LaborHistory, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2001

Class ConsciousWorkers as Immigrant Entrepreneurs:The Ambiguity of Class among Eastern EuropeanJewish Immigrants to the UnitedStates at the Turnof the Twentieth Century

DANIELSOYER*

Looking back in 1942, ananonymous Jewish immigrant whocalled himself aª70 year oldEast New Yorkerº after his Brooklyn neighborhood remarked onthe ways in which his thinking about classand class con¯ ict had changeddepending on his stationin life. Beginning in 1902 asa sewingmachine operator, hehad eventually goneinto business for himself asa garment sub-manufacturer.During his years asan employer, theEast NewYorker wasas active in theAmerican Cloak andSuit Manufacturers’ Association ashe had oncebeen in theunion. He retired in theearly 1930s. Whena worker,he had viscerally supportedstrikers andª curse[dthe bosses] bitterly.º But later, having becomea boss,he changed his position,acquiring adeepresentment of striking workers:ª All thecurses that Ihad oncelaid onthe bosses, I nowgave theworkersÐ with interest.ºNow looking back hebecame philosophical andre ¯ected,ª ¼nowthat Iam neither aworker nora boss,and I think about thepast, I donotknow when I was right.º 1 This ª70 year oldEast New Yorkerº was not alone. Many Jewish immigrants ofhis generation harbored theseseemingly contradictory impulsesÐtoward working-class militancy andambitious entrepreneurship.Unlike the East New Yorker, however, they didnot always hold theseworld views sequentially; they nurturedboth tendencies at thesame time, sometimesuneasily, sometimes with little friction at all. Asmilitant workersthey fought collectively through their unions,radical political parties, and class-basedfraternals for higher wages,better conditions, heightened control over work processes,and a more justand egalitarian society.As ambitious entrepreneursthey hopedto attain more personal independence,higher social status,and a betterstandard ofliving through individual movementout of the wage-earning working classinto the middle classof self-employed shopkeepers, contractors and manufacturers, and profes- sionals.2

*Researchfor this paper was carriedout while Iwas aresidentfellow with the Sweatshop Project,a RockefellerFoundation Humanities Institutecosponsored by the LowerEast Side TenementMuseum and UNITE!. 1ªA70Year Old EastNew Yorker,º Autobiography #24,37± 38, Collection of American-Jewish Autobiographies, RG102,YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. 2For perspectivesthat posit an immigrant middle classin closecontact and occasionalalliance with the immigrant workingclass, but with afundamentally differentsocial outlook, seeJohn J.Bukowczyk, ªThe

ISSN0023-656Xprint/ ISSN1469-9702online/ 01/010045±15 Ó 2001Taylor & Francis Ltd on behalfof The Tamiment Institute DOI:10.1080/00236560020017819 46 D. Soyer

Theseimmigrants’ propensity tofollow twoapparently con¯icting inclinations stemmedfrom their ambivalent attitudesabout classand their ambiguous experiences ofit. Many perceivedthemselves to be of essentially middle-classbackgrounds, and their resentmentat downwardsocial andeconomic mobility beforeand after migration fedboth adesireto restore their (or their families’)entrepreneurial independenceand anopposition to a classsystem that seemedto them arbitrary andunfair. Over the courseof their lives their classposition and social statusoften shifted, and they wereat various times wage workersand independent businessmen, sometimes even both at once.The immigrants’ collectivist andindividualistic impulsessometimes interacted in complex ways:a desirefor upwardsocial mobility couldfuel labor militancy, andthe higher wageswon by unionsmight help members go into business. The deepambivalence concerningissues of class and class af® liation exhibited by Jewishworkers did not particularly distinguish them from members ofother American ethnicgroups. Unlike many other Americans,however, Jewish workers built alabor movementwith anexplicitly socialist ideology, evenas they exhibited agreat degreeof upwardsocial andincome mobility. Moreover,pro-labor attitudespersisted among Jewswho had successfullyconsolidated their positionin theentrepreneurial and professionalmiddle class.Even the mouthpiece of socialism, the Jewish Daily Forward,keptan eyeout for businessat thevery sametime it called for working-class solidarity. By proclaiming ªWorkers ofall countriesuniteº on its mastheadwhile declaring itself theª Gatewayto the Jewish Marketº on its stationery,the Forward clearly expressedthe paradoxical aspirations ofmany ofits readers. Observers ofthe immigrant experiencehave overlookedthe ambiguities ofJewish consciousnessabout classfor nearly acentury,instead presenting a seriesof one-sided images. Early commentatorssuch as John Commons believed that theJews’ essential individualism andª commercial instinctºmade them un®t for industrial work.More- over,Commons argued, the Jewish worker’ sdesireto ª becomehis ownbossº rendered him unableto sustain collective action. 3 Commonswas not alone in this assessmentof theJewish character. Contemporary Jewishobservers agreed that theJewish worker wouldrather leave theworking classthan unitewith his fellows,differing chie¯y in whetheror notthey thought this agoodthing. 4 Not 10 years after Commonsmade his assessment,he was proved wrong,however, asa massive waveof strikes permanently establishedunions as forces to be reckoned

