Trudy Gold
Jews, Revolutionaries and Trouble Makers: Part 2

Trudy Gold - Jews, Revolutionaries and Troublemakers, Part 2

- All right. Good evening, everyone. Again, a very sad evening with events in Jerusalem, and I don’t know if taking you back into history helps at all, but I think having the group certainly helps me. So I wish you all well. And this is part two of my presentation. And what I’m trying to show you is the kind of ideas that were fermented in the Pale of Settlement that are going to be brought abroad. And now I’m going to look at the smallest group, the revolutionaries, but in many ways the most important, certainly in sealing the image of Jews as troublemakers. And I want you to bear in mind, and we’ll be dealing with it later on in the course, that after the First World War, over 40,000 Eastern European Jews were repatriated from America, including Emma Goldman, who I’m going to do a special on. And the majority of them were Jews who were considered troublemakers. But this image of the Jew and socialism is going to be very, very strong. And it’s very, very important in understanding the role of the Jews in America. Now let me say from the beginning, the majority of Jews were never socialists. They were never communists. Having said that, the leadership of the majority of revolutionary parties were people of Jewish birth. And I can say this till I’m blue in the face. The minute you ascribe to communism, not socialism, you have left religion behind. Religion, remember Marx, “Religion is the opium of the masses.” Now the point is, definition of a Jew is not just what you think yourself to be, it’s what others see you. And it’s not surprising that many of these alienated people of Jewish birth, they espoused Marxism because it was international, and they really were idealists.

There’s almost a messianic idealism in pre-revolutionary left wing thought. So anyway, I want to begin with the May Day oration, which I finished with last week. So could we see the first slide, if you don’t mind, Karina? Here you see it. We Jews repudiate our national holidays and festivals which are useless for human society. We link ourselves with the armies of socialism and adopt their holidays. Our holidays, which we have inherited from our ancestors, will vanish together with the old system. The Torah of socialism will not descend from the heaven of Sinai in a thunder and lightning, and the Messiah will not come riding on a white horse. They really believed, as I said before, that the Jewish problem would cease to exist once oppression was destroyed. And please don’t forget that by the 1890s, the Jews of the Pale were the most urbanised and impoverished, more than any other group in the empire. Now I told you last week, last session, it was Plekhanov who brought Marxism to Russia, but two of his principal associates were of Jewish birth. And let’s have a look at the first one of them, Pavel Axelrod. He was the son of a Jewish innkeeper. He was a very clever boy. Most of these people have got really good brains. He was one of those idealistic students who left the city to work with the peasants, this dream of the great peasant soul. The experiment failed. He went to Switzerland. He converted to anarchy, and then finally becomes, at one stage, by the way, he was a member of Hibbat Zion, which was very left wing Zionism.

And then he gets involved with the first Russian Marxist group, and it’s there that he, Plekhanov, and of course, can we see the next one? Lev Deutsch, who was the son of a Jewish merchant and a Russian mother. These are the three that really pull together Marxism in Russia. So then we have to go on, I want to look with you now at the next figure. That’s Julius Martov. His real name was Osip Tsederbaum. He was arrested as a teenager for activism. He rejected, his grandfather wanted to send him to America to keep him out of trouble. He rejected the suggestion. He went to, he went to Vilnius in 1891, and the horror that he saw there, and also the, there was a terrible famine in Lithuania, and that really made him a Marxist. He said this, “My subjective political romanticism "was dwarfed before the philosophical "and sociological heights of Marxism.” He was a very early colleague of Lenin, and they set up something called the League for the Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Classes. He organised a successful strike in 1896. He’s exiled to Siberia. He’s forced to leave Russia. And then he joined the Socialist Democratic Party, later known as the Communists. He went on the board of Iskra, their paper, this was the paper, and think about it, these are the characters who are taking control of the party. He was on good terms with the Bund.

