>> can you hear me? >> yes. >> i have three microphones here. so in terms of the 22 jewish passengers who paid the $500 and got off in cuba, all of them immigrated to the united states, but i believe the exception of one family. i was in havana in 19 -- excuse me in 2001 and i saw their graves. they are buried at the cemetery. there's one family that stayed in cuba and built a life there and died in cuba. the rest, i believe, immigrated to the united states. there is one, i believe, who is still alive in washington heights. her name is today vera hess. and vera, interestingly enough, went to nursing school in cuba. and she donated to the holocaust museum her nursing diploma which is in spanish. any way, fast forward many years

she settled in washington heights and when it turned to a spanish neighborhood, there's a big hospital there, and because of her training in cuba, she is able to treat the patients in spanish so she has made full circle. but to answer your question, they were all america bound with the exception of the one family. >> those who remained in cuba, they came as tourists of passengers in transit but they were always paying bribes to the policemen or to somebody organizing. none of them was deported. although they were afraid to be deported. by paying, they were able to stay until they got the american visas. and little by little, almost all of them went to the states. there is a case, there were many people from antwerp, from belgium, working diamonds and after the war the belgian government tried to invite them

to return back to belgium but most of them preferred to go to new york. so almost all of them, very few remained in cuba. >> as the professor said, my grandfather was the secretary of state in cuba at the time and he is the one that got a lot of the passengers off the ship. there were two little girls that got off and they never paid a cent. their father was a physician in cuba and he was able to get them off. there was an internal struggle in the cuban government, the cuban people and the government were very pro-jewish and the only problem was, as the professor said, there was one part, which the secretary of state and the president of cuba, and on the other side, you have benitez who was corrupt and also batista.

so there was an internal struggle but the majority of the cuban government and people were pro-jewish and there could have been a lot done if the american embassy would have put pressure on the cuban government, this problem would have been solved. there's a lot of black and white and gray areas that people weren't aware. she knows exactly -- i was impressed by everything you said. you've done incredible research on it. i commend you on it. cuban government, cuban people, the majority, were very, very pro jewish. very pro jewish. but unfortunately like all governments, there is a corrupt side and a diplomatic and decent part of government. my grandfather was the secretary of state, and he did everything possible to -- he was able to get the two little girls without them paying money because legally they had a cuban citizenship because their father was a cuban citizen and a practicing physician. we don't know why they were on

the ship or if their mother was but what turned out, they were two of the ones that stayed there along with, i think, 20 other people. but in the long run, i feel that if the american government would have really wanted the ship to disembark in cuba or the united states, something would have happened. >> can you quantify, either by numbers or by percentage, how many were deported and died, how many survived, and how many would you put into the unknown column? >> okay. out of the 900 -- out of the 937 passengers, 254 died and almost all of them were deported. there were a few to auschwitz of the 254, a few died in internment camps in france. there were two heart attacks in brussels.

and there were two suicides. but almost all of the 254 were deported. so that seems like a small percent out of 937, however there are many ways -- well first of all, that is 254 too many, but it seems like a small percent but numbers can be deceiving. first of all, even though the majority survived, a very high number did not survive in full, meaning one family member did not survive. or more than one, like herb, herb and his brother survived. but if you minus -- and i'll get to england in a second. if you minus the england passengers who were sent to england in relative safety, although there was one that died in the blitzkrieg, and minus that number, which was 288, you have the number 620 who were on the continent.

in france, belgium and holland. i'm sorry with all of the numbers, but i want to answer your question. of the 620, there were about 27 that were out, about 583 st. louis passengers under their rule. and so if you minus 254, which the number killed, you have 279 who survived if you talk about those under direct nazi rule in a sense -- nazi rule in a sense of the numbers. in terms of the england passengers, we wanted to know what happened to every single england passenger. there were two romanian born passengers on the st. louis that ended up in england during the war, and they went back to romania.

they didn't know english, and they went back to romania. they did find documentation they were alive at the end of the war but they did survive. but that shows how we had to make sure every passenger could be accounted for. many of the male were interned by british because they were considered enemy aliens, quite ironic, because they weren't considered german. but there was one passenger who died in the blitz krieg, so we wanted to account for them. i wanted to give you numbers. so we can account for the fate of all 937 passengers to varying degrees. many were actual survivors that gave us full stories. as of when we completed this pronl about 10 years ago, there were 120 st. louis passengers alive. considerably less today, but thank god there are still many that are alive.