Transformation ofWorking-Class Ethnicity: CorporateControl, Americanization, and the Polish Immigrant MiddleClass in Bayonne, NewJersey, 1915± 1925,º LaborHistory ,25(1984), 53±82; David Montgomery,ª Nationalism, AmericanPatriotism, and Class Consciousnessamong Immigrant Workers in the UnitedStates in the Epoch ofWorld War I,º in Dirk Hoerder,ed., Struggle aHardB attle: Essays on Working-ClassImmigrants (DeKalb, IL:NorthernIllinois UniversityPress, 1986), 327± 351; John Bodnar, The Transplanted: AHistory ofImmigrants in UrbanAmerica (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,1985). 3ªForeign-BornLabor in the Clothing Trade,º Reports ofthe Industrial Commissionon Immigration , vol. 15,57th Congress,1st session, HR Doc. 184(Washington, DC: GovernmentPrinting Of® ce 1901), 323, 325,327. It should be noted, however,that another scholar, J.E. Pope, dissentedsomewhat from Commons’ assessment.Pope agreedthat Jewswere individualistic, but arguedthat this did not prevent them fromuniting in labor orother organizations. See Pope, The Clothing Industry in New York (University ofMissouri Studies, 1905),185. 4Reports ofthe Industrial Commissionon Immigration ,251;Abraham Cahan, ªSummer Complaint: The Annual Strike,º CommercialAdvertiser ,Aug. 25,1900, reprinted in MosesRischin, ed., GrandmaNever Livedin America:The New Journalism ofAbraham Cahan (Bloomington, IN:Indiana UniversityPress, 1985), 381. TheAmbiguity of Class among Immigrants 47 with in thegarment trades. turned out to be among themost devoted members of theInternational Ladies’Garment Workers’ Union(ILGWU) and other labor organi- zations.Moreover, the second decade of the 20th centuryalso sawthe short-lived heyday ofJewish socialism in America. The labor andSocialist movementsextended their in¯uence over muchof the immigrant Jewishcommunity with suchpowerful institutionsas the Jewish DailyForward ,themost widely read Yiddishdaily newspaper in theworld, and the Workmen’ sCircle,a fraternal order with tensof thousands of members.The LowerEast Side sent Socialist lawyer MeyerLondon to Congress in 1914, andin succeedingyears Jewishdistricts elected a numberof Socialists tothe New York statelegislature andthe city’ sboard ofaldermen. The successof the strikes, unions, and radical institutionsgave rise toa newimage ofJewsas class-conscious workers with aninclination towardcollectivist ideologies,an image that wasat oddswith theview previously propoundedby Commonsand others. Asthe historian SusanGlenn has noted,the idea ofJewish radicalism has remained a ªpowerfulethnic myth Jewsconstructed about themselves and outsiders believed about them.º 5 Scholarly andpopular historians suchas Moses Rischin and Irving Howe structuredtheir general accountsof the Jewish immigrant community in NewYork on theframework ofthe Jewish labor movement. 6 Meanwhile,other historians have stressedthe relative rapidity with which Eastern EuropeanJews and their descendantsclimbed thesocial ladder in this country.Thomas Kessnerattributed Jews’comparatively speedyeconomic mobility tocultural factors, including theJews’ non-peasant European background and their economicgoals and ambitions.7 AndrewHeinze’ sportrait ofJewishimmigrants asexuberant participants in American consumeristculture stands in sharp contrastto the common image of downtroddensweatshop workers and earnest labor activists.ª Asa forcebehind con- sumerbehavior,º writes Heinze, ª Jewishindividualism contrastedwith thecomparative collectivism ofother immigrants.º 8

5Susan Glenn, Daughters ofthe Shtetl: Lifeand Labor in the ImmigrantGeneration (Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1990), 192. For earlyattempts to identifylabor militancy as an essentialJewish characteristic,see Theresa Sperber Malkiel, Diaryof a Shirtwaist Striker (1910;reprint, Ithaca: Cornell ILRPress,1990), 81; comments by cloakmakers’ leaderAbraham Rosenbergin IrvingHowe, World of Our Fathers (NewYork: Harcourt,Brace, Jovanovich, 1976),301. 6MosesRischin, The PromisedCity: New York’sJews, 1870±1914 (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press,1962); Howe, Worldof Our Fathers .Seealso GeraldSorin, The Prophetic Minority: American Jewish ImmigrantRadicals, 1880± 1920 (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1985). For earlieraccounts by historians closelyassociated with the labor movement itself,see Louis Levine, The Women’sGarment Workers:A History ofthe International Ladies’Garment Workers’Union (NewYork: B.W. Huebsch, 1924); A.Sh. Sachs, Di geshikhte fun arbayterring, 1892±1925 (2 vols., NewYork: National ExecutiveCommittee ofthe Workmen’sCircle,1925); Maximilian Hurwitz, The Workmen’sCircle (NewYork, 1936);J.S. Hertz, 50yor arbeter-ringin yidishn lebn (NewYork: National ExecutiveCommittee ofthe Workmen’sCircle, 1950);H. Langand MorrisFirestone, Geverkshaften:zamel-bukh tsu fuftsig yor leben fun difareynigte idishe geverkshaften (NewYork: UnitedHebrew Trades, 1938); Melech Epstein, Jewish Laborin the U.S.A. ; Epstein, Pro®les ofEleven (Detroit: Wayne State UniversityPress, 1965); Elias Tcherikower, ed., Geshikhte fun deryidisher arbeter bavegung in difareynikte shtatn (2 vols., NewYork: Yiddish Scienti®c Institute-Yivo, 1943±1945). 7Thomas Kessner, The Golden Door: Italian andJewish ImmigrantMobility in New YorkCity 1880±1915 (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1977). For asummary ofa study showing that the UnitedStates provided moreopportunity forrising through business, seeAndrew Godley, ª Enterpriseand Culture: Jewish Immigrants in London and NewYork, 1880±1914,º Journal ofEconomic History , 54 (1994), 430± 432. 8AndrewHeinze, Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants,Mass Consumption, andthe Searchfor American Identity (NewYork: Columbia UniversityPress, 1990), 96. 48 D. Soyer

The contradictory historical portrayals ofJewish immigrant consciousnesshave remained largely unintegrated.Historians have notfully explained howthe militancy of theJewish immigrant working classcould coexist with theaspirations ofits members to leave that classbehind. 9 Nor have they explored howindividuals reconciledtheir own contradictory impulses. Someexplanations ofthe meanings that theJewish immigrants attributed toclass in their ownlives canbe gleaned from theunpublished autobiographies collectedby the YIVO Institutefor JewishResearch in 1942. That year, YIVO askedthe public to submit autobiographies in aconteston the theme, ª Why Ileft Europeand what Ihave accomplishedin America.ºThe call elicited more than 220 responses,many ofwhich offera wealth ofdetail concerningJewish life onboth sidesof the Atlantic. To besure, thereare problems inherentin usingthis material. It may be,for example, that those whofelt that they had indeedaccomplished something are overrepresentedin the collection.Nevertheless, the theme is ideally suitedto an examination ofimmigrant aspirations for social mobility sincemany ofthe writers explained their ownperceptions oftheir backgroundsand careers. 10 The contesttheme’ semphasis oncareer successmay also have encourageda male perspective.Only about 20% ofthewriters werewomen, who often measured accom- plishment in termsof their husbands’careers or their children’ssuccess. 11 More researchis thus needed into the class consciousness of Jewishimmigrant women.Still, asthe examples drawnfrom thelives ofwomen indicate, they sharedmany ofthe ambitions andattitudes of their brothers andhusbands. Moreover, women often played leading rolesin small family enterprises,even when they sometimescontinued to de®ne themselvesprimarily asthe wives of workers. The autobiographies illustrate thedegree to which ambiguities in classaf® liation began in theold country. Rather than simply serving asa sourceof resistance to modernindustrial society,as Herbert Gutmansuggested a quarter-centuryago, the immigrants’ perceptionof their pre-migration cultureand status encouraged some to take full advantage ofAmerican capitalism, evenas it ledthem also tovoice explicit criticisms ofthe system they werejoining. 12 In fact,for many immigrants, theact ofmigration wasthe culmination ofa long processof downwardsocial andeconomic mobility. Anumberof thewriters begin their life storiesby boasting oftheir lineage in ª®neºor ªrespectableº( balebatish) families, only togo onto describe the dif® culties they or their parentshad in making aliving. The writers’ families combinedhigh social statuswith memories ofeconomicindepen- denceas property owners,merchants, brokers, distillers, andcommunal leaders,but

