Jewish Immigrants Research Articles

From Exile to Integration: Immigration Patterns and Cultural Identity of Chinese and Jewish Communities in the United States

The Chinese immigration experience began in the mid-19th century, driven by economic opportunities and marked by significant challenges. In contrast, Jewish immigration, primarily occurring in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was driven by severe religious and racial persecution in Europe. Jewish immigrants sought refuge from violence and the Holocaust, finding a relatively open environment in the U.S. to maintain their religious and cultural traditions. This paper examines the immigration patterns and cultural identities of the Chinese and Jewish communities in the United States, highlighting their distinct historical backgrounds and experiences. This study applies theoretical frameworks from sociology and anthropology, including Everett Lee’s “Push-Pull Theory,” Stuart Hall’s cultural identity theory, and Anthony Giddens’ theory of modernity, to analyze how these communities’ immigration patterns have influenced their cultural identities. The study compares the Chinese community’s economic-driven integration and the Jewish community’s diverse approach to cultural preservation. The findings provide insights into the complexities of cultural identity within the U.S. multicultural landscape and highlight the varied strategies adopted by different immigrant groups. Limitations of this study include its focus on Chinese and Jewish communities, which may not fully represent other immigrant experiences. Future research should consider a broader range of immigrant groups to enhance understanding of cultural integration and identity.

Immigration Crisis in Palestine (1933–1936) as Reflected in Periodical Press of United States

The image of Palestine during the years 1933 to 1936 was shaped in the periodical press of the United States under the influence of the “colonial discourse”. In the first half of the 1930s, the issue of Jewish immigrants became one of the central themes in the “Palestinian question”. The materials from the periodical press allow for an exploration of how perceptions regarding the causes of the crisis in the Middle East evolved within the informational discourse of the United States; how the representations of Arabs, Jews, and Great Britain underwent transformation. Publications from American newspapers provide insights into evaluations of British measures aimed at resolving the immigration crisis in Palestine during the 1930s. An analysis of U.S. newspapers reveals distinctive features in the construction of the images of the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine. It identifies who was categorized as “the other”. The first half of the 1930s proved decisive for American public opinion in prioritizing positions within the context of the Middle Eastern conflict. The material presented in this article vividly illustrates the stages of evolving assessments of the situation in Palestine from 1933 to 1936. The study examines the manipulative techniques and strategies employed by American periodicals in the 1930s concerning Palestine, thereby providing a clearer understanding of how the issue of Jewish immigration was integrated into the broader narrative of Palestine within U.S. periodical literature.

From narratives to history: new perspectives on mass emigration of Jews from Islamic countries in the early 1950s

ABSTRACT Contested narratives of the mass Jewish immigration from Arab countries to the young state of Israel emphasize Israel’s central role in this episode, positively and negatively. However, new studies reveal that Israel was only one actor in the Jewish exodus, with other key roles filled by Arab states, the British Empire in the Middle East, the French Empire in North Africa, the United States, and international Jewish organizations, particularly the Jewish-American Joint Distribution Committee. This complexity is particularly evident in the case of three countries from which nearly the entire Jewish population emigrated to Israel during its early statehood: Yemen, Iraq, and Libya. This article proposes a comprehensive synthesis of research perspectives on the phenomenon of Jewish migration, with a focus on the cases of Libya, Yemen, and Iraq. I address what is common and what is unique to the migrations of these three communities, examine the entities involved in organizing their departure and those involved in their transit, and, drawing on this unique story, I propose a new historiographic interpretation of the phenomenon as a whole.

Identity Loss and Reconstruction in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Day

Mordecai Richler, a contemporary Canadian Jewish writer, reveals the identity confusion faced by Jewish immigrants in their integration into Canadian society through the description of the life experience of the protagonist Duddy Kravitz in his novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959). Meanwhile, in the novel Day (1961), Elie Wiesel, a contemporary American Jewish writer born in Romania, examines how Holocaust survivors lose their identities and attempt to seek identity reconstruction within the context of traumatic memories and guilt through the perspective of the protagonist, Eliezer. This article aims to interpret the manifestations and reasons for identity loss and the possibility of identity reconstruction of the protagonists Duddy Kravitz and Eliezer based on identity theory. Through interpretation, it can be concluded that Duddy is marginalized by mainstream society and blamed for anti-Semitism within the Jewish community, resulting in a significant identity crisis. However, his success in purchasing land offers the possibility for him to escape marginalization and achieve identity reconstruction in mainstream society. Similarly, Eliezer, as a Holocaust survivor, experiences identity loss under the influence of traumatic memories and feelings of guilt, leading to questioning the existence of God and a death wish. Nevertheless, in the later part of the novel, he transitions from an unnamed narrator to “Eliezer”, and the ashes left after his portrait is burned symbolize his completeness, allowing him to regain self-identity.