And later on when they split, you remember I told you how they split in London between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. He was a Menshevik. Can we go on please? Because you need to understand why the world saw communism as a Jewish disease. This is Alexander Helphand, better known as Parvus. His real name was Israel Lazarevich Gelfand. He was born in a shtetl in Belarus. His father was a locksmith. He moved to Odessa. And of course, Odessa was the centre of all those extraordinary ideas. He went to a gymnasium, then he went to Switzerland. Now remember in the latter years of Alexander II’s reign, and in the years of Alexander III’s, there was such, it was so difficult for Jews that many middle class Jews were now going to Western universities to study. He becomes exposed to all sorts of writings. He goes to Bar at University, he studies political economy, and he becomes involved in Marxism. Then he moves to Germany where he becomes very close to another interesting immigrant from the Pale, a woman called Rosa Luxemburg. He and Lenin were together in Munich with Rosa, and they encouraged him. He began to be the publisher of Iskra. In the revolution of 1905 in Russia, he’s arrested along with Lev Davidovich Bronstein better known as Trotsky. He was visited in prison by Rosa Luxemburg. He’s absolutely at the centre of it. He spends three years in Siberia. He then moves to Turkey. He’s a very entrepreneurial type.

He actually established an arms trading business, and he becomes the financial advisor to the Young Turk Revolution in Turkey. He edited their daily newspaper, and he dealt with deliveries to the Turkish army. He also was a asset for British intelligence. In Turkey he became very close to the German ambassador. Now Turkey and Germany are on one side in the war. Russia is on the other side with Britain and France. None of the communists wanted the war to go on. It’s important to remember that. And in 1915, he’s close to the German ambassador. He mixes in high society. He’s one of those incredibly attractive personalities that people want to know. He actually wrote a 20 page plan, which he gave to the German government, a preparation for massive political strikes in Russia. He believed that if after World War I broke out, if revolution could be started in Russia, that’s when communism could take over, pull Russia out of the war. So it was therefore in the interests of Germany to do something about it. What he does, in the end, the Germans buy it. And in 1917, there was a revolution in Russia, the February Revolution led by a man called Kerensky. It’s at this stage, but Kerensky was a patriot. And it was at this stage that the communists, the Bolsheviks, needed to act. And it was Parvus who created this sealed train. The Germans in the end are going to send Lenin and many of his colleagues back into Russia in this train. And this is because of Parvus, and many of the characters on that train were born Jewish.

He actually, he remained behind in Germany. And he actually spent his last years in Berlin living in a 32 room mansion on Peacock Island on the River Havel, a fascinating individual. So these are the characters who are involved. Can we go on please? There you see Zinoviev. Now Zinoviev is going to become very, very important in the party. He was born Hirsch Applebaum in Kherson. All these characters are nomads. He was in Switzerland. He returns to Russia on Parvus’s sealed train. He became Chairman of the Executive of the Comintern. And he was one of the triumvirate, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin, who after Lenin’s death take power in Germany. He was incredibly important. Unfortunately, he fell foul of Stalin and was murdered by him. But you see the picture, I’m trying to give you? Can we go on please? Kamenev, the other part of the triumvirate. Born Rozenfeld. Again, studied in Gymnasium, is radicalised by the horror that he sees. He’s also on the train and he is a very close ally of Stalin until Stalin turns against him and Zinoviev and has them both murdered. Can we go on please? Sokolnikov, another important person in the party. His real name was Yankovlevich, brilliant. He was the son of a Jewish doctor. He was a member of the original delegation at Brest-Litovsk because when the train is sent into Russia, there is a revolution. They take over with Lenin, and its Trotsky, the number two to Lenin who negotiates the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. And he was with him in Brest-Litovsk. And after the revolution, he becomes the Head of State. He actually dies young. No, sorry. What happens to him is that he is, he becomes an important part of the party, but he falls from favour with Lenin, as so many of them did. I’m rushing through this because I’m just trying to give you a sort of picture.

