American Jewry and the Re-Invention of the East European Jewish Past

304 Pages·2017·68.552 MB·English

by  Markus Krah

Markus Krah
American Jewry and the Re-Invention of the East European Jewish Past
New Perspectives on
Modern Jewish History
Edited by Cornelia Wilhelm
Volume 9
Markus Krah
American Jewry
and the Re-Invention
of the East European
Jewish Past
ISBN 978-3-11-049992-6
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-049943-8
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-049714-4
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A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
Cover illustration: Hasidic Jews in a shtetl near Stanislawow (Poland), ca. 1928, photograph by
Marian Jerzy Sitarski (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #07087).
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
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Contents
Illustrations   VIII
Acknowledgments   XI
Introduction   1
Obsessively Engaged: Postwar American Jewry and the East
European Past   3
A Community Coming of Age – by Trying on a Usable Past   5
Jews in Postwar America: a Not-So-Golden Era?   7
State of the Field   10
From Yiddish to English: a Multiplicity of Sources   12
Methodology and Discipline: Discourse Analysis and Cultural
History   14
Chapter Overview   16
Larger Patterns: Memory in American and Jewish Contexts   18
1 The Search for New Modes of Jewishness in Postwar America   21
Interwar Years: Yiddishkayt in the Urban Ghetto – Doomed
to Decline   22
Mourning the World of East European Jewry – Claiming American
Legitimacy   25
American Crisis and Jewish Inclusion   30
Suburbia as Uncharted Territory – Synagogues Marking
Jewishness   34
Jewishness Redux – the Wounded Jewish Soul and the East
European Medicine   42
2 Launching a Discourse: YIVO’s Bridge From the Old World
to the New   47
Weinreich Puts Adolescent American Jewry on Freud’s Couch   53
YIVO: Research Institute, Myth, or Instrument of
Self-Expression?   60
Forging an American Jewishness – on Yiddish Terms   65
3 New (York) Jewish Intellectuals: The Past as Culture   71
New York Jewish Intellectuals: Refashioning Their Jewishness Out
of the Past   75
Bridging the Gap Between the Intellectuals and the
Community   80
VI   Contents
Dialectics of Jewish Pastness and American Presentness   86
Accepting Ambivalence – Vis-à-Vis Eastern Europe
and America   89
Translating the East European Past for the American Jewish
Present   93
4 Religious Culture as an Antidote to Liberal Judaism and Secular
Jewishness   96
Judaism: Eastern Europe as a Resource for a Broader Concept
of Judaism   97
Heschel’s Apotheosis of Ashkenazic Jewish Life   103
Soloveitchik: Bringing “Halakhic Man” from Lithuania
to America   110
5 Spiritual Needs, the Past, and the Denominational Landscape   119
Reform: Taking a New Look at a Distant Past   119
Conservative Judaism: East European Jewishness as ersatz
Yiddishkayt   126
Orthodoxy: Silencing, Historicizing, Idolizing the Recent East
European Past   132
Renewing American Judaism on Religious Terms Found
in the Past   143
6 From East European Radicalism to Postwar American
Progressivism   144
Journalistic Infighting Over Communism and Jewishness   147
American Jews: Mindlessly Assimilating, or Forming a New Spiritual
Center?   151
East European Folk Culture as Part of Jewish Leftists’ Political
Project   154
Memory as Content, From a Means to an End   158
Preserving the Heritage – Sacred Duty in the Service
of Continuity   163
7 Presenting a Rich Jewish Culture: The Eternal Light and Life
Is with People   167
The Eternal Light: East European Spiritual Jewishness Made
Audible   169
Aestheticizing Judaism – On a “High Church” Note   176
Contents   VII
Life Is with People: Ethnography Presents a Rich East European
Jewish Culture   179
“Sex, Taboo, and Superstition:” Attracting American Jewish Interest
in the Shtetl   184
8 Making Jewishness Meaningful: In School and in Hasidism   189
Textbook Cases: Spiritual Culture as a Source of Fortitude in the
Face of Persecution   194
Hasidism: Everyone’s Third Way   200
Hasidic Wholeness, Antinomianism, Ethical Judaism, and Proto-
Socialism   205
9 Tevye in Kasrilevke, the Fiddler in America: East European Jewishness
in Literature   212
