The Southern District of the Arbeter Ring, 1908-1949
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Yiddish Politics in Southern States: The Southern District of the Arbeter Ring, 1908-1949 Josh Parshall A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of American Studies. Chapel Hill 2017 Approved by: Marcie Cohen Ferris Jonathan Boyarin Timothy Marr Karen Auerbach Seth Kotch © 2017 Josh Parshall ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Josh Parshall: Yiddish Politics in Southern States: The Southern District of the Arbeter Ring, 1908-1949 (Under the direction of Marcie Cohen Ferris) Between 1908 and 1925, East European Jewish immigrants in nearly twenty southern cities founded branches of the Arbeter Ring (Workmen‘s Circle), a socialist-oriented, Yiddish- speaking fraternal organization. While the New York-based group was a well-known part of the Jewish labor movement in the North, its southern history remains underexplored. This dissertation demonstrates that secular Yiddish culture and left-wing politics served the needs of early twentieth-century immigrants as they both adapted to and resisted the economic, political and racial atmosphere of the New South. Branches offered mutual aid benefits, collected funds for international relief, hosted cultural events and operated Yiddish classes for children. They also promoted Socialist candidates and supported striking workers. In the 1920s, pro-Communist members in several cities formed radical splinter branches that eventually left the organization to join the International Workers Order. Through their cultural programs, Arbeter Ring members built local iterations of a transnational Yiddish public sphere, even as their efforts to educate their children in Yiddish anticipated the ongoing flourishing of secular Yiddish culture. By 1945, several events—including the Nazi Genocide, the rise of Zionism and the realignment of the American political landscape—caused the southern Arbeter Ring to enter a long decline. In response, its leaders wrote and/or collected historical essays and personal memoirs about Arbeter Ring activity and Yiddish life in the South. These historiographic efforts reflect the centrality of iii memory in Arbeter Ring and Jewish-left life, as commemorative texts both justify Arbeter Ring activities in relation to members‘ experiences in Tsarist Russia and set forth the group‘s history as a ―usable past‖ for future generations. Today, the organization‘s decades-long history in the South is nearly invisible in Jewish communities, which have physically migrated to suburban settings as they have moved politically and culturally closer to the American mainstream. Despite the southern Arbeter Ring‘s obscurity, its history may yet constitute a usable past as Jewish southerners reckon with questions of Jewishness, politics, race and place. Through its examination of Arbeter Ring history in the South, this dissertation expands the scope of several scholarly fields, including modern Jewish politics, southern Jewish history and southern studies. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people helped me in the process of this dissertation, whether by sharing their experiences in an oral history interview, providing leads for archival resources, editing proposals and drafts, listening to me ramble about the project or simply being supportive friends during the peaks and valleys that accompany this kind of academic writing. Without question, Professor Marcie Cohen Ferris, my dissertation advisor, deserves the first mention here. Since she introduced me to the study of southern Jewish history in spring 2008, Marcie has provided steady guidance and enthusiastic support. Her ongoing mentorship has unquestionably changed the course of my career and my life. My relationship with Professor Jonathan Boyarin has been equally important. I was extraordinarily lucky to have Jonathan as an instructor and advisor at the University of Kansas and as a master‘s student at the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Although he left UNC just as I returned to enroll in the Ph.D. program in American Studies, he was gracious enough to serve as a committee member for the dissertation, as well as in his permanent role of mentor, colleague and friend. My remaining committee members, Professors Karen Auerbach, Seth Kotch and Timothy Marr, offered sage advice and asked important questions throughout the process, as well. Karen oversaw a pair of independent readings classes in my final year of coursework that proved indispensable for my development as a scholar of Jewish history, and I continue to benefit from her knowledge of Jewish historiography as a discipline and her familiarity with the networks that constitute the field. Seth Kotch pushed me to better situate my work in regard to twentieth- century southern history and provided excellent comments on early drafts of the dissertation. v Finally, Professor Marr continually inspires me to expand and