9GeraldSorin does, however,note the paradox in his Tradition Transformed:The Jewish Experience in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1997), 107± 108. 10American-JewishAutobiographies Collection, RG102.On the contestitself see Moses Kligsberg, ªSocio-Psychological Problems Re¯ectedin the Yivo Autobiography Contest,º YIVO Annual ofJewish Social Studies ,1(1946), 241±249; Kligsberg, ª TheGolden Land, TheJewish Immigrant in America: Self-Portrait,º Commentary,May 1948,467± 472; Kligsberg, ª Jewish Immigrantsin Business: A SociologicalStudy,º American Jewish Historical Quarterly ,56(1967), 283±318. 11For acritiqueof the ways in which afocuson workplacerelations and formal formsof protest leads to an overemphasis on the experienceof male workers,see Sonya O.Rose, ªClass Formation: The QuintessentialWorker,º in John R.Hall, ed., Reworking Class (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1997), 133± 166. 12HerbertGutman, ªWork, Culture, and Societyin IndustrializingAmerica, 1815±1919,º in Work, Culture andSociety in Industrializing America:Essays in American Working-Classand Social History (New York: Vintage,1977), 3± 78. TheAmbiguity of Class among Immigrants 49 they sufferedseverely from late-19th-century economicdevelopments in EasternEu- rope that oustedJews from traditional economicniches and led to widespread pauper- ization. The autobiographers remember anomalous situationsin whichtheir families enjoyedlocal social prominenceeven as they lived in poverty. AsA. Berlow,born in 1880 in thetown of Lida,near Vilna, putit, ªMyfather still had thereputation ofbeing a®nehouseholder ( faynerbalebos ),although poverty criedout from all cornersof the house.º 13 The needto earn alivelihood forcedsome young people from ª®nebackgroundsº to learn atradeÐ or at least toconsider doing so;the autobiographers report that their families consideredsuch a move tobe terribly shameful.As M. Havelin reported,his apprenticeship toa shoemaker wasª thegreatest shamefor ourfamily.º Likewise, when A.Beittany announcedhis intentionto leave theyeshivah andlearn atrade,his mother burstinto tears: to appease her, he turned to teaching. Although Ida Schwartz’smother didin factapprentice her toa tailor, shemade it clear that therewere only two possibilities for young womenin thetown where Schwartz lived. ªMydear daughter,º Ida rememberedher mother saying, ªthegranddaughter ofWise Yossl will notbe a nanny.It isenough that youhave tobecome a tailor.º 14 It isnot surprising, coming from sucha culture,that many immigrants later evidenceda preferencefor white-collar andbusiness occupations. Many continued to consider themselves essentially middle class,no matter what lowly jobsthey had beenforced by necessityto take. Butnot all middle-classyoung peoplesaw their turnto manual occupationsas abad thing. At least someof them consideredtheir families’ scruplesregarding manual labor tobe foolish, if notmorally corrupt.They welcomedthe feeling of independenceand productivity that atrade brought them,and perhaps becauseof their peculiar positionin it, resentedthe Eastern European Jewish social hierarchy. This resentment,combined with alingering sensethat they themselveswere caught in the wrong class,fueled the young people’sradical belief in theinjustice of the class system as a whole. For thosefrom working-classbackgrounds, the socialist labor movementsometimes servedas a meansof upward cultural andsocial mobility. Of course,the movement helpedraise thesense of self-worth of working-class youth andoffered them an explanation for their material predicament.Ironically, evenin theª oldcountryº one of theappeals ofaf® liation with radical groups wasthe close contact it brought with more highly cultivated upper-classyoung people.Though himself asaddler,Rose Silverman’ s father objectedto her becoming aseamstress;ª butalready being well-read in socialist books,ºshe later recalled, ªIalready felt asenseof pride in being aworker,and I

13A.Berlow,#70, 3. Seealso Clara Varbalow, #8, part I,1; IdaSchwartz, #37,1, 8;S.J. Levy, #32±32a, 2±4; M.Havelin, #21,2, 4; M.Royel, #55,1; B. Steuer,#61, 1; J.B. Werlin,#71, 30; Miriam Rosen, #103,1; RoseSchoenfeld, #110, 1± 3; LenaKorelitz Rosenman, #31.On deterioratingJewish conditions in EasternEurope, see Samuel Joseph, Jewish Immigrationto the United States, 1881±1910 (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1914), 79± 81; Salo Baron, The Russian Jew UnderTsars and Soviets (New York: Macmillan, 1976),80± 84; Arcadius Kahan, Essays in Jewish Social andEconomic History (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,1986), 1± 27, 37, 44± 45; Michael Stanislawski, TsarNicholas Iandthe Jews: The Transformation ofJewish Society in Russia, 1825±1855 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983), 174±175; Ezra Mendelsohn, ClassStruggle in the Pale:The FormativeYears ofthe Jewish Workers’Movement in TsaristRussia (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1970), 20± 22; Raphael Mahler, ªThe EconomicBackground of Galician Jewish Emigrationto the UnitedStates, YIVO Annual,7(1952), 259, 261;Simon Kuznets,ª Immigration ofRussian Jewsto the UnitedStates: Backgroundand Structure,º Perspectives on American History ,9(1975), 78. 14M.Havelin, #21,4; A.Beittany, #107,9; IdaSchwartz, #37,8. Seealso J.Dyenson, #147,5± 9. 50 D. Soyer

immediately explained tomy father andconvinced him that being aworker wasno disgrace.ºSilverman had learnedmuch of her socialism from listening in onthe conversationsof her better-educatedcomrades from more privileged backgrounds. Years later sheretained a mixture ofpride andanxiety regarding her associationwith thesepeople; as she put it, themovement had brought her ªvery ®nefriendsof a higher class,both intellectually andeconomically.º 15 Similarly, LenaFriedman, anapprentice hat-maker, learnedto read andwrite from theuniversity-trained daughter ofthe rich man ofthe town. The samewoman later recruitedFriedman into theJewish socialist Bund.16 The revolutionary labor movementthus allowed someindividual workersto mix socially with peopleof higher social andcultural status. Evenmore than radicalism, emigration offereda way outof the impasse ofdeclining classstatus and constricting life chances.More especially, America seemedto be a place wherehard workattracted respectand might evenlead eventually tosocial advancement.One anonymous autobiographer recalled vividly thedilemma young EasternEuropean Jews faced at theturn of the century in theOld World. Hedescribes both their rejectionof the social hierarchy embracedby their parents,and the escape that emigration suggested.After struggling in avariety ofsmall businessesduring the ®rstyears ofhis marriage, heresolved to learn atrade,as much to establish astable identity,it seems,as to guarantee himself alivelihood:

Idecidedthat living from thewind was not practical. Ihad tolearn todo something,so that Iwouldknow that that waswhat Iwas.But this was impossible at home,because it wouldhave disgracedmy family. Myfather-in- law always usedto make this argument: Whenone ® ndsa needlein the gizzard ofa chicken,the chicken is treyf [notkosher]. It followsthat atailor, whois full ofneedles, must certainly betreyf. And this rule coveredother tradesas well. There wasone place, so Iheard,where work was no disgrace. On thecontrary, it addedto one’sstatus.At least that is what they said,and that place wasAmerica. SoI wentto America. 17 Whether they welcomedthe move or experiencedit asa further diminution ofstatus, immigrants startedout at thebottom oncethey arrived in America. They either went towork for wages(often in agarment shop)or into someline ofvery small business. Many becamepeddlers. They didnot always perceive businessto be an improvement over wage work.Rather, suchfactors as aptitude, ideology, andassessments of the immediate advantages ofonesort of occupation over another conditionedtheir choices. Someimmigrants believed ªproductiveworkº to be more appropriate toAmerica, or to bemore in syncwith their socialistic inclinations. 18 Others foundphysical labor too dif® cultor couldnot learn howto operate asewingmachine. Many movedback and forth betweenwage workand business depending on the prevailing level ofwagesand theavailability ofjobs, while afewsimply had notaste for business,especially in the form ofpeddling. 19 Businessis consideredan advancement over wage workpartly becauseit requiresa

15RoseSilverman, #139,quotes on 16,24. 16LenaFriedman, #157,5± 6. 17ªA70-YearOld EastNew Yorker,º #24, 22. 18See,for example, A.Beittany, #107,22. Eager to becomea worker,Beittany took ajob as aplumber’s assistant. Ironically,he was ®redfor being a socialist. 19M.Havelin, #21,22± 23; Ephraim Wagner,#45, 152; J. Dyenson, #147,46± 47; S. Ginsburg,#156, 18. TheAmbiguity of Class among Immigrants 51 greater capital investment.In theimmigrant milieu, however,this wasnot always the case.Sometimes an individual couldout® t him orherselfas a peddleror opena small storefor lessmoney than it tookto acquire anindustrial skill. Mostimmigrants came withoutwork experience in industry,and even skilled artisans from theold country had tolearn tooperate asewingmachine in America. Employers commonly demandedthat ªgreenºworkers pay from $10± 30 for theprivilege oflearning atrade,often requiring them in addition towork for upto a monthwithout pay. By contrast,an equal or smaller outlay bought apeddler’sstockand produced immediate earnings.S.J. Levy, whoarrived in NewYork in 1902, couldnot at ®rstafford the $30 necessaryto become anecktiecutter like his uncle.Circumstances thus forced him topeddle for sometime, though hedetested the work. 20 M.Feigan’slife story illustrates anumberof these tendencies. Feigan’ sfamily had onceowned a large distillery, buthis father wasa poor melamed,ateacherin a traditional Jewishelementary school(a notoriously low-statusprofession). His mother kept astoreintermittently. Whenhis father died,Feigan becamethe family’ ssole supportand immediately madeplans toemigrate. 21 Though heclearly preferredwage workto business, at ®rst,at least,for philosophical reasons,he moved back andforth betweenthe two several times.Arriving in NewYork in 1909, Feigan foundwork as a laborer, initially in acandyfactory, andthen in abedfactory. Butthese jobs proved too taxing for him. After afewweeks, he reported, ª Ifelt asif Iweregoing tofall down.º Whenhis unclesuggested that hebecome a teacher in aHebrewschool, however, Feigan reactedangrily: ªWhat? Is this what Icame toAmerica for? Iwasa teacher in Russia.Here I wantedproductive work.º Instead of teaching hebecame a garment worker,making sleevesfor men’sjackets. 22 Over thenext decade or so,it wouldhave beenhard tosay whetherFeigan wasa worker or asmall businessman.In any case,it doesnot seem as if hethought of businessas a clear stepup. In fact,Feigan enteredbusiness only becausehe could not ®ndwork in his trade.One slack season,he borrowed money from his brother and openeda soda-waterstand. Working from morning tonight at his stand,Feigan discoveredthat hecould bring in only half ofwhat hecould earn asa sleeve-maker.At the® rstopportunity, hewent back towork for his previous boss.But he went in and outof business at least twicemore, opening a storeduring slack seasons,and returning tothe shop when business faltered or wagesrose. After ,for example, Feigan sawthat ªtherewas prosperity in thecountry and workers were making good moneyin all thetrades. I becameenvious, sold the stand, and returned to workat my trade.º 23 Nevertheless,Commons’ assessment of the Jewish immigrants’ aspirations toinde- pendencecontained a great deal oftruth. Sooner or later, many decidedthat they preferredto work for themselvesthan for aboss.Some became contractors in the garment industry;others opened small groceries orstationery stores.A handfulentered theprofessions. There islittle indication in theautobiographies that adesireto earn more moneyprovided theinitial motivation for theseambitious immigrants toenter business.Rather, they covetedthe independence and the relative prestige ofself-em- ployment. Afterworking anumberof years asa metal worker andgarment worker,

20S.J. Levy, #32±32a, 33. 21M.Feigan, #4, 1±13. 22Ibid., 114± 15. 23Ibid., 17, 19. 52 D. Soyer