He was born Karol Sobelsohn in Lviv. He was Vice-Commissar for Foreign Affairs. He took part in Brest-Litovsk. Let’s go on, Sverdlov. Sverdlov was incredibly important in the party. He was in many ways everybody’s genius. He actually died in the flu epidemic of 1919. But it was he who was responsible for the execution of the czar, although of course it came from Lenin. And when Trotsky once asked his nationality, he said, “Socialist.” So can we go on please? There you have him. Leon Trotsky, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, the number two to Lenin, the leader of, the creator of the Red Army, Commissar for foreign Affairs, more than anyone else responsible for the Soviets holding at the end of the first World War and the creation of the Soviet State. Written out of history, and ironically, much of those characters who are out screaming against the Jews, the Socialist workers party, they see Trotsky as their guru. Stalin has been discredited. Today Trotsky is seen as the international socialist who believed in permanent revolution. I just wish that they would read what the man had to say because believe me, he does change his mind about his Jewishness. And can I see the next picture please? I wanted to finish with Simon Dubnow, because of course, Dubnow was the great Jewish historian who tragically was murdered by the Nazis in Riga in 1941.

This is what he wrote after the revolution. “We shall never be forgiven "for the share that Jewish speculators of the revolution "have taken in the Bolshevik terror.” The Jewish fellow workers of Lenin, the Trotskys, Sokolnikov, eclipse even him. So basically you have, and this is going to follow the Jews to America, this notion that Jews are troublemakers. Jews are communists, when the reality was the majority of them never were. But I have to reemphasize, it’s not just in, it’s not just in Russia. It was a Jew who ran the revolution in Hungary, in Munich, Hitler City, there were three revolutions, and the leadership were all Jewish. In Berlin, it was Rosa Luxemburg. In Austria, it was Adler. It was from country to country to country. And in America, and after first World War, there’s going to be a huge fear of agitation. I’ll be looking at that when I look at the Leo Frank trial and the growth of antisemitism in America. But a lot of it had to do with the fear of Jews as socialists. But let’s go on please. Now that’s, that is actually Mary Antin. And let me start by reading from a memoir of a young Jewish university student in 1881. He went, he and his friends went into a synagogue in Kiev, which was a site. There’d been a terrible pogrom. And they mounted the Bimmer, and this is what one of them said, “We are only stepchildren here, "waves to be trampled on and dishonoured. "There’s no hope for Israel in Russia. "Let us go to a land beyond the sea, "which knows no distinction of race and faith, "which is mother to Jew and Gentile alike, "to America, brethren to America.” Now, Abraham Cahan also wrote, but first of all, there’s a couple more people I want to talk about. Paul Engle, who was an American writer who’s looking at the huge flood of immigration.

He says, “Who knows what strange multi fathered child "will come out of the nervous travail of these bloods "to fashion a new world continent, a new breed of men.” There was positive, but later on we’re going to see there was a lot of negative. This is Mary Antin who wrote “The Promised Land,” and I know that David Herman’s talked about her. Everyone was in, “America was in everybody’s mouth. "Businessmen talked of it over their accounts. "The market women made up their quarrels "that they might discuss it from the store to school. "People who had relatives in the famous land "went along reading letters of enlightenment "for less fortunate folks. "The one letter carrier informed the public "how many letters arrived from America or talked of it, "but scarcely anyone knew any true facts "about the magic land.” And that’s important, the magic land. Now can we go on please? And Brody is one of the ports out. One of the ways out was Brody. It was a frontier station between Russia and Galicia, Austria. The first victims of the May laws began to encamp there by 1882. In later years, they bypassed. One crossed North Russia and old Poland by Vilna and others entered East Russia. So you’ve also got to remember that this is very much facilitated by what? It’s facilitated by the growth of the railway networks and the steamships. You could get third class on the railway and you could get out, but it’s like the myth of America had spread. The central section of the Pale, on the railway line from Moscow to Brest-Litovsk, Jews went via Warsaw to cross the frontier. So the the Pale is huge. It’s about the size of Europe, and if you can keep it in your mind, it’s from Poland through the Ukraine. And it’s this huge land where Jews made up about 12% of the population. In the southern pale, now that’s mainly Ukraine.