Ma’abarot: Israeli immigrant transit camps revisited

ABSTRACT This article suggests a re-periodisation of the transit camps in which hundreds of thousands of immigrants were housed in Israel’s first three decades. It anchors the meaning of these temporal housing spaces – known as Ma’abarot – and rebuts the perception of their temporality, presenting new data about institutional policies regarding these allegedly temporary living spaces and the everyday reality of their inhabitants. It suggests a re-periodisation that includes not only the initial handling of the massive Jewish immigration wave during the ‘Mass Aliyah’ (1948–51) but also the longer-term settling of the immigrants.

إرث بلفور: بريطانيا والصهيونية والطريق المثير للجدل إلى قيام إسرائيل

The research provides an overview of the rise of the Zionist movement, starting from the establishment of the Jewish Colonial Society in 1891 by Maurice de Hirsch, leading to the formation of the World Zionist Organization and the creation of the Jewish National Fund in 1901. It discusses the controversial debates over the location of a Jewish homeland, including the Uganda Scheme, and the advocacy for Palestine by figures like Herzl. The impact of World War I on the Middle East was influenced by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which supported the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. The British Mandate in Palestine, established after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, had significant impacts on Jewish immigration, Arab displacement, and the road to statehood. The United Nations eventually issued a resolution in 1947 to divide Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs. This was accepted by Jews but rejected by Arab states. Great Britain's actions towards the end of the mandate aimed to frustrate the establishment of the Jewish state envisioned by the United Nations plan. Drawing on primary and secondary sources from esteemed archives such as the British Library and personal accounts, this research seeks to elucidate the complex historical backdrop, contextualizing key decisions and conflicts that ultimately shaped the creation of the State of Israel. The analysis aims to provide nuanced insights into divergent perspectives held by Palestinians and Israelis regarding the resolution of this enduring conflict, rooted in a legacy of geopolitical manoeuvring and ideological fervour.

O PERFIL DO JUDEU SEFARDITA EM TERRAS AMAZÔNICAS, EM BRASIL, TERRA DA PROMISSÃO DE SULTANA LEVY ROSENBLATT

The objective of this work is to analyze the chronicle of Sultana Levy Rosenblatt, the profile of the sephardic Jewish exposed in the chronicle “Brasil terra da promissão. The belenense writer belonged to a traditional Jewish family and has dedicated to write tales, chronicle and novels. Among those texts, there is the chronicle “Brasil, terra da promissão” (1999), that will be the focus of study in this research. This work portrays the path of struggle and conquest that the Jewish immigrants who arrived in the Amazon from the 19th century on passed through, seeking for religious liberty and atractted by the wealth of the region. This work is linked to the project Ecos sefarditas: judeus na Amazônia that is turned to the Literary texts produced by sephardic-Jewish descendants writers, that sought to register in their works not only the culturals echoes or historic of the sephardic judaism in the Amazon, but the adaptation process of the immigrants in the land that welcomed them. For that end, it will be used the studies of Samuel Benchimol, Regina Igel, Alessandra Conde and others researches.

Rituals of nonbelonging and their emotional toll: Encounters with the orthodox Jewish weddings and burials among generation 1.5 former Soviet Union immigrants in Israel

This article examines the encounters of Generation 1.5 Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) with the Orthodox establishment within the framework of weddings and burials in Israel. These Orthodox Jewish weddings and burials are referred to here as rituals of nonbelonging and provide a lens for understanding the role of rituals in the marginalisation and exclusion of immigrants and ethnic minorities from religious and national collectives. The article argues that rituals of nonbelonging originate in the more extensive politics of nonbelonging and reflect an exclusion that provokes negative emotions among marginalised minorities due to the perceived threats to social bonds.