transgress disciplinary boundaries, as I situate my work within its many fields, including Jewish studies, American studies and memory studies. I have been fortunate to study and work in an exciting and collegial setting as part of the growing Department of American Studies at UNC. I am part of the first cohort to be admitted to the department‘s Ph.D. program, a possibility that would not exist without the leadership of Professor Emeritus Joy Kasson. In its first years, the program was ably managed by Department Chair Bernie Herman and Director of Graduate Studies Patricia Sawin, both of whom have kept things running as smoothly as possible for the guinea pigs in the initial cohorts. Outside of the Department of American Studies, Della Pollock‘s seminar in performance and history (Department of Communication) allowed me to develop this project as an intervention in historical memory, and Margaret Weiner‘s ―Following Actor-Networks‖ course (Department of Anthropology) introduced me to theoretical and methodological perspectives that continue to shape my thinking in exciting and unexpected ways. This project started during my tenure as the oral historian at the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, based in Jackson, Mississippi. I am grateful to the entire staff there for supporting my early interest in Yiddish and Jewish-left history in the South and for providing me the resources to begin to pursue this original research. Following my return to graduate school, I depended on several grant-giving offices for funding, especially the Center for the Study of the American South, the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies (headed by Professor Ruth von Bernuth) and the UNC Graduate School. Through travel grants and summer fellowships, these institutions helped me to conduct research in Georgia, Ohio, New York and Texas. Thanks are due as well to a number of archivists and librarians, but I would particularly like to mention Jeremy Katz at the vi Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta and Ettie Goldwasser at the YIVO archives in New York City, who have gone above and beyond to assist me with this work. I am also indebted to Mark Bauman and Brian Stone at Southern Jewish History for working with me on a primary sources essay about Mitchell Merlin‘s ―Left and right in the arbeter ring.‖ Of course, none of this work would have been possible without the dedication of my Yiddish instructors, beginning with Robert Pekerar at the National Yiddish Book Center in 2005. I was exceedingly lucky to study with Sheva Zucker at the YIVO Summer Institute in 2007 and to continue classes with her after my move to North Carolina. Sheva‘s advice helped me through the translation of several essays in the 1949 edition of In dorem land / In southern states. I offer heartfelt thanks to everyone who shared time and expertise with me by participating in oral history interviews. Susan Ganc and Henrietta Bell, both of Houston, participated in a joint interview, gave helpful advice early in the project and shared many of the documents that form the backbone of this dissertation. I have worked constantly from a digital scan of Henrietta‘s own copy of In dorem land / In Southern States, the 1949 Southern District Conference Journal that I cite so often. The Keeper family in Texas—including Sam, David, Paul and Brian—provided wonderful interviews as well as indispensable family papers and home hospitality. I hope this dissertation speaks to them. Shirley Brickman of Atlanta, whom I met by chance at the 2013 Southern Jewish Historical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, was kind enough to grant me an interview and to suggest other contacts in Atlanta. Her cookies also sustained me on a long drive from Georgia back home to North Carolina. These are just some of the many people whose generosity made this work possible. I am continually impressed by my fellow graduate students at UNC, both in the Department of American Studies and among those who work in Jewish Studies. It is a pleasure vii to know that so many emerging scholars are kind as well as brilliant. From my specific cohort in American Studies Elijah Gaddis deserves special acknowledgement. His critical eye improved this text in countless ways, and his steady and determined approach to his own work set the pace for my research and writing. He is an unselfish colleague and a loyal friend. Finally, I would like to thank my family. Thank you to my parents and in-laws for material and emotional support. Additional thanks to my dad, both for teaching me to write and for serving as my first reader and final copy editor. Thanks to my son, Noah, for forcing me to wake up early every morning and for dividing work time from play time. Most of all, thanks to Allison for joining me on this journey, for supporting my dreams and for tolerating my obsessions. It is a privilege to pursue this kind of work and even more so to do it with such a caring partner by my side.