we can account for the fates of all 937. 254 were killed. >> i would like to ask a question, mr. karliner. >> yes, sir. >> what was the ultimate fate of the captain who helped to save so many of these lives? did the nazis do anything to him if he survived, was he honored by the jewish community in any special way? >> what happened to captain schroeder? >> captain schroeder, the first get together in miami beach and i put an ad in the paper in hamberg, germany, to find out about the captain. i got a letter from his nephew,

he passed away. and we invited the family of captain schrader to come to miami beach. he came, was very interested. there were about that survived the st. louis. and since i organized the get-together, the nephew presented me with a hat of captain schroeder, which i had for a long time and then i gave it to the museum in washington, which it is there. and one time i was invited to go back to hamberg, germany, and i met his sister there and she was very much involved with the st. louis and she sent me a beautiful book with the pictures of captain schroeder, and his life story. also, i felt very sorry for captain schroeder and i wanted to put the question forth of the gentile. i sent the application.

it was refused because captain was not in the war. it was before the war. but the petition of all that survived the st. louis and sent it back to israel and it was accepted. it's on the wall of the righteous in jerusalem. >> so the nazi didn't punish him? >> no, it was -- funny part is i found out captain schroeder was at high sea when the war broke out and the english wanted the ship but he managed the ship around the north sea, to russia, german at the time. the ship came back to germany. schroeder gave to me, it was bombarded in hamberg and burned and with the captain next to the

ship. also, he wrote a little book about the st. louis. and many survived the st. louis sent him after the war, packages and money because he was a decent man. and we really helped him too, because he helped us. >> i have two quick questions. one, is there evidence that president roosevelt turned down the opportunity to allow the st. louis to come in or is there written evidence, the memorandum or something to that effect, and the second question, or related to this is what did the american press say while the st. louis was on the coast of miami beach, did they try to persuade the government or rally public opinion to allow the st. louis to come into the united states?

>> to answer your second question, there was some rather wide coverage of the plight, but only very view journalists and editors admitted to making an exception. in a sense reflecting the general mood in the public at the time. so no, the answer to your second question is no. in terms of your first question, again, there is a lot that has been written recently about fdr and the jews. more recently robert rosen published a book called saving the jew where he tries to address the issue in the context but to argue that behind the scenes president roosevelt was doing quite a bit

both in europe and in cuba to save the jews and to deal with the limitations he had politically and legally. there is another book called refugees and rescue that notes an unpublished diary by an aide to president roosevelt that really tries to highlight -- when the diary, i should say, highlights how much roosevelt was concerned and tried to do for the plight of the jews, particularly before the break of the war. this is still an issue of a lot of debate and discussion and even controversy, but i think more information is coming out reflecting, really, what he did at that time. >> we'll have one final question. >> i wanted to understand the exact wording for this price, because even nowadays, i travel to costa rica, it was $150 to

get off, to be there. [qh? of immigration, the cubans wanted only people who had capital.

wanted only people that had capital. they didn't want the immigrants to become public charges so they demanded that each immigrant, would-be immigrant, would deposit $500. this money was supposed to be returned after two years. so it was really a deposit with the cuban treasury. but the refugees did not -- first of all, it was very difficult for them to get $500. it was cheaper, $150. they didn't know the difference and they didn't believe that the money would be returned to them. and so i don't know -- let's say 900 people, multiplied by $500, it was more or less 4500, something like this. this was the money that was requested. but according to what i studied, actually they didn't want this.

he didn't want to have -- he preferred to send out the boat. so it was -- the negotiations never came to a conclusion. >> one second, please. >> we were allowed ten marks to take out of germany. ten marks. how could we come up with $500. we were allowed to take out anything we wanted. we had to buy -- a watch was $100. we had a pay $100 tax. but money, you were not allowed to take out. only 10 marks. >> do you want to say something? >> i don't know as much as margalit, but the joint distribution committee and the cuban government, the negotiations broke down and people ask how they could not make the amount. it came out to half a million