A ‘grave miscarriage of justice’: marriage and divorce in Jewish immigrant families in England, 1870-1940

ABSTRACT This essay analyses disputed marriages/divorces involving Jewish immigrants to England between 1870 and 1940. English courts came to contradictory decisions in these cases due to the difference between religiously-based systems in Eastern Europe and Britain’s secular, centralised approach. The result was split decisions. In civil courts, magistrates upheld religious marriages by awarding maintenance to wives, but the same evidence proved insufficient in the criminal courts to convict for bigamy. Unfortunately, whatever the outcome, these cases fed into anti-alienist rhetoric at the turn of the twentieth century, associating ‘alien’ Jewish immigrants with wife desertion, criminal behaviour, and even polygamy.

What Matisse and Picasso Owed to Jewish Collectors and Dealers

Abstract While the prominence in twentieth-century painting of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso remains unquestioned, neither of these great artists could have emerged in their shared Parisian art world without the direct support of Jewish collectors and dealers. Foremost among the Jewish collectors of their earlier works were Americans living in Paris, especially the Steins: Leo, Gertrude, and Michael and Sarah Stein. While Leo followed by Michael and Sarah was an early purchaser of Matisse’s bold early Fauvist works, led by Bonheur de Vie (1905), Gertrude turned increasingly to Picasso, who painted her portrait (1906). Their support for Matisse was avidly seconded by the Cone sisters, whose extensive collection was donated intact to the Baltimore Museum of Art. Jews were also early adopters of French modern art in general as dealers. Chiefly led by the Rosenberg brothers, Léonce and Paul, prominent Jewish dealers during the teens also included the perceptive, if underfunded, Berthe Weill as well as the German immigrant Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Both of the latter gave crucial support to experimental art, the latter in particular to the art of Picasso’s Cubist phase (including a Cubist portrait of the dealer). In addition, a number of Jewish art critics served as influencers, supporting contemporary artists, albeit often castigating paintings by immigrant Eastern European Jewish artists, whom they viewed as outsiders. In their view, it was the multinational School of Paris’ often Jewish immigrants, against the greater, local School of France.

Healthy at Home: an integrated health and social care initiative for vulnerable and marginalized older adults in Toronto

PurposeThe Healthy at Home (H@H) is an older adult day program that is in Toronto in Ontario, Canada. This is an integrated health and social care (IHSC) program that seeks to address the social isolation and health needs of a highly vulnerable older adult population living in the north Toronto communities. These are Russian-speaking Jewish older adult immigrants. The case provides a detailed description of the factors that enabled a diverse group of health and social care organizations to integrate their respective services to address the health and social care needs of their clients using a culturally appropriate and trauma-informed lens.Design/methodology/approachA case description comprised of key informant interviews, and a focus group was undertaken of representatives from health and social care organizations serving clients in the north Toronto area.FindingsThis case description identified eleven integration factors that enabled organizations to provide integrated care using a culturally appropriate and trauma-informed lens, and they include developing an aligned vision and goals, communications, an inter-organization culture of inter-dependence, champions, pre-existing relationships, and champions. In addition, operating in the not-for-profit sector, sector differences, enabling public policies and a strong sense of community have influenced integration of services across the organizational partners to serve its high-risk client group.Originality/valueThis case description lends insights into how IHSC can be leveraged to provide culturally appropriate and trauma-informed care for highly vulnerable client/patient populations. A lesson learnt is that social care partners can engage in successful integration leadership in joint health and social care integration efforts.

Iraq and its Jewish minority: from the establishment of the state to the great Jewish immigration 1921-1951

ABSTRACT The transition from life under Ottoman rule to life under the Iraqi Kingdom established in 1921 marked a positive shift in the fortunes of the country’s Jewish community. During the British mandate for Iraq (1921–32), the Jews enjoyed equal rights and were economically and socially integrated into Muslim society. However, with the end of the mandate and the acceptance of Iraq’s independence, a process of restricting the Jews and physically harming them began, culminating in the pogrom (known as the Farhud) of June 1941. During the decade attending the Farhud, the Iraqi government linked the fate of the Jewish community to that of the Palestinian Arabs. The state pursued a policy of oppression and discrimination, which eventually led to the displacement of the country’s Jewish community from a place it had called home for thousands of years.

