oomen, Citizenship, Nationality and Ethnicity (Cambridge, 1997), 17.
128. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 117.
129. Ya'acov Rabinovitz, Hasagot: ma'amarim u-reshimot (Tel Aviv, 1935), 101-102;
130. although, as Bartal notes, many of these "Russian" immigrants were actually only first or second generation "Russified" Jews; Israel Bartal, "The Second Aliyah as a Factor of Cultural Russification in the Yishuv,"
131. unpublished lecture delivered at the "One Hundred Years to the Second Aliyah" Conference, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, March 23rd, 2004 (in Hebrew).
132. See Abraham N. Polak, "Yehudei polin be-'eretz yisrael," in Israel Bartal and Israel Gutman, eds., The Broken Chain: Polish Jewry through the Age (Jerusalem, 1997), 405-406 (in Hebrew).
133. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 43. Certain parallels in associational patterns and ethnic ('edot) redefinitions could be found among Jewish immigrants in 16th century Rome;
134. see Kenneth Stow, Theater of Acculturation: The Roman Ghetto in the Sixteenth Century (Seattle and London, 2001), 23, 26, 28, 106, 147 (n.66).
135. Although in other Jewish cities in Palestine, Sephardim and Yemenites maintained traditional organizational patterns in va'adey kehillah and other such religious institutions, in Tel Aviv, Asian Jews - both immigrants and natives of Palestine - also adopted the European landsmanshaft model; see Gaon, Oriental Jews, 103-226, 235-242.
136. Notice from 1933 - The Poster Collection in the National and University Library, V1970/12.
137. For instance Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 80.
138. See Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Cambridge MA and London, 2000), 16-19, 27, 30, 96, 115-118, 125-126.
139. See Lowenstein, Frankfurt on the Hudson, 20.
140. See Sorin, Tradition Transformed, 252, 82.
141. See Kliger, "In Support of Their Society," 38-39.
142. Sarna, "The Evolution of the American Synagogue," 223.
143. Daniel Soyer, "Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Landsmanshaftn and Questions of Immigrant Identity," American Jewish History, 76/1 (1986), 24.
144. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 119-120.
145. Also Nathan M. Kaganoff, "The Jewish Landsmanshaftn in New York City in the Period Preceding World War I," American Jewish History, 76/1 (1986), 61-62.
146. See Roger Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Durham and London, 1991), 18;
147. Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations (Cambridge and Oxford, 1988), 47-48.
148. See Will Kymlicka and Wayn Norman, "Citizenship in Culturally Diverse Societies: Issues, Contexts, Concepts," in Will Kymlicka, and Wayne Norman, eds., Citizenship in Diverse Societies (Oxford and New York, 2000), 14.
149. See King, Making Americans, 19.
150. Letter from 1924 - TAA, 3/157b.
151. Jacob Steinberg, Reshimot (Tel-Aviv, 1928), 74.
152. Hashomer Hatza'ir, November 1st 1936, 6-8. Letter from 1937 - TAA, 4/3456. 'Iton meyuhad, 7 Shvat Tarzakh, 1.
153. William Sharlip and Albert A. Owens, Adult Immigrant Education: Its Scope, Content, and Methods (New York, 1925), 17.
154. Letter from 1925 - TAA, 3/158a.
155. Letter from 1933 - TAA, 4/3628.
156. Ha-'oleh: bitonah shel hitachdut 'oley polin beretz yisrael (Nissan Tarzah), 6.
157. Letter from 1935 - TAA, 4/3837.
158. Kobrin, Conflicting Diasporas, 140.
159. Haaretz, June 4th, 9th, 10th, 18th, 1926.
160. Ha-Yishuv, June 18th, 1926, 5-6.
161. Haaretz, June 13th, 1926.
162. See Michael Bunce, The Countryside Ideal: Anglo-American Images of Landscape (London and New-York, 1994), 2.
163. John Rennie Short, Imagined Country: Society, Culture and Environment (London and New-York, 1991), 30-31, 34.
164. See Lederhendler, "New York City," 49-50.
165. Also see Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 12.
166. See Howe, World of Our Fathers, 183-184, 187.
167. Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 27.
168. Weisser, A Brotherhood of Memory, 75-76, 4-5.
169. See Weisser, A Brotherhood of Memory, 25-26.
170. See David G. Roskies, "The Shtetl in Jewish Collective Memory," in The Jewish Search for a Usable Past (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1999), 57.
171. See Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 189, 191, 193-194.
172. Soyer, "Between Two Worlds," 24.
173. See Shalom Ratzabi, "The Controversy of Exile Denial during the Thirties," Zionism, 18 (1994), 307 (in Hebrew).
174. Gideon Shimoni, "The Theory and Practice of Shlilat Hagalut Reconsidered," in Anita, Shapira, Jehuda Reinharz and Jay Harris, eds., The Age of Zionism (Jerusalem, 2000), 45-52 (in Hebrew).
175. John M. Efron, Medicine and German Jews: A History (New Haven and London, 2001), 8, 140.
176. See Anat Helman, "East or West? Tel-Aviv in the 1920s and 1930s," in People of the City, 69, 71. Letter from September 1924 - TAA, 3/64a.
177. See Helman, "East or West?" 70, 72, 75-76.
178. Rachel Elboim-Dror, Yesterday's Tomorrow, Volume A (Jerusalem, 1993), 160-166 (in Hebrew).
179. On the territorial orientation of the Yishuv and its self-absorption, see Shmuel Almog, "People and the Land in Modern Jewish Nationalism," in Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira, eds., Essential Papers on Zionism (New York and London, 1996), 56, 58.
180. See Lavsky, "Ha-'omnam kayam kesher mahuti," 391.
181. See Israel Bartal, "Heavanly America: The USA as an Ideal Model for 19th Century East European Jews," in Miriam Eliav-Feldon, ed., Following Colombus: America 1492-1992 (Jerusalem, 1997), 511-522 (in Hebrew).
182. See Roskies, "The Shtetl," 49.
183. Poster from 1934 - The Poster Collection in the National and University Library, V1970/6. 'Ron meyuhad, 19 Adar Tarzakh, 3. Letter from 1934 - TAA, 4/2674.
184. For example Yitzhak Edel et al, Zemer 'am (Tel-Aviv, 1946), 5-25.
185. Kobrin, Conflicting Diasporas, 146.
186. Hannah Kliger, "Traditions of Grass-Roots Organization and Leadership: The Continuity of Landsmanshaftn in New York," American Jewish History, 76/1 (1986), 39.
187. Roskies, "The Shtetl," 61-66.
188. See Jacob Metzer and Oded Kaplan, The Jewish and Arab Economies in Mandatory Palestine (Jerusalem, 1990), 102 (in Hebrew).
189. See Ezra Mendelshon, ed., People of the City, vii.