dollars, close to half a million dollars. the joint distribution committee was also -- their main task was taking care of impoverished jews and persecuted jews throughout europe. i believe the cuban government kept raising the amounts that the joint distribution couldn't make in that amount of time, combined with what was said, there was no real will to take in the refugees. again, i think the onus goes back to the united states in terms of what the united states could have done after negotiations broke down with cuba. >> i thank everyone for coming and staying so long. [ applause ] >> our look at america history tv programs, new yorkly seen weekends here on c-span3 wraps up in a moment with history professor jonathan ray, on what it took for jews to simulate

into u.s. culture during progressive he era. then we turn to book tv evernts, normally airs on c-span 2. today, former prosecutor sidney powell, wrote a book, "license to lie" wrote a book exposing department of justice, followed by mike earp and david fisher, their book, inside america's most storied agency." saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern, the communicators visits a technology fair on capitol hill. sunday on q&a, political commentator, author and former presidential candidate pat buchanon. on c-span 2 friday night, 1k eastern, books on hillary clinton, barack obama, and edward snowden.

and the weekly standards daniel halper and sunday morning at 11:30, we tour the literary sites of casper. and on saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on the civil war, the depiction of slavey in -- slavery in movies. sunday at 4:00 p.m., interview with president herbert hoover. and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us at 202-626-3400 or e-mail us at comments@c-span.org. join the c-span organization. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. each week american history tv sits in on a lecture with one of the nation's college professors. you can watch the classes here on cspan3 every saturday night at 8:00 and midnight eastern. next on lectures in history, georgetown university professor jonathan ray looks at the lives of american jews in the progressive era, including jurn

assimilation into american culture and their own culture. this class is about 75 minutes. >> okay. all right. today's class, as you know, will be taped for c-span, so please, if you are going to speak up, speak up loud. everyone should have their notes out and have the readings for today ready. today we will talk about this question of the tensions that exist between jewish concepts of social justice in america and the jewish need for self-preservation. we're going to look mostly at the first half of the 20th century. after spring break we'll look at how this changes after the holocaust with the jewish civil rights movement. but the theme of how much jews are engaged with the questions of ethics or social justice outside of the community and how much of that is to preserve

jewish tradition or jewish rights first and foremost. i want to start with a little bit of review to get us up to speed of where we'll be today. we've been talking all semester about the different divisions here within the jewish community in america. can we start out, what are some of the ways the jews divide themselves from each other or some of the ways they break down. [ inaudible ] >> so there's this question of socioeconomic class among jews. famously we have the uptown and downtown jews. what else? abraham? >> movement members. >> movement members. what do you mean by that? [ inaudible ] >> so religious, specifically 19th century we have division of jewish movements which didn't exist before. we have the reform movement, conservative movement, orthodox, ideologies, synagogues, with

their own rabbis, institutions for producing rab issuings, religious divisions, socioeconomic divisions, what else? >> their own educational institutions. >> create their own educational institutions such as? >> orthodox colleges, reform colleges. >> so you have these different colleges for making rabbis in particular. also later some different secondary education schools associated with those different movements. yeah, tracy? >> ethnic origins. >> ethnic origins such as -- >> such as german jews mostly reformed jews and also eastern european immigrants who came later. >> so we have origins outside the united states which map onto ethnic groups. so the first being spanish and portuguese heritage, then the wave of the german migration

brings people mostly from central europe. eastern your mean, mostly yiddish. those don't necessary find common cause with the germans who came in the central decades of the 19th century. these are tensions which exist within american jewish community. groups by culture, groups by ethnicity, groups by region. we'll see in the second half of the course when we talk about the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, that there will be regional divisions in america as well. not where you came from in europe but jews who came from east coast southern jews. in miami and los angeles will see themselves different from other jews in america. some of the tensions that play out between those groups, some of the overarching tensions in the course is this tension between being jewish and being american.

what we talked about, who saw this wasn't a tension, heart of spirit of americanism were really one in the same things. in fact, we see a lot of these religious movements, a lot of these divisions play out in questions of how american could you or should you be versus how jewish could you and should you be and how do we play with these concepts of cultural identity, racial identity as it was called, religious identity, et cetera, et cetera. today we're going to look a little bit about how these different tensions play out with the questions of social justice. now, as with all of these religious traditions we deal with here, judaism has a long tradition of taking care of the poor, of the needy, of orphans, of people who can't take care of themselves for one reason or another. jewish text, a great deal of

