Words to the Wives: the Jewish Press, Immigrant Women, and Identity Construction, 1895-1925
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: WORDS TO THE WIVES: THE JEWISH PRESS, IMMIGRANT WOMEN, AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION, 1895-1925 Shelby Alan Shapiro, Ph.D., 2009 Directed By: Professor R. Gordon Kelly, Department of American Studies This dissertation examines how six publications sought to construct Jewish-American identities for Eastern European Jewish immigrant women between 1895 and 1925, beginning in 1895 with the world’s first Jewish women’s magazine, American Jewess (1895 - 1899), followed by a women’s magazine in Yiddish, Di froyen-velt (1913 -1914), and ending with an another Yiddish women’s magazine, Der idisher froyen zhurnal (1922-1923). Between 1914 and 1916, three mass circulation Yiddish daily newspapers, Dos yidishes tageblatt , Forverts , and Der tog , started printing women’s pages. This study ends in 1925, after Congress passed legislation restricting immigration in 1924. These publications present a variety of viewpoints and identities, that were political, religious and class-based. The three magazines, all in the same genre, held different attitudes on everything from religion to suffrage. The three daily newspapers represented fundamentally different ideologies. Forverts was socialist. Der tog was nationalist-Zionist, and Dos yidishes tageblatt , the oldest publication examined, represented a conservative, traditionally religious viewpoint and supported Zionism. This study examines religious and political ideologies, celebrating religious and civic holidays, attitudes towards women working and learning, Jewish education, women’s suffrage and exercising citizenship, as well as women in the public and private spheres of both the Jewish and American worlds. The central question asked is how those involved with these publications endeavored to create particular Jewish-American identities. Not being a reader-response study, I make no assumptions as to these publications’ actual influence. The press represented only one institution involved in acculturation. Issues subsumed under the central question include how producers of these publications perceived Americanization and saw Jews in America; and what changes these journals advocated regarding religious practices, gender roles, and citizenship. “Acculturation” implies negotiation in the process of identity formation, as a blending of Old and New World customs, lifestyles, mores, economic and social conditions occurred. This dissertation takes a social constructionist view of ethnicity and identity formation. Based on translations relevant pieces from all issues of the publications under review, this study points to the diversity present on the American “Jewish Street” from 1895 to 1925. WORDS TO THE WIVES: THE JEWISH PRESS, IMMIGRANT WOMEN, AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION, 1895-1925 By Shelby Alan Shapiro Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2009 Advisory Committee: Professor R. Gordon Kelly, Chair Profesor Hasia R. Diner Professor Marsha Rozenblit Professor Maurine Beasley Professor Alan Kraut © Copyright by Shelby Alan Shapiro 2009 Preface A word about the use of the word “wives” in the title: throughout the magazines and newspapers, women are addressed as “ froyen ” [singular, “ froy ”], which in Yiddish means a married woman. The words for an unmarried woman are “meydl ” [plural, “ meydlekh ”], with its connotation of youth (think of the English word “maiden”), or, less charitably, “ alte moyd ” [“old maid”]. All translations from Yiddish to English are mine, except where indicated otherwise. Utilizing dictionaries written by Alexander Harkavy in 1898 and 1928, every attempt was made to not employ today’s definitions for yesterday’s usages. 1 In transliterating Yiddish words, I have employed the standardized Yiddish orthography developed by the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research. 2 To remain historically accurate, I have not modernized or updated how authors, editors and publishers spelled Yiddish words. For example, the word for girls or unmarried women [“ meydlekh ”] sometimes appeared as “ meydlekh ” and other times as “meydlakh .” In such matters I have striven to remain historically accurate by not “correcting” original writers. Although Yiddish has no capital letters, following the conventions of other scholars, I capitalized the first letter of articles, books and other 1 Alexander Harkavy, Harkavy’s Complete Dictionary, English-Jewish and Jewish-English (NY: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1898); Alexander Harkavy, Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary , rev. and expanded 2nd ed. (1928; repr., NY: Schocken Books/YIVO, 1988). 