David Krasky decidedthat hewould do ªanything, even[work] 24 hoursa day,as long asI workedonly for myself.ºDespite the fact that hemade good money as a hat blocker (hehad given upasmall grocery toenter the trade), M. Havelin realized in 1909 that ªworking for another wasno good.º And while J.Dyenson,who arrived in NewYork in 1892, quickly foundthat it wasnot to his liking, heat ®rstjumped at thechance to becomea peddler.It was,after all, ªcommerce.º 24 (In general, peddling occupieda highly ambiguous position.On theone hand, it brought little prestige or income.On theother hand,some immigrants viewedit positively asthe ® rststep toward a more substantial businesscareer.) At least someof the immigrants whonurtured ambitions for individual careersas independentbusinessmen or professionalsdid so despitetheir commitmentsto ideolo- gies that idealized theworking class,productive labor, andcollective responsesto the problems ofthe industrial system.Immigrant socialistspromoted the proletarian cause, evenas they aspired toleave theproletariat behind.Both S.J.Levy andhis uncle, socialist necktiecutters, looked forward tofutures in theentrepreneurial or professional middle class.Both proved successful,using their goodearnings asskilled union workers,together with their wives’incomes keeping boarders (in theuncle’ scase)and astore(in Levy’scase),to move upin theworld. Levy ªdream[ed] ofa career ¼ something great.ºHe eventually becamea dentist.More modest, the uncle bought ®rst asmall candystore and later alarger stationery store. 25 Their newcareers put such peoplein avery differentpractical relation tothe working class.As A. Gumner,a Bostonfurniture maker andWorkmen’ sCircle member, putit recalling his ownentry into private enterprise,ª NowI had tobecome a bit ofanexploiter. Ihired aworker and anassistant, and things werenot bad.º 26 S.Garson’sstory showshow business could represent both alast resortfor incom- petentworkers and an ultimate preferenceover wage work.In fact,as an Anarchist businessman,Garson personi® ed many ofthe paradoxes ofimmigrant life. Arriving in Bostonin 1884, Garson® rsttook a jobon the docks. When unloading shipsproved too physically strenuousfor him, however,he tried tolearn howto operate asewing machine from acap maker whoboarded with his aunt.Only whenGarson failed an audition at theshop where the boarder worked,unable to sew a straight seam,did he turnto peddling. In Garson’scase,peddling didserve as a stepping stoneto more substantial undertakings.He turnedout to be a gifted businessman,and his move into peddling wasfortuitous. ª From thenon,º wrote Garson, ª Iwasmy ownforeman in America.º 27 All his life Garsonembodied the combination ofradical idealism andpractical enterprise.Unusually self-conscious, he always felt tornbetween what heperceived to becontradictory impulses:ª theAmerican spirit ofmaterialismÐ business,enterprise, working one’sway uptosomething,º and ª theRussian spirit ¼Ðthespirit ofsoulful- ness,of forming asocietywhere no one would be oppressed or wronged.º 28 By his own account,he left Russiaboth toavoid arrest for his political activities andto advance himself materially. Afterpeddling in NewEngland, he entered a partnership asa cap contractor,pronouncing himself satis®ed asª bossover thebosses.º 29 Later heopened

24David Krasky, #192,74; M. Havelin, #21,25; J. Dyenson, #147,45. 25S.J. Levy, #32±32a, 33. 26A.Gumner,#44, n.p. Seealso S.Ginsburg,#156, 54; L. Fagan, #191,87. 27S.Garson,#1, v. 2,10. 28S.Garson,#1, v. 3,4. 29S.Garson,#1, v. 3,4. TheAmbiguity of Class among Immigrants 53 aseriesof businesses for himself andother family members.In between,he helped to foundthe anarchist newspaper, Difrayearbeter shtime (Free Voice ofLabor),and went toBaltimore asan organizer for thePioneers of Liberty. Evenwhile organizing for the revolution, however,Garson kept his eyeout for goodbusiness opportunities. For example, traveling toMexico with theintention of joining theutopian colonyat Topolobampo, heinstead returned to New England with anidea for anewbusinessÐ a summercurio shopin NewportÐout® tted by asupplier in California. The ªgreat Jewishmetier,º as Moses Rischin called it, was,of course, the garment industry.30 Hereall ofthe immigrant dilemmas ofclass were played outmost clearly, asmuch because of the structure of the industry itself asbecause of any cultural attributes its workersand bosses may have had.Arriving in thelate 19th century, EasternEuropean Jewish immigrants enteredan industry that had already begunits explosive expansion.The manufactureof both women’sandmen’ sready-made cloth- ing grew spectacularly between1870 and1900, asNew York becamethe premier garment-producing center.Many of the early employers wereGerman-speaking Jews whohad startedout as dealers in second-handclothes. Their presencein theindustry facilitated theentry ofthe Eastern Europeans. One 1890 surveyshowed that nearly half ofall gainfully employed Jewsin NewYork madetheir livings in theneedle trades. Even 10 years later, whenthe Jewish economy was more diverse,over 40% ofworking ªRussian-bornºwomen and nearly 20% ofthe men made clothing. 31 Even these statistics,moreover, donot do justice to the importance ofthe needle trades in the Jewishimmigrant experience.As their life storiesmake clear, nearly all Jewishimmi- grants passedthrough thegarment industryÐwhether for aweekor for several decades. Entering thegarment shops,most immigrants becameindustrial workersfor the® rst time. Although somehad experienceas artisans in theold country, many didnot, coming asthey didfrom backgroundsin petty trade.They foundthe noise and dirt of theshops disorienting, and the prospect of spending their lives at themachine dismaying. Moreover,the image ofthe vulgar old-worldlout lording it over there® ned former yeshivah studentas a small-time bossbecame a staple ofimmigrant literature. The leveling effectof life in theshop was real, butit didnot always succeedin erasing themarks ofclass-based upbringing in EasternEurope. A. Beittany recalled howone ofhis fellowworkers in asmall NewYork jacketfactory treatedhim with special deference,once he had recognizedBeittany asan intellectual: Pinye wassuspicious of me from thebeginning ofthe season. He wanted to knowwhy Iwasalways soquiet, and what Ihad ªreallyºbeen at home:ª a rabbi or ahorsethief?º ª Something is wrong with that greenhorn.ºOnce he caught me red-handed.At lunchtime Iwassitting in acornerreading an English bookas I ate.ª Aha! NowI see!ºhe cried out. Then he became thoughtful.ª Youcan’ tfool me,ºhe continued quietly tohis colleagues.ª Isee what’sgoing on¼That guy,ºhe said pointing at me,ª isnot one of us.º From thenon, Pinye becamevery respectfulof me. He stopped teasing me,as the customwas with agreenhorn sleevemaker. 32

30Rischin, PromisedCity ,61.On the garmentindustry and the Jewish rolein it, seein addition to works alreadycited, Judith Green®eld, ªTheRole ofthe Jewsin the Development ofthe Clothing Industry,º YIVO Annual,2±3 (1947±1948), 180± 204; Nancy Green, Ready-to-Wearand Ready-to-Work: A Century ofIndustry andImmigrants in Parisand New York (Durham: DukeUniversity Press, 1997). 31Howe, Worldof Our Fathers ,154.Scholars agreethat most ofthose listedas ªRussianºin NewYork City werein factJews. 32A.Beittany, #107,29± 30. 54 D. Soyer