Vast population beyond Kiev and Odessa, they crossed via the Habsburgs. By the time they, by the Habsburg Empire, by the time they reached the frontier, you’ve got to remember that some of these journeys, third class railway tickets, sometimes for up to 60 hours. They’re exhausted. They’re half stupefied. It wasn’t easy. There were robbers. There were hooligans. They needed exit visas to cross into Germany and Austria. Often denied to able-bodied men who the Russian army wanted to conscript. There was bribery. There was fear. I think what we have to say, that those who left, they must have been desperate. And not only were they desperate, they were brave. I remember reading the memoirs of Arthur Miller’s father. He later on became a huge garment manufacturer, and he talked about how it took three weeks to cross the Atlantic. And basically, they were down in the hold, and they used to throw herrings down, and many of the people contracted scurvy. It was a tough, tough time. Can we go on please? The Mansion House Fund. Now what has been going on is that, of course, because of better communications, people knew what was going on in Russia. In Britain, for example, the Mansion House Fund, which was actually established by the non-Jewish Lord Mayor, helped provide funds. And there were also organisations in Germany, Austria, and Belgium, all helping to clear refugees onto America. And it’s not just being good and kind.

It’s also we don’t want this Yiddish speaking hoard in Belgium, in Germany or in London. They, and in fact, communities in the West ran a press campaign to advise against immigration. Now, it got so bad though that in the end there was an international conference of Jewish relief organisations, which was going to lead to the establishment of a proper fund to help people out. So can we go onto the next slide, please? Abraham Cahan, I wanted to read to you what he wrote in his memoirs. This was a letter mailed to Paberžė, a small village outside Vilnius. This is what, and it’s this letter that made him leave. And of course I know that David’s already talked about him, and he produced in New York, of course, the incredibly important Daily Forward where people read it. It was a Yiddish newspaper. And it also gives you a smell and a favour, a flavour of the other side of immigration. It was a very, very tough, these characters who are going to land in the lower East Side in the main, it’s going to be very tough for them. You know, there’s going to be desertion. There’s going to be appalling poverty, but they are out of Russia. And another thing to say about the Jewish immigrants, the majority of immigrants to America, there was a kind of affection for the old country. For the Jews, there was no old country. And I’ve been told that for many families, the family memory was that people actually spat when they left. That that was the feeling Jews had for Russia. This is what he wrote. “A letter was mailed to Paberžė, a small village outside Vilnius, that an illiterate woman,” he’s using this in the mouth of his hero, “an illiterate woman brought her letter "from her relative to the synagogue. "And she asked him to read it. "America lured me, not just as a land of milk and honey, "but also perhaps chiefly as one of mystery, "of fantastic experiences, of marvellous transformations.

"To leave my native place and seek my fortune "in that distant, weird world seemed to be "just the kind of sensational adventure "my heart was hankering for.” And he goes, when he’s very young. He’s 20. He goes out there. And also all the stories of America, the stories of Rockefeller, the stories of Carnegie, that a newspaper boy can become a millionaire. That the streets of America are paved with gold, the Golden Medina, the dream of America. And to be honest, for many, although it was tough, tough, tough in the early days, for many, it did become the Golden Medina. For all the problems, it was the Golden Medina. By 1924, when the Americans really tightened up in immigration, Jews represented nearly 10% of the huge immigration. So they become a very, very significant part. Can we go on please? This of course is Emma Lazarus, and Emma Lazarus whose words are immortalised on the Statue of Liberty. And what is fascinating about her is that Irving Berlin, who always wrote his own lyrics, it was only she, he used her lyrics for one, for his piece, for a piece of music, which I’m going to show you in a minute. And of course, out of the lower East side, they are absolutely going to swarm. They’re going to change so much in America, particularly American popular taste, be it in the music business, be it in Hollywood. They’re at the forefront of modernity. We looked at the German Jews, and the department stores, et cetera, et cetera. But with these Russian Jews, they also brought with them their authentic Yiddish culture. Now what I want to show you is from an exhibition of years of Jewish life in America.