2 Mordkhe Schaechter, The Standardized Yiddish Orthography with The History of the Standardized Yiddish Spelling (NY: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Yiddish Language Resource Center of the League for Yiddish, 1999). ii publications. The names of individuals also appear as per standardized Yiddish orthography except where better known under other spellings, for example “Sholem Aleichem” rather than “Sholem Aleykhem.” Instead of the orthographically correct “Khanike” for the winter holiday variously rendered as “Channukah,” “Chanukah,” “Hannukah,” and so forth, I chose the compromise spelling of “Chanuka.” Similarly, I use “Shevuous” for the holiday variously called “Shevuat,” “Shevuoth,” “Shevuoth,” or “Shebuoth.” In referring to various holidays, I use the Ashkenazic “-s” insteaed of the Sephardic “-t” for the end consonant: thus, “Sukkos” instead of “Sukkot,” “Shabos” instead of “Shabat,” “Simchas Torah” instead of “Simchat Torah.” Where necessary, I use “B.C.E.” (Before Common Era)and “C.E.” (“Common Era”) rather than the Christian “B.C.” (“Before Christ”) and “A.D.” (“ Anno Domini ”). I distinguish between “columns” and “articles.” Columns appeared regularly, usually under the same title, and usually by the same author. Articles appeared separately. Thus, Forverts had a column entitled “ Notitsen fun der froyen-velt ” [“Notes from the Woman’s World”]in addition to editorials and articles not part of a regular series. 3 A number of columns for Der tog , carried Adella Kean’s byline, such as “ Fun a froy tsu froyen ” [“From a Woman to Women”] 4 and “ Froyen klobs ” 3 “Notitsen fun der froyen-velt” appeared in Forverts 387 times between March 3, 1918 and December 27, 1925. 4 “Fun a froy tsu froyen” appeared in Der tog 292 times between April 20, 1918 and December 29, 1925. iii [“Women’s Clubs”]. 5 But she also wrote separate articles not part of any series. As with the scholar Nancy A. Harrowitz, “I have adopted the newer spelling of ‘antisemitism’ rather than the older form ‘anti-Semitism,’ as the newer one, initiated by the historian James Parks, reflects the fact that antisemitism does not comprise prejudice against all Semites, as the older spelling implies, but instead prejudice specifically against Jews,” 6 except when hyphenated in the original. 5 “Froyen klobs” appeared in Der tog 31 times from February 4, 1920 to September 19, 1920. 6 Nancy A. Harrowitz, Antisemitism, Misogyny, & the Logic of Cultural Difference: Cesare Lombroso & Matilde Serao (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 140n.17. iv Dedication To all of the strong Jewish women in my life: my late grandmother, Jean Axelrod; my mother, Addy Shapiro; my sister, Gale; but especially to mayne belibte basherte , Marti. Zi iz a getrayer yidishe tokhter un mentsh. v Table of Contents Preface........................................................................................................................... ii Dedication……………………………………………………………………………..v Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................1 Relevant Scholarship ...............................................................................................12 The Road Ahead ......................................................................................................21 Chapter 2: Journeys and Journals ................................................................................26 Chapter 3: Politics and Piety ........................................................................................78 Chapter 4: Learning and Labor ..................................................................................137 Chapter 5: Suffrage and Citizenship ........................................................................164 Chapter 6: Holidays and Homemaking Myths ........................................................200 Chapter 7: Holy Days and Home-making.………………………………………….231 Chapter 8: Seeing and Saying.……………………………………………………...283 Chapter 9: Conclusion……………………………………….……………………...294 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................316 vi Chapter 1: Introduction When Eastern European Jewish immigrants came to America first as a trickle in the 1870s, then as a stream in the 1880s, and finally as a river in the 1890s and beyond, they flowed into an ocean of print. Historian Gordon S. Wood commented in a book review that “[b]y 1810 Americans were buying twenty-four million copies of newspapers annually, the largest aggregate circulation of any country in the world.” 7 Joseph Pulitzer, Edward Bok, and James Gordon Bennett, all immigrants to the United States, helped create and sustain the modern mass media 8 with their publications, New York World, the Ladies Home Journal , and the New York Herald.