Ultimately, Pinye wasright. Not apermanentmember ofthe working class,Beittany left theshop after oneseason, eventually tobecome a dentistin NewYork and Baltimore. The garment industrydeveloped a complicated hierarchical structureof inside and outsideworkers, manufacturers, contractors, sub-manufacturers, and jobbers that not only blurred classdistinctions but also openedup avenues for advancementto am- bitious immigrants. Manufacturersexperienced strong pressuresto keep down costs in avolatile industrycharacterized by seasonality,consumer demand for lowprices, and rapidly changing fashions.Rather than bestuck during slack seasonwith empty loft space,and idle workersand machines, manufacturers preferred to shift theburden of organizing labor andproduction to small contractors,who ª avoided heavy ®xedcosts, disbanded[their] workforceas orders slackened, and operated on thesmallest ofpro® t margins.º 33 The manufacturerskept the contractors’ prices as low as possible, while the latter operatedon a shoestringand made small pro® tsonly by forcing downwages and increasing workloads. Evenas it drovedown wages and encouraged poor conditions,however, the contract- ing systemopened a path ofupward social andeconomic mobility for many immi- grants. Lowcapital expensesfor ¯edgling contractorseased entry intobusiness for enterprising immigrants, including many former workers.Tiny shopsremained the norm:in 1914 theaverage NewYork garment shophad 36 employees,but the average contractshop had 20 andsome three-quarters of all shopshad ®ve or fewerworkers. 34 Asidefrom thesewing machine, invented in the1840s, therewere few technological innovationsand few economies of scale in theindustry. A newcontractor had only to ®ndspacein whichto work and buy orrenta coupleof sewingmachines (and not even that in theearly period,when workers were obligated tosupply their ownmachines). The manufacturersupplied the goods on which towork. In 1901 JohnCommons estimatedthat it tookas little as$50 in capital tobecome a garment contractor. 35 Ambition, accessto low-cost immigrant labor, andthe ability topersuade large manu- facturersto provide workconstituted a contractor’smain ªskills.ºIn small tenement shops,particularly in thedecades before the turn of the century, the contractor put himself andhis family towork alongside thehired ªhands.ºThe workersmay also have beenrelatives or landslayt (natives ofthe same European town) of the boss. One young contractor,J.B. Werlin, later recalled that whenhe became a kneepantscontractor in Philadelphia at theage of16 (after six monthsin thecountry), he and his father labored asmachine operators,and his sisteras a buttonholer,in tworooms of the family’ s apartment.36 Hereceived his ®rstbundle of goods from alarge ®rm whosemembers had mutual acquaintancesin Philadelphia’sOrthodox Jewishcommunity. He seemed ªonthe verge ofbecoming theyoungest and greenest boss in America,ºbut the poor quality ofhis father’ssewingdissuaded the wholesalers from supplying him with any more work.Out ofbusiness, he returned to working for others. 37 Classdistinctions were necessarily hard todraw in anindustry in whichmany workershoped to become bosses and many bosseswere almost aspoor astheir workers. AsWerlin’ scasedemonstrates, going outof business was as easy as entering it, and

33StevenFraser, ª Combined and UnevenDevelopment in the Men’sClothing Industry,º Business History Review ,57(1983), 534. 34Ibid., 535. 35Report ofthe Industrial Commission , 325. 36J.B. Werlin,#71, 62. 37J.B. Werlin,#71, 64± 65. TheAmbiguity of Class among Immigrants 55 therewere former bossesamong theworkers as well asfuture ones. Moreover, workers andbosses came intoclose contact with oneanother, working together in thesame conditionsand sharing many social ties.Lena Friedman recalled oneset of employers fondly,despite her theoretical commitment tothe class struggle. Afterall, they were comradesas well asbosses. ª Ilovedmy work,ºshe wrote, ª aswell asmy bosses.They had beenBundists at home,and they werenot upstart `allrightniks.’ They behavedvery well towardthe girls in theshop because they also workedthemselves.º 38 In the early years,in fact,contractors argued that they toowere exploited by thelarge manufactur- ersand that they thereforebelonged in thesame unions as their employees.The unions soonof® cially rejectedthis claim, butat least oneprominent labor leaderÐ Abraham BisnoÐgot his start asa Chicago garment contractorparticipating in ajointprotest movementagainst thelarge manufacturers. 39 Although notas committed to the ideals ofthe labor movement,Werlin, too,remained proudof the role hehad played as secretary ofhis unionduring ahistoric strike which tookplace in Philadelphia shortly after hehad goneout of business as a contractor. 40 Hisformer statusas an employer posedno barrier in his ownmind or thoseof his fellowworkers to his active participation in theunion. The career ofone sometime contractor, Isaac Benequit,is instructive on a number of points.41 Markedby aprofoundconsciousness of class, Benequit’ slife also demon- stratedhis ownambivalent loyalties. Ananarchist andsupporter of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, heremained suspiciousof pro® t-making enterprise,yet also desiredmaterial success.Benequit’ spositionin theclass hierarchy wasalso ambiguous. The sonof wealthy parents,Benequit himself had becomea small business- man in after his father’sdeath.He even had somesuccess, despite the fact that healready believed that commercewas essentially immoral. Hissubsequent migration toAmerica thereforeat ®rst brought asigni® cantdecline in social statusand income. Benequitarrived in NewYork in 1888 at theage of22 andwithout a skill. Not wanting tobecome a peddler,he decided to follow theexample ofhis family’sboarder by becoming ashirtmaker. After ashortª apprenticeshipºBenequit got ajobmaking buttonholesfor $1.50 aweekat theshop where his mother’sboarder worked.Within six weekshe had also learnedto make sleevesand other parts ofthe shirt, andwas helping theboss transport thebundles between the shop and the manufacturer’ s warehouse.But when he asked for araise from $4 to$6 aweek,the boss refused, and Benequitwalked out. Evenin his early daysas a wage worker Benequitexhibited anentrepreneurial consciousness.Despite his distastefor peddling,he did some of it onthe side. Moreover,he becamea contractorwithin monthsof his arrival, showingjust how easy it wasto become an employer in thegarment industry.In his memoirs, Benequitrelates howhe became a garment contractorfor the® rsttime: ªIbegan totry toconvince our boarder that sincehe could make theother parts oftheshirts, we shouldhire acouple ofworkersand make theshirts ourselves.We wouldn’tneedto rent a shop,because my mother wouldlet ususe the house for free.She and my sister,a thirteen-year-old girl, wouldbe able tosew the buttons and earn something aswell.º 42 The boarder