United we stand, divided we fall. Union organization and political activism among Jewish woodworkers in early-twentieth-century Buenos Aires

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the formation of the working class in Argentina, specifically within the Jewish East-European sector of the furniture industry during the early twentieth century. It examines Jewish immigration, their integration into the timber sector of Buenos Aires, and diverse labour relationships. Through an analysis of social and labour conflicts, the paper aims to study how Yiddish-speaking workers integrated into a highly cosmopolitan working class, put, at the same time, into a broader perspective of Jewish immigration into the Global South. By doing so, we hope to enhance our understanding of the significant role played by Jewish workers in the trajectory of the Argentine working class.

The American Haskalah: Sanctifying Education in Mary Antin’s The Promised Land, Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsky, and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers

Abstract Much has been written about European Jews’ attitudes toward secular studies. The Jewish Enlightenment, which began in Europe in the early eighteenth century, caused some Jews to broaden their knowledge by learning subjects such as geography and science. However, most Eastern European Jews remained loyal to the rabbinical authority. When many immigrated to the United States during the Progressive Era, they had to choose between maintaining the old approach toward secular education and learning secular subjects. Analyzing three Jewish immigrant texts, Mary Antin’s The Promised Land (1912), Abraham Levinsky’s The Rise of David Levinsky (1917), and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers (1925), this essay argues that these books present Eastern European Jewish immigrants as treating secular education similar to the European maskilim. Exploring Biblical allusions and imagery used to portray Torah learning, this paper determines that these texts sanctify nonreligious studies. Following a centuries-old heritage of learning, they glorify the knowledge obtained in American institutions. Although the protagonists feel they are betraying their tradition, they participate in establishing a Jewish American culture based on the value of studying. While these texts often praise American education, they portray a clash between American and traditional Jewish education, suggesting that disavowing one’s traditional education is challenging.

Controlling Australian Immigration: Holocaust Survivors in the Post‐War Years

Recent studies of immigration have questioned assumptions about the effectiveness of government controls. In her work on illegal Jewish immigration to the United States, Libby Garland argues that official immigration quotas may not reflect actual numbers of immigrants and critiques historians for being too ready to take immigration laws at face value. Mae Ngai's work on the racialisation of “illegal aliens” in the United States also documents the failure of legislation to curb illegal immigration. Situating her study within this historiography, Sheila Fitzpatrick has re‐examined Australian measures that aimed to limit the entry of Holocaust survivors and concluded that the number of arrivals was substantially higher than previously recognised, in part because migrants and their sponsors found ways around restrictions. In substantiation, Fitzpatrick drew on the archives of the International Refugee Organization and the Australian Government, and the papers of the country's first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell. This article revisits Fitzpatrick's sources, as well as the records of Jewish organisations she did not consult. It establishes that the Australian government effectively limited Jewish immigration and the estimates of earlier scholars were substantially correct.

Fighting to belong: drivers for transnational diaspora military service in Israel and beyond

Previous studies have explored two scenarios wherein diaspora members fight for their ancestral homeland: (1) in response to immediate threats, and (2) when the homeland’s conscription laws mandate enlistment. This study investigates diaspora military service (DMS) in Israel, where DMS occurs voluntarily outside of acute crises or compulsory conscription requirements. Utilizing survey and interview data from over 1100 diaspora soldiers, it compares enlistment motivations across three diaspora groups with varied ties to Israel and Judaism: North Americans, Israeli Americans, and individuals from the Former Soviet Union. The study conceptualizes DMS as a state led effort to cultivate an engaged diaspora and advance Jewish immigration. This framework enables examining DMS, beyond the immediate military context, as a site for identity exploration, cultural assimilation, and contemplating permanent immigration. Despite varied emphases, results show that DMS occurs in a migratory context as soldiers from all groups recognize service as essential for immigration, integration, and acceptance in Israel. The study formulates three motivational models that drive transnational military engagement across contexts: the “ideological model” among conviction-driven actors; the “mobility model” among those focused on upward mobility; and the “reconnection model” for cementing national belonging and avoid stigma.