Maurice Samuel Applies Sholem Aleichem to America   212
Affirmation or Alienation: The Jewishness of Cultural
Translators   217
Isaac Rosenfeld: From Alienation to the Affirmation of a Cultural
Jewishness   219
A Sacred Treasure: Anthologizing East European Yiddishkayt
for American Jews   224
The Postwar Shtetl: Re-Invention of “the Greatest Invention
of Yiddish Literature”   227
Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Subversive Spirituality of East
European Judaism   230
Final Curtain: Fiddler on the Roof   234
10 Conclusion: Re-Inventing Jewishness Out of Memory   241
A New Idea Out of Many Failing Ones   246
Community of Memory   249
Re-Inventing the Past to Re-Invent Jewish Ethnicity   254
Epilogue   258
Bibliography   261
Index   285
Illustrations
Fig. 1 Front page Yiddish Forverts, March 20, 1940
Fig. 2 Hasidic Jews in a shtetl near Stanislawow (Poland), ca. 1928 (Photograph by Marian Jerzy
Sitarski. Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #07087)
Fig. 3 Rosh Hashanah service at military Camp Blanding, St. Augustine, FL, 1945 (Courtesy
of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at
americanjewisharchives.org)
Fig. 4 Scholars at 1947 Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, Philadelphia
(Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, image #1964)
Fig. 5 Congregation Beth Sholom, Elkins Park, suburban Philadelphia, September 1959
(Courtesy of Congregation Beth Sholom)
Fig. 6 Exhibit commemorating American Jewish “Tercentenary,” Cincinnati, 1954 (Courtesy
of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American JewishArchives, Cincinnati, Ohio at
americanjewisharchives.org)
Fig. 7 YIVO’s New York headquarters, 1048 Fifth Avenue, not dated (Courtesy of
The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at
americanjewisharchives.org)
Fig. 8 Three Jewish youth share a daily Yiddish newspaper, Lithuania 1939-41 (Courtesy of
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #21314)
Fig. 9 Max Weinreich teaching Yiddish at City College New York, not dated (Courtesy of the
Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, RG 121)
Fig. 10 Irving Howe, not dated (Courtesy of Robert D. Farber Archives & Special Collections
Department, Brandeis University)
Fig. 11 Martin Buber, 1957 (Courtesy of Robert D. Farber Archives & Special Collections
Department, Brandeis University)
Fig. 12 Abraham Joshua Heschel, 1972 (Courtesy of the Library of The Jewish Theological
Seminary, image #68)
Fig. 13 Joseph B. Soloveitchik, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the
American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org)
Fig. 14 Orthodox journal Jewish Life, 1951
Fig. 15 Telegram from head of Brooklyn-based Mir Yeshivah to a student of the prewar
yeshivah, 1946 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #67028)
Fig. 16 Members of the Socialist Bund march in a May Day parade in Bialystok (Poland), 1934
(Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph # 63632)
Fig. 17 Morris Schappes, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American
Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org)
Fig. 18 Protagonists of The Eternal Light radio program at the 1950 ceremony of the Annual
Brotherhood Award (Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, image #1065)
Illustrations   IX
Fig. 19 Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun, Milwaukee, WI, 1952-53 (Courtesy of
The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at
americanjewisharchives.org)
Fig. 20 The (seventh) Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menahem Mendel Shneerson and a group of
Hasidism, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish
Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org)
Fig. 21 Sholem Aleichem with prominent members of the Jewish community of the Polish
shtetl of Bedzin, 1905-13 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph
#17966)
Fig. 22 Postcard by the Y. L. Peretz Library, commemorating Yiddish writer Mendele Mokher
Sforim, 1936 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #39492)
Fig. 23 Isaac Bashevis Singer, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the
American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org)