JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

they actively sought an improvement in the economic position
and status for their offspring. Thus, while the process of
acculturation of the immigrants took time, the gradual social
advancement of some was counterbalanced by the successive
waves of immigration swelling the ranks of the Jewish industrial
working population. It was not until after World War I
and the harsh restrictions against East European immigration
that the process of penetration into the service sector and selfemployment
category became much more visible.
The rapid growth of the economy, the decline of agriculture,
and changes in industrial structure, accompanied by
a sustained, relatively high level of income, made it possible
for the service sector to develop. Aided by the availability of
educational opportunities, the almost exclusively urban Jewish
population found outlets for its employment in the service
sector, and the percentage of employment as unskilled labor,
domestic service, or low-paid industrial employment declined.
It would be wrong to assume that the shift in employment and
the resulting improvement in the income position of the Jews
in the United States before World War II took place in the total
absence of discrimination. There was in fact a whole range of
discriminatory attitudes operating against the Jews, as against
many other ethnic groups representing relatively recent immigration.
There was, however, a major difference between
the U.S. and Europe in that discrimination was a de facto attitude
rather than a de jure, statutory, or legal arrangement;
that it was a private matter rather than one of public policy.
Like other groups of European origin, the Jews were relatively
successful in minimizing the effects of discrimination, first by
improving their economic position and second by using political
power derived from their numbers and concentration
in some major urban centers of the country. In addition, discrimination
was met by the Jews with an almost atavistic reflex
of communal activity. The Jewish community developed a
time-honored self-defense mechanism against discrimination
in the form of institutions designed to meet specific needs of
individuals or groups within the community. In the absence
of organized communal authorities, recognized either by the
outside world or by the Jews themselves, or representing their
collective interests, the role of voluntary associations and institutions
was even more significant for the discharge of group
responsibilities and for the maintenance of whatever cohesion
was possible within the Jewish community.
The numerical growth and economic advancement of
the United States’ Jewish community resulted in a change in
the relationships among Jewish communities in the world,
the U.S. Jewish community becoming an important source
of economic assistance for the others. In a certain sense the
bonds between American and European Jews provided a
community of interest and purpose for the various groups of
American Jewry, giving expression to their Jewish identity.
At a time when the process of language assimilation was in
progress, and the commonalty of cultural concerns was diminishing,
the “foreign aid” of American Jews provided them
with a much-needed psychological satisfaction and helped to
economic history
maintain their identity. This process turned out to be of particular
importance for the subsequent developments during
and after World War II.
PALESTINE. While the first systematic attempts of organized
mass colonization in Palestine go back to the 1870s and 1880s,
a marked acceleration of the immigration stream occurred at
the beginning of the 20th century, primarily as a result of the
growth of a modern nationalist movement making immigration
and settlement in Palestine the cornerstone of its ideology.
The more organized manner of immigration and settlement,
in part directed by a long-term national vision, led to
the establishment of a social infrastructure within and for
the Jewish population in Palestine, and to the establishment
of modern social, economic, and educational institutions in
an otherwise primitive and backward country. The introduction
of modern institutions was accompanied by a striking
attempt to modernize agriculture, a successful undertaking
that integrated the need for economic modernization with
the ideological factor of the need to recover the land, producing
a sizable agricultural sector within the Jewish community
in Palestine. The fact that the agricultural sector embraced a
variety of organizational forms of production, that alongside
private agriculture a cooperative and even a communal network
of farms was created, was of considerable importance
for the further development of the economy. The ideas of cooperation
were also applied to other sectors of the economy:
in industry, construction, and the services. Such enterprises
had to reconcile private and social criteria in their decisionmaking
and had to accept procedures for social control, arrangements
that provided a particular atmosphere for economic
activity within the Jewish community.
The continuous numerical growth of the Jewish population,
resulting from successive immigration waves and natural
population increase, and the emotional intensity of the issues
connected with its development and its role among Jewish
communities in the world often obscured the interesting pattern
of economic and social development of the Jewish community
in Palestine. An important feature of the Jewish population
in Palestine was its relatively homogeneous cultural
background since the majority of immigrants came from Eastern
Europe. It possessed or created a full array of industrial,
agricultural, and service skills at various levels, coupled with
a level of education that was compatible with, if not excessive
of, the existing level of skills. The economic activities of the
Jewish population were conducted under conditions of virtual
absence of discriminatory policies, apart from restrictions on
immigration, particularly during the interwar period. This in
turn created a basically stable economic structure; the employment
distribution did not change drastically with time. There
was relatively less income inequality than within other Jewish
communities because skills were distributed differently. The
level of income of the Jewish population in Palestine provided
for the consumption needs of the population, with investment
funds either imported by private investors from abroad, bor-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 137