time talking about jewish communal obligation towards the unfortunate. the idea of jewish ethics not only in giving to the poor but just in ethical conduct, the way you discussed throughout these religious texts that these jews brought over with them from europe and elsewhere. but there's also, of course, a long standing tradition in america from its formation in like ideals, moralities, ethics, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. these are american values as well. the idea of not repeating some of the older, pre-american, european obstacles towards social mobility, towards wealth, towards privilege, towards justice in society. so one would think that very often, to be american and to be

jewish, one needs to fight for what is right, one is obliged to have a conscience, one should defend the downtrodden. we've also seen how american jews have responded to this, how they've given charity, how they've established these half-way houses for the poor. but that very often it seems that they are motivated, inspired to help others, not just because of high american ideals or traditional religious ideals. we talked about this a little bit last week. what were some of the reasons why jews decided we really have to deal with questions of poverty, criminality, et cetera? >> they wanted to counteract antisemitism. they thought that the more -- the poor immigrants were giving them a bad name? >> so there is this idea that the poor immigrants are giving us a bad name, so not just we feel bad for the poor, but now it's a shame for us in front of the gentiles. >> if they want to get compassion from other members of

society they had to show it to each other first. >> right. there's this idea -- again, with anti-semitism that we're asking to be treated in a just way. are we treating others in a just way? are we paragons of virtue? in fact we see this in some of the reform agendas of being a light unto the gentiles. >> it was a way for women to find a way in society to like take leadership roles? >> yeah. so we see that women were very often somewhat marginalized in official religious positions, decided to say we're not going to wait for the male rabbis to tell us what do and to help the poor. some of these other progressive reformers are out there creating national organizations, international organizations. nur nursing communities to help the poor but also fund-raising for the poor and abused overseas, particularly eastern europe and

palestine. there are a variety of different responses then to the call for social justice and they're almost always bound up with this question of self-preservation with the question of not only we need to help each other, we need to help the jewish poor because no one else will, but also we need to do this to combat negative images of the jews in society, the jews as criminals, the jews as parasites, the jews as poor and therefore can't contribute to america. one of the earliest arguments we looked at from the conial era, worrying that the jews who are going to come here are penniless and therefore be a charge on christian society. this is going to be a light motif that continues throughout our course, as is this question of how american can you be

without abandoning your debt to your jewish community. we also talked last week about the odd way in which the reformists or the accommodations from america from below were sometimes in conflict from above. that jews who did not consider themselves jews who didn't necessarily consider themselves to be affiliated with h%jyahdn synagogues, to pray regularly, nonetheless didn't become fully secular. they wanted to engage in some preservation of jewish culture. they didn't necessarily divide religion from culture in that age. so they would want to have bar mitzvah ceremonies, as coming of age ceremonies, perhaps because, as jews, this is what you do to become full members of the

jewish but perhaps they want a coming of age ritual. this is the one from their culture. they wouldn't observe the vote after having a bar mitzvamitzva. something that was important to those religious leaders. to cultivate american life it forces jews to make decisions. if you can pass as non-jewish, or the temptation to pass as white, as a member of normal, non-immigrant american society, do you take that opportunity? or are you going to find it somewhat unsatisfying? do you want to hold on to some of your pre-immigration cultural roots? one of the interesting places where this plays out is in jewish popular culture from the first half of the 20th century, something that's often referred to as tin pan alley. be tin pan alley is the name for

a particular part of new york city where a lot of popular musics and musicals and other shows are composed, and jews find themselves overrepresented in tin pan alley as composers and also as entertainers an performers. one of the interesting things that tin pan alley gives us is a glimpse into those changes from below, popular culture in america, that are not theologically motivated, but jewish accommodations to america from below. some of the things we see are jews taking the opportunity to change their names and pass, morals, as americans, both as composers, and entertainers, whether they think they can do this fully or whether they think this will just help their career by taking on more americanized names. this becomes one of the things we begin to see in tin pan alley. but interestingly enough, we

also see that the dream of assimilation or aculturation which we saw in the play "the melting pot" last time, that gets somewhat abandoned. his idea that the jewish immigrant and a christian immigrant can fall in love and let love conquer all, whatever problems that people had in the old country, that would disappear an they'd really become fully american. by the 1920s and '30s there seems to be a discomfort with that full dream of assimilation. there are some who believe what you should do is keep your head down and try to pass, and then be jewish on the side, be jewish privately, quietly. why should anybody have to know what your religion is? you shouldn't have to reject your religion but are you afraid of the backlash of what will happen if you make it too public. another theme that arises at