Can we have a look please? This was “From Haven to Home: 35 Years of Jewish Life.” And I just thought that these were wonderful postcards. And that’s the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, HIAS, that was to help them all. I mean, Sandra Myers has already lectured on the downside of immigration, the pimps that lured so many young Jewish women to South America. And there you see kids waving at the Statue of Liberty, which of course has Emma Lazarus’s words on it. Can we look some more, please, some more. Here you see, this is a prayer book for travellers going to America. Long Live the Land of the Free. Next year in America. That is a New Year card, would’ve been sent home. You see, this is the point. There are letters, America, America to the Golden Medina. Can we go on please? This is the Jewish quarter in Boston. And there you see an etching of the Lower East Side, the bustling, you know. It could have been in Eastern Europe, couldn’t it? If you have a look at the sort of the way they’re dressed, the Greeners. Can we go on? Now this is particularly for women. What every woman should know about citizenship. The first Yiddish American cookbook. And that’s a lovely one. A boychik up to date. Now this is a new American. And of course the other thing that’s going to burst out is Yiddish Theatre. Just think also of Eastern Europe. Think of the Purim spiel. Think of the cultural life that have been stirred up mainly by the Bund. It’s going to dump itself on the shores of America. Can we go on please? Now this is, there is the, remember I mentioned the Emma Lazarus poem? Here you see, give me your tired, your Poor from Miss Liberty. That’s the Emma Lazarus manuscript put together by the Extraordinary I. Berlin. I had an email today from a student on Lockdown, basically looking at all the important Christmas songs and saying without the Jews it would be a silent Christmas.

And of course his most famous was “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” but practically all the famous Christmas songs were written by Eastern European Jews. It’s an extraordinary phenomenon. Can we go on please? There you see HIAS the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Now, these organisations were incredibly important because what was to be done with Eastern European Jewry? Going back, going back to Brody and how immigration came on, I think I have to establish something. Charles Netter of the Alliance, he actually was sent to Brody to try and deal with the immigrants. And this is a description by Ahad Ha'am, “The city was full of refugees from Russia. "Charles Netter,” the guy from the Alliance, “stayed there directing group after group to America. "One of the groups was in the train "in which I travelled to Vienna, and I could see Netter, "that worthy man standing at the station "and distributing money to the refugees. "His face expressed the kindness and compassion "that he felt for them. "The refugees were gay and in high spirits. "One could read in their eyes "how hopefully they looked into the future. "As this train started to pull out, "they called Long live Netter, Long live the Alliance.”

Now that’s the positive side of it. But as I’ve already said, the other, there were many French, Germans and Brits who didn’t want this great swath of immigration. So the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was set up. This is a letter to the Alliance. “The immigrants must be checked, "otherwise we shall receive here all the beggars "of the Russian Empire.” But frankly the , they ignored the warning, and they came. And leaders of American Jewry also worried. Jacob Schiff pleaded with Jewish leaders to direct immigration away from America. Now when they landed, we’ve already talked about Castle Garden, but after 1890, of course, they landed in Ellis Island. It became the Federal Immigration Centre. It was opened on January the first, 1892. Now those of you who are not American, who haven’t visited Ellis Island on New York, it’s so important. It really gives you a picture of what it must have been like. Over the next year, that’s 1892. It’s open on January the first, 400,000 immigrants were processed at the station. It included, just as it did with Castle Garden, it included a series of medical and mental inspection lines. About 1% were sent back. By 1896 it was, the whole thing was expanded. So it’s a huge immigration centre, and it must have been very, very frightening. Now if you look at the immigration patterns, it was divided into two stages. Going back to Castle Garden Days, 1881 to 1882, the first horror of the pogroms, 135,000 entered America. But it’s really after 1891, when if you recall, because we covered it, Grand Duke Sergei was made Governor of Moscow.

