JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

economic history
The period between the two world wars witnessed a
number of new developments in Eastern Europe that were of
major significance for the Jewish population. The most important
events were the Russian Revolution and the establishment
of new national states in the region on the ruins of the
two large empires that had long dominated the political scene
in Eastern Europe prior to World War I. The positive effect of
the political changes was the granting of citizenship and civil
rights to the Jews in the new states. On the negative side were
the growth of nationalism of the dominant ethnic groups and
the continuation of de facto discrimination against the Jews
in most countries. Coupled with the difficult economic conditions
in those countries, which were even more aggravated
by government interference in the economic sphere, the precarious
power balance in Europe, and the impact of the economic
depression of the late 1920s and 1930s, this worsened
rather than improved the economic conditions of the Jewish
population.
In the Soviet Union, after an initial gain resulting from
the granting of civil rights and the abolition of the Pale of
Settlement by the democratic government of 1917, the period
of the civil war inflicted heavy population losses upon
the Jews, particularly in the Ukraine. The three outstanding
features of Soviet policy toward the Jews were the following:
(1) The isolation of Soviet Jews from the Jewish communities
abroad and the slow but consistent policy of destruction of
their cultural autonomy, institutions, and organized forms of
communal life, leaving cultural assimilation as the solution to
their problems as individuals. (2) The destruction of the small
town, the former locus of economic activity of the majority of
Russian Jews as a result of the forced industrialization drive
and the mobilization of human resources to build up the industrial
base of the country. This policy led to a mass migration
from the western parts of the Soviet Union (Belorussia
and the Ukraine) to the metropolitan areas and new centers
of industrial activity. (3) Since education became one of the
major vehicles of social advancement and was made available
in the first instance to the urban population, a large proportion
of the Jewish population took advantage of the opportunities
and a marked shift in the employment pattern as well
as in the professional composition took place. The Jews entered
en masse into industrial employment and various service
branches, all of which were nationalized and under the
centralized control of the government. Although the social
and economic advancement of the Jews in the Soviet Union
should not be disputed, it raised two grave issues: one of cultural
assimilation and the loss of group identity of the Jews,
of their existence as a distinct cultural or religious entity; and
the second, of their dependence as a group or as individuals
upon the decisions lodged in the hands of the supreme policy
makers of the country. The gravity of both issues arose, however,
in a later period, following World War II.
THE UNITED STATES. The chief characteristic of the development
of the Jewish community in the United States during the
late 19th and early 20th century was its rapid numerical growth
by comparison with other Jewish communities. The growth
occurred primarily as a result of the immigration of the Jews,
rather than because of the birth rate of the Jewish population
per se. The attraction of the U.S. for Jewish immigrants could
be explained both in terms of a wage level relatively higher
than in Europe as well as an open immigration policy, and the
lack of specific anti-Jewish discrimination. However, the pace
of immigration cannot be explained only in terms of increasing
attraction. The impetus to immigration of the Jews can be
traced to events in the European countries of their origin, and
the influence of the turns of the business cycle in the United
States on the size of the immigration stream can be demonstrated.
During the modern period there were two streams
of Jewish immigration, one of Western European Jews and
the other involving almost entirely Eastern European ones.
Each of these streams, although different in terms of its occupational
or professional endowment, was faced by similar
problems of economic integration and general acculturation
with the environment.
While the German Jews arrived with the experience
of language assimilation, a weakened sense of culture traditions,
and the articulated desire to join the middle class, the
Eastern European Jews arrived with industrial skills and the
expressed willingness to be employed in any sector of the
economy where opportunities were available, but without the
experience of previous cultural assimilation. In addition, they
transferred some of their habits of group behavior from their
European environment. There was, therefore, among Jewish
immigrants from Eastern Europe a strong preference for
settling in compact masses for reasons of economic and psychological
security. At the time of the first waves of mass immigration
from Eastern Europe, the Western European Jews
(mostly immigrants from Germany) had already acquired in
the U.S. a basically middle-class or quasi-middle-class status
and their pattern of employment reflected a high percentage of
self-employment and concentration in the area of services. The
mass influx of Eastern European Jews changed for at least two
generations the social composition of the Jewish community
in the United States. It became a predominantly industrial and
labor-oriented community concentrated in major cities. The
symbiosis of the two elements, the German and the East European,
was ridden by conflicts and prejudices, by distinctions in
wealth and status, the latter being derived from the degree of
“Americanization” or the duration of residence in the U.S. The
German Jews, often in the role of employers of the recent immigrants,
especially in the garment industry, tried to maintain
the social distance between themselves and the immigrants
arriving from the culturally most backward areas of Europe.
Faced with the model of success presented by the German
Jews, the East European immigrants could not avoid aspiring
to positions of social and economic advancement. While they
accepted their status as manual workers and laborers as inevitable,
and drew from it a number of conclusions, expressed by
their political orientation, trade union activities, and so on,
136 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6