that time then is, you should stand up in being jewish. you should mark yourself as being jewish and trumpet jewish beliefs and ideals, perhaps directly, perhaps indirectly. it's through popular culture that we begin to see this. perhaps the great paradigm is the movie "the jazz singer." starting al jolson. jews are already been involved in combating questions of anti-semitism that were in the movies. we talked about that when we talked about the formation of the adl. but we also have jews using the movies as a platform for their own ideals and, to some degree, this is the psychologist couch in which they work out some of their issues quite publicly. "the jazz singer" is perhaps one of the best known of these in that it is the first talkie, the first film, major film that's with sound, but it is not meant just for jewish audience. it is really meant for a popular

audience and it is the tale of jews by jews of a jewish can ii of a synagogue singer. everybody is telling him he's wasting it in a synagogue and he should really go out into the world and become a popular singer and have wealth and fame and all the things that are associated with america, including a mono-jewish love interest, mary. okay? so here we have these questions of how much can you assimilate to america being played out on the screen in direct tension with jewishness which is seen as liturgical or religious here 37 intere . interestingly enough, it also deals with the problematic issue of race. the jazz singer, that quintessential art form of progress and free flowing speed, he does so by putting on black face so he's changing his race but not really. he's changing his race the way

other whites play at changing their race or by putting on black face and being able to take it off, you associate with the dominate white protestant culture. you, too, can assimilate to the white race in a way that other groups, like african-americans, cannot. a similar sort of tension between jews placed in the racial spectrum of america can also be seen had another jewish written and produced show of the 190s, that's and "pore gy and bess," which also becomes a classic. in which jewish musicians and composers create this world about african-americans in america, which talks about injustice, which talks about exclusion. but rather than having the jews up there on stage and having to play it in a jewish way, this is jews talking about african-americans. we can talk about what that

means having african-americans not being able to speak for themselves but having other groups speak for them. in this class one thing i want to point out is that jews clearly have an interest of engaging about questions of exclusion and belonging and becoming american, what it means to become an american, what's the cost of becoming an american. how, as any immigrant group or non- -- or minority group can you become fully american and playing with these issues and working they will out quite publicly in a way that's not quite the manifestos that the pittsburgh platform would be or other religious manifestos. any questions on this so far? yeah. jacob. >> so this might be sort of on this track of assimilation but it also goes back a little bit, but as jews would sort of help like poor jews in poverty and things like that, help them to sort of clean up their image at all, how would helping those jews fit in to some of the stereotypes that henry ford wrote about with like this interconnection jews and jews sort of cheating by getting help

and meanwhile, jews are helping other jews. >> so he asked how do jews help other jews or help others, period, without having in the back of their mind these colonies against them that jews only act for self-interest no matter what they're doing, even if they're giving to christian charities, it is to throw you off the scent can be to make you think they care about others, which they don't. if they happen to be helping other jews, we see this conspiracy, that's why jews get ahead, they all play as a team where we're all playing as individuals. jews have to deal with this. some are more worried about it and will give less openly, then people like those progressive women who get infuriated, which say help those in need which trumps your reputation or anti-semitism or whatever. then those are those who still stick to the sort of 19th century belief that it is through proper moral and ethical conduct that will eventually

bring everyone else around and get rid of anti-semitism. henry ford said they won't be able to say what they say forever once they see is as good upstanding people. but all of these things are at play. do we do these things publicly, do these things quietly. which things do we do quietly and which things do we do publicly. this becomes an issue. other questions. all right. one of the others to finish up with this section here, one of the other ways in which some of these composers in tin pan alley or some of the writers for hollywood or some of the other popular culture architects from the jewish world at this time. the jews rlly are overrepresented as a group in the entertainment industry at this time. they're not the only group who's like this. this an avenue for upper mobility for a lot of poor, immigrant communities. but the jews, in many ways, tell their story, either directly as in "the jazz singer," or

somewhat indirectly. one of the great examples is the music of irving berlin. these are. some of the greatest songs in the american songbook. as a variety of other jewish composers of his day. but "white christmas" comes out in the early '40s. you have this jewish-american writing nostalgically about the holiday of christmas. is this going to sell? or is this some idea of longing for, being part of this american dream that's possibly an obstacle to you. one obstacle is religion. it's possibly beyond your reach. another composer of jewish origin writes "take me out to the ball game," again this sort of classic of americana of that