And his present from his brother, Alexander III, was the expulsion of 20,000 Jews from Moscow. And that was the signal. And from 1891 to 1914, 1,314,000 Jews flooded in. And in the end, because I think it’s got so much to do with the Jewish tradition of self-help and looking after each other. Yes, of course there were flaws. I’ve already mentioned the prostitution, the pimps, the poverty, and there was incredible exploitation just as in the factories of Eastern Europe. It was Jewish bosses, Jewish workers. But in the end, the philanthropists did get together, and they resigned themselves to the Exodus. There was an international conference in Frankfurt, and what they set up was a central office of migration to control all the Jewish, to coordinate. There were over 24 immigrant aid committees to coordinate the activities in key cities in Eastern and Central Europe. So as the Jews came out of the Pale from different centres to different cities in Europe, they were given aid and then moved on. Hundreds of thousands were met at the border crossings. They were provided with clothing, medical care, kosher food. There were also interpreters who travelled with them through to the German ports because they had Yiddish. What, you know, they were, you know, they could all have, many of them were robbed. There were problems. But by providing interpreters, providing with a certain aid, they could get them onto the ships.

And there was also, there was vast improvement in ocean transportation. Some quarter of a million came from Bremen and Hamburg on the German lines. Another three quarters of a million, they came from Liverpool on the queue nods. Kosher food was provided. But as I said, there was never enough. And quite often it was herrings thrown into the hold. And the majority went steerage. So shortly after the, so it’s Castle Garden. And then after 1890, it’s Ellis Island. And there they arrived. Now where did they settle? A tiny minority, about 4,000 sought to create agricultural colonies in such places as Louisiana, South Dakota or New Odessa. Now these were subsidised by Baron de Hirsch. Now this, the whole notion of agricultural colony is very interesting. Where does it come from? Zionists, Bundists, socialists all believed there was something a little bit unwholesome about the diaspora, that it forced the Jews into unnatural occupation patterns. They needed to get in contact with the land. They also believed that it would help them in the eyes of the Gentiles. However, and of course it was Baron de Hirsch known as Turk and Hirsch, one of the richest Jews in the world who had built the huge railway networks of the Turkish empire and South America. He was a friend of Edward VII. He walked the world, and he subsidised colonies all over the place and many in South America. 60,000 of the immigrants moved into smaller communities.

That was created by the Industrial Removal Office. It was founded in 1901 to rehouse Jewish immigrants into the American interior. It was financed by German Jews. They believed that if they spread them out, you wouldn’t have all these Yiddish speaking Jews in New York, and it would lessen the antisemitism, which I’m going to be talking about in a couple of weeks. But 65 of them remained in the great cities of the East, as did most of the immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. By 1939, New York City accounted for 46% of all American Jews. So New York becomes the great centre. And Howard Morley Sachar, the great historian, he wrote this, “East side, was transformed virtually into a Jewish city.” Now what was the reality? The five story tenements with 10 to 12 people in a flat. This is in Hester Street, think Hester Street. And I’m going to show you a clip from Hester Street in a minute. The wonderful film that was made by Joan Micklin Silver. I think one of the best films that gives you a smell of the immigrant experience. And if you haven’t seen it, please do so. And this is what David Levinsky, the hero of Abraham Cahan’s book said, “I rented a pushcart and tried to sell remnants "of dress goods, linens, and oil cloth. "I was one of the common herd in this business. "Often I would load with cheap hosiery, collars, brushes, "hand mirrors, notebooks, shoe laces, and the like. "I would announce to passers by the glad news "that I had struck a miraculous bargain "at a wholesale bankruptcy sale. "I hated the constant chase and scramble for bargains "and hated to yell and scream in order to create a demand.” And also there was some amazing women like Lillian Wald, who I’m going to run a whole session on to combat the problems on the lower east side of child delinquency and crime. Settlement houses were established, and she was behind the most famous settlement, the Henry Street settlement.