Getúlio Vargas and the Making of Restrictive Migratory Policies in Post-1930 Brazil

Following Brazil’s “great migration” period (1880–1930) came Getúlio Vargas’s rise to power, marking a radical historical rupture. From 1930 onwards, we observed the construction of a framework of restrictive rules aimed at controlling the entry and stay of foreigners in the country, including an ethnically differentiated management of flows. This article sought to cross-reference the new migratory policy, aimed at both new entries and immigrants already present in the territory, with the issue of race. To this end, it dealt with two groups of immigrants whose flows were directly impacted by the new policies (and by racism), but not in the same way: Japanese and Jews. The reflection also turned to the different experiences in each of the two groups between the candidates for immigration—in the face of the new barriers imposed on entry and those already living in Brazil in the face of the assimilationist measures adopted. Brazilian migration policies and state actions have been studied more often than the agency of immigrants. In this sense, the existing studies have focused more on the management of new flows than on the experience of immigrants already settled in the territory. The text, therefore, assumed a change of perspective, opting for a look “from below” in order to focus on both sides of the scales and the border. Finally, it examined the historiography that dealt with migration policy during the Vargas era and, more specifically, that which focused on Jewish and Japanese immigration.

Venezuela’s Mixed-Race People and the Jew: Spectrums of Whiteness in Rufino Blanco Fombona’s Judas Capitolino and Rómulo Gallegos’s “Los inmigrantes”

The work of Rufino Blanco Fombona (1874–1944) and Rómulo Gallegos (1884–1969) is generally understood as reinforcing the then-common Venezuelan representation of race as biological and binary – as separable into either “white” or “non-white”, with the latter category including all mixed-race people who made up 60% of Venezuela’s total population at the time. These authors’ narratives attempt to reinforce these binaries by racially classifying Jewish immigrants at the beginning of the twentieth century – by understanding where they fit within this racial taxonomy. Instead, as I show, these attempts destabilise the categories themselves, leaning first on biological determinism, and then on cultural and ethnic profiling. To make this argument, I analyze Blanco Fombona’s Judas Capitolino (1912) contextualised by his writings on race outside of his fiction, alongside Gallegos’s short-story “Los inmigrantes” (1922). These works take biologically deterministic positions on race in their caricatures of Jews and mixed-race individuals, demonstrating the inability of Jewish immigration to whiten what Gallegos denotes as the “raza autóctona”, the Venezuelan mixed-race individual that he believes to be barbaric and impure. Without the correct shade of whiteness to lighten Venezuela’s mixed-race majority, the “raza autóctona” will take over positions of power, becoming a ruling “barbarocracia”, threatening the white order and dooming Venezuela’s (white) future.

Discourses, policies and perceptions on Jewish immigration to Colombia at the beginning of the 20th century

Los grandes flujos migratorios globales que tuvieron lugar entre mediados del siglo XIX e inicios del XX vieron a cientos de millones de personas en todo el mundo cruzar la frontera de su país para ir a otro. En ese escenario, y a diferencia de otros países suramericanos, Colombia no fue un gran receptor de inmigrantes. Sin embargo, algunos de quienes llegaron, entre ellos judíos de distintos orígenes, enfrentaron restricciones para su ingreso al país, que fueron incrementándose particularmente en la década de los años treinta, todo ello bajo gobiernos, en principio, de distintas vertientes ideológicas. Este artículo tiene el propósito de caracterizar los discursos, políticas y percepciones alrededor de la inmigración judía en Colombia durante las primeras cuatro décadas del siglo pasado, en el marco de una serie concepciones sobre cuestiones como la raza y la nación y sus supuestas vinculaciones con las posibilidades de progreso.

הצנזורה על סרטי קולנוע ערביים במדינת ישראל, 1967-1948

This article examines government censorship of Arab films in the first two decades of the State of Israel, through extensive archival use of documents of the Israeli Film and Theater Censorship Board. The state authorities had wanted to ban altogether the import of films made in Egypt, where the majority of Arab films were produced, but this was impossible due to the entertainment needs of the Arab minority in Israel, and of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries. The article sheds light on the government's efforts to restrict as much as possible the showing of Arab films and censor their content. The censorship's dual purpose was to prevent Arab films from awakening the national and political consciousness of the Arabs living in Israel, and to distance Jewish immigrants from their Arab culture, in order to promote their assimilation into hegemonic Israeli culture. However, the censorship's attempts at political control over Arabs and cultural control over Jews was doomed to failure due to the emergence of a new means of communication and entertainment in the Middle East – television. This ended the cinema theaters' monopoly over the consumption of Arab films, and thus the Film and Theater Censorship Board's ability to censor them.