38LenaFriedman, #157,24. The Jewish Labor Bund was asocialistworkers’ party in EasternEurope. An ªallrightnikºin AmericanYiddish slangwas amaterially successful,but crude,parvenu upstart. 39Abraham Bisno, AbrahamB isno Ð Union Pioneer (Madison: Universityof Wisconsin Press, 1967), 67. 40J.B. Werlin,#71, 66. 41I.A. Benequit, Durkhgelebt un durkhgetrakht (2 vols., NewYork: TheCulture Federation, 1934). 42Benequit, v. 2, 49. 56 D. Soyer

convinced,Benequit went off to the manufacturer to secure work. He went to the same manufacturer that suppliedhis former boss,agreeing toa securitydeposit of $100 for thegoods. He raised mostof this moneyby peddling onSaturdays, when he was off from workin theshop. The resthe borrowed from his mother. SoonBenequit was in businessas a contractorin thefamily apartment onMulberry Street.Like many small bosses,he had dreamsof becoming alarge manufacturer,but he soon learned that being aclothing contractorwas not so easy.Moreover, he had becomeconvinced that onehad toexploit theworkers in order tobecome rich, andthis hewas unwilling todo. Benequitreturned to wage work,with peddling asa sideline. Finally, Benequit’sstay in theclothing trade,though it lasteda numberof years, proved temporary, while both his tastefor businessand his loyalty tothe radical movementendured. Like Garson, he continued to display atremendousamount of innertension concerning his con¯icting social ideals andprivate ambitions. Here- turnedto contracting more than once,only toleave it again, smarting underaccusa- tionsthat hewas an ªenemyof the workers, a parasite ¼[who] lived offthe labor of others.º 43 In betweenstints as an employer, hejoined the union, and once even led a strike.For atime hemanaged acooperative shop,but found his fellowworkers most uncooperative.Ultimately, heleft thegarment industryand went on to a varied career that includedkeeping astore,speculating in real estate,building houses,and manufac- turing sausage.He never again workedfor wages,but his last wordswere, ª Mysoulis with thelabor movement.º 44 Similarly, anautobiographer whocalled himself ªAnotherManº never surrendered his radical principles evenafter years asa smalltime furmanufacturer. Like Benequit, ªAnotherManº harbored ambitions for successas a capitalist, evenas he expressed distastefor capitalism asa system.The writer enteredthe fur trade asa machine operator after his arrival in NewYork from Bessarabia around1903. Underthe in¯uenceof his fellowworkers and the Forward,hejoined the union, converted to socialism, andmarched in May Day parades.As ª another soldier in thearmy ofthe classstruggle,º he later recalled with someirony, heª felt akindof inner satisfactionº for his small contributionª tothe liberation ofthe oppressed and exploited working class.º 45 Butª AnotherManº also aspired toleave theworking classbehind. When he brought his family over around1907, hewas motivated in part by thefree education available tochildren in NewYork, aneducation that hethought wouldallow atalentedchild to ªreach quitehigh.º He himself felt thepull ofincreased status and income, not through thecollective action ofthe working class,but by becoming anemployer himself: Of course,the more onelost one’ sgreenness,the greater one’sneedsbecame, andthe stronger oneheard thecall, Godforbid, not to fall behindone’ s landslayt [immigrants from thesame town]. In fact,why notsurpass them? Buton the limited wagesone received working for another,the outlook for successwas quite limited, soI thereforedecided to undertake a businessof my own.46 Together with apartner, thewriter openeda furshop, becoming asmall manufacturer. Heremained in thebusiness for about15 years and,although henever became rich, he

43Benequit, 84. 44Benequit, 4. 45Ish Akher, #162,8± 9. 46Ish Akher, #162,9, 10. TheAmbiguity of Class among Immigrants 57 nowhad thepersonal satisfactionof ª notbeing subordinateto a boss,or, worse, to a foreman.ºConcerning his ownstatus as a ªlittle boss,ºhe reasonedthat hehad really bossedvery little, andhad neverexploited his workers.Although his revolutionary ardor diminished,ª AnotherManº continued to vote Socialist onthe local level, andfor theª mostprogressiveº candidate in national elections. 47 Asthe examples ofGarson, Benequit, ª AnotherMan,º and the East New Yorker make clear, many immigrants didnot fall easily intoany given category ofclass. Many families includedboth wage workersand small-time entrepreneurs.Even as the East NewYorker, for instance,worked as a cloakmaker, his wifekept a candystore. As notedin thecase of S.J.Levy, income from awife’sbusinesscould also help propel a husbandout of his blue-collar occupation.In other instances,signi® cantly, women continuedto identify their ownclass status with that oftheir husbands.Rose Silverman, for example, called herselfan ªordinary worker’swife,ºthough sheherself had an independentbusiness as a dressmaker. 48 Moreover,the lines between bosses and workers remained especially blurred in the garment industry.Even in later years,long after theunions determined to exclude contractorsfrom their ranks,union members in sometrades continued to hire ªhelpersºor ªlearnersºof their own.Active in thegreat 1910 cloakmakers’ general strike,for example, theEast New Yorker becameunion chairman oftheshop where he worked.At that time heª tooka helper andmade good money,º becoming, in effect, aunionizedboss to at least oneworker. 49 Ironically, unionmilitancy sometimesfurthered workers’ entrepreneurial ambitions. The higher wagesprovided by unionjobs could enable workers to save enough capital tobecome employers. The EastNew Yorker recalled that, by thebeginning ofWorld War I,hewas ª notdoing badly in theshop under union conditions.º 50 Taking advantage ofhis relatively high wagesas a unionworker, as well asof his wife’spro® ts from her candystore, he left theworking classaltogether by openingthe Realty Cloak andSuit ManufacturingCo. Even more ironically, workersforced out of jobsbecause ofunionactivities sometimesopened businesses of their own.A devotedtrade unionist, furnituremaker Gumnerestablished his owncustom shop in Bostononly after losing his jobin anunsuccessful strike. 51 Likewise,when his employers demandeda wage cut, M.Feigan instigated awalkoutby his union,the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Returning tothe shop after thesettlement, Feigan discoveredthat thebosses had removedhis machine topunish him for his role in theaction. He returned to the union,which called another strike.The Amalgamated successfullydefended Feigan’ s job,but he foundhimself soresented by bossesand workers alike that heleft theshop altogether. Insteadhe bought asodastand for $800. 52 The socialist-ledgarment unionsendeavored to de® ne class lines in theindustry more distinctly.They didso not primarily from ideological motives,but because the industry’scomplicated structurehad always madeit dif®cult to organize. By theturn ofthe century, the labor movementhad de®nitively barred contractorsfrom member- ship,and it tried repeatedly toeliminate thepractice ofhaving workershire their own assistants.In theearly 1920s, theunions had adif®cult time policing so-called