And out of that, and also the education they received, the Jews are going to be able to plunge into the middle classes. So to some degree out of those kind of organisations come the future judges, the teachers, the musicians, the playwrights, the philosophers and other public figures who sprung from the ghettos of America. And it’s quite an extraordinary story. And it was HIAS that was founded in 1902 by a newly arrived group of Eastern European immigrants. And it was, they were people who’d made it in America. They’d been there for nearly 20 years. They were more established, and they were the ones who became the interpreters. They were voluntary lawyers. And they tried to place the immigrants with friends, relatives, someone from a headra to find contacts for them. And also they created temporary shelters and an employment agency. And can we go on please? That’s the National Council for Jewish Women, established by German Jewish women. Don’t they look formidable? They look really, really scary. They were to protect immigrant women. Now what I’d like to do is, can we have a look at Hester Street please? Excuse me. This is that wonderful film that I’m talking about. And before you actually show it, let me quickly say that Joan Micklin Silver, she, the story of Hester Street, those of you haven’t seen it, it is about a young Jew who comes to America, and he becomes a modernizer. And he then goes to, he wants to be a real American. And then his wife and child come over, and you see him meeting them at Ellis Island. But she is still wearing a sheitel, and he becomes ashamed of her. And it’s how the adaption of American, of Jews to America.

In the end, he’s already got a girlfriend. She marries, she divorces him and she marries the border, this very conventional Jewish scholar. And she wears, she gets rid of the sheitel, but she wears a kerchief. It’s an absolutely beautiful film. You know, I don’t often recommend feature films, but it really gives you a smell of it. So can we have a look at the trailer please, if you don’t mind, Karina. That’s the husband. That’s just to whet your appetite. Can we go on please? And there of course are some shots of the lower East Side. When I look at that, I’ve travelled a lot in Eastern Europe, and I’ve got many, many photographs of pre-war life in Warsaw. And frankly it could be Warsaw, couldn’t it? That was the lower East side. The signs are in Yiddish, but it didn’t take long for them to become American and to really adopt so much to the great American way of life. And let’s go on. Have we got more? There you see Hester Street. Okay, I think we will stop there and let’s see if we, thank you very much Karina. Let’s see if we’ve got any questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Paul is asking, I hope when you discuss the 1930s, you will discuss Julius Rosenwald, the founder of the schools that educated the African Americans. I’m not doing it, but a colleague certainly is, Jill Schiff.

Q: Why did all these Jews change their names? Was it to show their socialist bonafides or the denial of their Judaism?

A: I think it’s both actually, Jill, frankly. It’s fascinating. Isn’t it interesting just how many of the leadership were Jews? But as I said, the majority of Jews were never communists or extreme socialists. But that’s going to be the pattern. And that’s one of the reasons, you know, if when we, later on we get to the 1940s and then the McCarthy Witch hunts. So many of the characters who had gone left because of Nazism were in trouble in America. And then of course you had the Rosenberg trial.

So it’s a very, so Fay has said yes, it’s both.

Oh, this is interesting. This is from Susan. “Documentary on the Jewish songwriters "who wrote the soundtrack to Christmas will be on PBS "on 10th of December in Buffalo, also on CBC and iTunes, "Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas.” It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Took over, you know, the why? What was the tradition? Where did Jacob Schiff and other leading Western European Jews want the Russian Empire Jews to go, if not in their backyards? To our shame, thousands of them were repatriated I’m afraid. You see every Jew who settles in a country, it’s the insecurity. I mean, England’s a perfect case. In Oliver Cromwell’s time, wealthy Sephardi came to this country ‘cause they were useful, and there weren’t many of them. And then poorer Jews came from Central Europe, and the Sephardi were very upset and then tried to modernise them. They became more modern. And then when the Eastern Europeans came over, what are we going to do with these characters? We have to improve them. And of course the same thing happened in America. In the benevolent societies, 90% of the Jews of New York were in the rag trade, mainly in the sweatshops with those tiny, they bought machines for them. Gradually, both in the States and in Britain, the Eastern Europeans pull out of the mire. And then when I think the most, I shouldn’t say this, and I doubt, it isn’t my immigration, but I think the most interesting immigration we ever had in England was the German Jews between 33 and 39. God, they changed British culture.

But the Jews already there were very wary of them. Then after the war survivors of course, and then who were the next lot to come. Well, never forget that nearly a million Jews had to get out of the Arab world. And Lyn Julius later on is going to look at the Mizrahi community in America. They come to England, the others are already wary of them. So South Africans come, so it’s fascinating, and I think it’s because of the insecurity and the difference. Israel is such an interesting example of a country that took in, I think it was 54 different nationalities. So look, we are a cormish people. What is it that that means? That means strange in Yiddish. My mother used it all the time. And what was it Elias Canetti said? “There are no people more difficult to understand "than the Jews.” And I really believe that one of the reasons behind this terrible upswing of antisemitism that we’re witnessing in the West is that people do not know our history. They do not know about us.

And this is from Rita, “My beloved late parents were Greeners.” The term was used pejoratively by the fellow Jews because yes, Rita, they wanted to be American, didn’t they?

This is from Shelly. “My grandfather’s family were tenant farmers in Belarus. "They had to use a non-Jew to rent the land for them.”

Bernice said, “Saw Hester Street many years ago "and still remember how much I love the film. "Thank you for a small glimpse.”

And Rita’s saying “It’s available on YouTube for no fee.” I look, one of the things I’m going to be doing to cheer us all up over the months is I’m going to teach a few fun classes on film, the image of the Jew on film, for the simple reason that I think there’s magic in the silver screen. And I’m hoping that by showing you clips from films, there are so many interesting Jewish films. We should perhaps, I will ask my colleagues. We did produce a large list of our favourite films. Maybe we should also produce a list of our favourite Jewish films. But certainly “Hester Street” is in my top five, as is “The Chosen.” Chaim Potok’s “Chosen” with, it stars Rod Steiger as a Hasidic Rabbi. It’s brilliant. This is Hillel. “In the 1920 elections, 40% of the American Jews "voted for the socialist candidate Eugene Victor Debs "for President.

"When I asked my father if he voted for Roosevelt, "he said no, we all voted for Norman Thomas, "the socialist candidate.” Yes, you see that’s one of the reasons, I know I rushed through the communists because I’ve covered it before in another class. But I really wanted you to understand where that image comes from. And also you can make the case, and I’m not talking about communism, but I’m talking about socialism, mild socialism, the kind of socialism of an Einstein. It is about social justice too. And that is so much part of the Jewish tradition. Look, although there was a lot of troubles, and there were exploitations, we know that. Nevertheless there was a lot of help. Jews do tend to help. I mean in this time of extraordinary appalling extremity in Israel, the horror story of it all, I know what’s happening in Britain, and I’m hearing from friends what’s happening in America. The collect, it’s not just about money. I mean some, the daughters of a group of friends of mine were collecting new clothes to pack up and send boxes and boxes to the survivors of the kibbutzim who have been displaced. And I think that is happening. That’s just a tiny little glimpse of what we do. We do have some sort of link. Whatever it is. I think one of the things, I think I should set you all, some work. I think you should all work out what you decide, your definition of what it means to be a Jew. It’d be fascinating to have a session on that. Thank you, Rita.

This is from Nancy. “My great-grandparents were Zionists "and moved from the Ukraine to Chicago and then to a farm "in Oshtemo, Michigan near Kalamazoo. "My grandfather went to school there. "I think there was a community of Zionists. "My understanding, that they were learning to work the land "in preparation for moving to Palestine. "My great grandparents didn’t make it as farmers, "never made it to Palestine yet.” There was a farm like that in England as well. It’s called Ida Farm. Yeah, it’s a lovely story, Nancy.

I think that’s everything then. So I wish you all well in this terrible time, and let’s just keep, remember Hanukkah is coming up, the Festival of Light, and let’s hope we move into an era of a little more light. So take care, everyone. I’ve got something nice happening. My second grandson is being bar mitzvah this weekend, so we’re going to celebrate. So I wish you all well and lots of love to everybody. Bye.