47Ish Akher, #162,10, 13, 18. 48RoseSilverman, #139,32. 49ªA70YearOld EastNew Yorker,º #24, 35. 50Ibid., 36. 51A.Gumner,#44, n.p. 52M.Feigan, #4, 18. 58 D. Soyer

ªcorporation shopsºformed cooperatively by workers,some of whom had losttheir previous jobsbecause of unionactivity. The unionsconsidered these shops dangerous becausethey sometimescooperated with non-unionemployers, threatening toundercut theregular employers whohad agreed tocollective bargaining. Despitethe unions’ oppositionto ª corporations,ºhowever, many unionmembers joinedsuch ® rms when theopportunity arose.As a partner in onecorporation shop,M. Feigan invested$100 andserved as the ® rm’sbookkeeperuntil theunion discovered it andshut it down. 53 Whatever their leadersmight think, theunion rank-and-® le sawvery little wrong with members,even of® cials, becoming employers in their trades.On one occasion, the Children’sJacket Makers’Union of Brooklyn evengranted oneof its organizers acash bonusto open a factory. Admittedly, this decisiongenerated opposition, and one angry member wroteto the Forward toask the editor’ sadvice onwhat todo. Its ® ngersalways onthepulse of theimmigrant community,the newspaper agreed that theunion could surely ®ndbetter usefor its money,but counseled disgruntled members notto stir up discordover sucha trivial incident.The editor pointedout that had theof® cial ªgone into another businessÐa store,for exampleÐ noonewould have objectedto the union helping him outof fraternal recognition.ºEven the irate letter writer concededthat suchcases were not unusual, but he argued that ªmany former active members,even secretaries,of the union are today theworst tyrants asbosses.º 54 (A.Brunstein would have disagreed.A unionactivist turnedcontractor, he blamed his repeatedfailures on his propensity eachtime ªtoorganize [his own]shop as a unionshop.º ) 55 Outsideof New York andthe other large manufacturing centers,the Jewish labor movementitself oftenconsisted entirely ofsmall businesspeople.Lena Weinberger, a sleevemaker in Philadelphia anda former Bundist,married afellowunion activist. Her husbandª only wantedto go into business,ºand the couple soon moved to Ellenville, NewYork, openinga butchershop, which they operatedfor many years.Weinberger remained aloyal member ofthe Workmen’ sCircle andparticipated in Socialist campaigns, though her reputation asa ªredºdrove away customers.She was not alone, however,as a socialist entrepreneur.The Ellenville branch ofthe Workmen’ sCircle, sheherself noted, consisted mainly ofª petty bourgeois.º 56 Likewise,one socialist entrepreneurin Chelsea,Massachusetts, expressed pride in his entirefamily, ªsuccessfulbusinessmen [and] all radical people,ºwho helped to ® nancethe local Workmen’sCircle,Socialist Party, andother labor institutions. 57 Classwas thus a muchmore complicated issuewithin theimmigrant Jewishcom- munity than unionand socialist rhetoric couldacknowledge. Most immigrants had a variety ofclass experiences in their lives. Though somegrew upin working-classhomes in EasternEurope and remained shopworkers their entirelives, more underwentone ormore shiftsin status.Coming from backgroundsthey oftenbelieved tobe essentially middle class,however impoverished, they experiencedmigration aspart ofa processof proletarianization. Oncein thenew world they frequentlyaspired toregain en- trepreneurial independenceand middle-class status, and many eventually succeededin

53Ibid.,20±21. On corporationshops, seeLevine, The Women’sGarment Workers , 402. 54ªAbintl brief,º Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward ),Nov. 24,1909. 55A.Brunstein, #190,28. For an interestingaccount of how overlapping family and classaf® liations affectedthe Jewish classstruggle in Toronto, seeRuth Frager, Sweatshop Strife:Class, Ethnicity, andGender in the Jewish LaborMovement ofToronto 1900±1939 (Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press,1992), 55± 76. 56LenaWeinberger, #160, 22. 57Khasi’sEynikl, #154,25. TheAmbiguity of Class among Immigrants 59 doing so.In themeantime, many Jewishimmigrants movedback andforth between wage workand business enterprise. This ambiguous social reality gave rise toan equally ambivalent consciousness concerningclass. Neither working classmilitancy norsocialist ideals ruledout en- trepreneurial ambition. Not only didmany workersaspire tobecome capitalists, but more than afewemployers retainedties to the labor movementand radical politics. At theturn of the century, such commentators as John Commons believed that Jewish ambitions for upwardmobility ruledout consistent support for collective solutionsto social problems. Butit may bethat theambiguity ofclassduring theformative years of theAmerican Jewishcommunity had theopposite effect. Perhaps it isnot surprising that social hierarchy seemedlargely arbitrary andunfair tomany Jewsof the immigrant generation,or that their politics continuedto re ¯ecta discomfortwith social inequality. Indeed,the apparent disjuncturebetween the social ideals andthe personal goals of many Jewshas beenremarkably persistent.In recentdecades, many observers,particu- larly thoseof a conservative bent,have expressedbewilderment at theJewish com- munity’spersistentsupport for NewDeal liberalism long after its economicposition wouldseem to have dictateda turnto a more conservative position. 58 The experience ofthe immigrant generation suggeststhat this often-paradoxical mix ofmiddle-class ambitions andworking-class politics has deeproots in theAmerican Jewishexperience, dating back tothe early years ofimmigration.

58For recentscholarly discussionsof this question seeHenry L. Feingold, ªFrom Equality to Liberty: TheChanging Political Cultureof American Jews,º Nathan Glazer,ª TheAnomalous Liberalism of AmericanJews,º and JeroldS. Auerbach, ªLiberalism, , and AmericanJews: AResponse,ºin Robert M.Seltzerand Norman J. Cohen, eds., The Americanization ofthe Jews (NewYork: NewYork UniversityPress, 1995), 97± 118, 133± 148; Michael Walzer, ª Liberalism and the Jews: Historical Af® nities, Contemporary Necessities,ºand GeoffreyBrahm Levey,ª Towarda Theoryof Dispropor- tionate AmericanJewish Liberalism,ºin PeterY. Medding,ed., Studies in ContemporaryJewry 11 [Values, Interests andIdentity: Jews andPolitics in aChanging World (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press)],3± 10, 64± 85.