day. when you begin to add up a lot of the sort of americana and popular music written by jews during this time, it's hard to sort of say it is just coincidental. there's something about american-jews dreaming about and struggling with accommodation with america that really arises out of this period in which there is a lot of freedom, there is a lot of ability to accommodate but it is not full. jews don't feel, at least, that they can fully and easily accommodate to america. this also is going to play into this issue of social justice when it comes to labor unions. which is sort of our second great theme for today. we already spoke when we talked about the great migration that a certain sector of eastern european jews who come over to america had begun to become engaged in socialism or similar political ideology already in

eastern europe. an they come over engaged with the question of class struggle. the question of religion possibly being an obstacle to full freedom for all human beings. therefore, you have jews who are at least culturally jewish who reject religion or reject religious institutions and constructs as being things that separate people and hold them back. starting to have a sort of little discussion about jews -- what is it? jewishness without judaism or something like that in one of the chapters that was assigned to you. can you be jewish and not be religious? we started the course with this question really. right? in the world religions textbook that we always talk about, judaism sits alongside buddhism and islam and christianity as a religion with its rituals and its belief in god and its coming of age ceremonies, et cetera. this era really challenges this idea for the first time, in large scale. can you be openly identified as

jewish and yet say, i don't believe in god, i don't do any rituals, i don't belong to a place of worship. for me judaism is like being italian-american, or african-american, it is a cultural or racial designation, not a religious designation. the reform jus at this time were pushing against it. no, no, it is a religious designation. that's what judaism is, a dwelling of god in man. one of the ways it man tests itself, this tension, in this era is over the question of justice within the socioeconomic sphere but particularly in the industrial world. not only should the workers push back against management, but how can you as a good jew allow for workers to be downtrodden and be abused in the way that workers are. so fighting for workers' rights some jews will say is inherently jewish thing.

whether it's jewish because our tradition teaches us that we should take care of other people and we should fight injustice and the way -- the labor conditions that exist in america at this stage were examples of injustice, or whether they say, it's not because we read the toem, or we've been taught this is wrong, because as many xs ode see the industrial age is wrong. we begin to see in the early 20th century then, beginning in the late 19th, early 20th century, organizations in the american jewish world that seek to aid immigrants and seek to aid the poor such as the hebrew immigrant aid society. but also things that seek to aid jewish labor. now, after you think about this a little bit, what here is sort of incongruous or odd about

jewish socialists believe in workers of the world uniting that are really only getting the jewish workers of the world to unite. why do you have a jewish labor organization of any kind? isn't that a problem? isn't that contradictory? what do you think? yeah. >> a lot of the labor organizations at the time were anti-immigrant because >> or so it was said. >> so jews had to form their own alternative labor organizations. >> a lot of the established labor organizations were anti-immigrant. but that would -- if i'm following the argument, so it should and jewish, italian, irish, polish greek labor unions. they're all immigrants. why don't we have an immigrants labor organization? why a jewish labor organization? or the jews bond with other

immigrants? yes. >> well, a lot received a lot of like bad treatment in the workplace when people found out they were jewish. like it was fine until people realized they were jewish and they were getting attacked or robbed on the streets, things like that. >> so, argue that out. so that led them to -- >> so they needed to establish labor unions as a means of joining together so they could address those issues in the workplace and maybe labor unions were a way for them to like like let out their frustrations with other people who understood where they were coming from, like they couldn't bring those issues to their boss because their boss may have been gentile who had no idea or didn't understand where they were coming from. in the labor unions there were other people with similar issues. >> there are a couple issues you raise here. one of which -- those of you who

go off into the working world and have jobs will find this -- that the workplace has its own sort of system of governments, even if it doesn't have to do with that particular job, producing bolts or shirts. women have to deal with sexual harassment or other things in the work force, these unions govern that, as well as wages. >> i was thinking maybe the jewish workers thought they, themselves, were in a way better than the other immigrant workers -- i read like in the briefs the russian jews thought they were superior to the non-russian jews and -- but like as a jewish whole, the jewish work force had to protect itself and its advancement because they were the more skilled workers or -- >> so maybe one of the answers is, there is and inherent particularism in the chosen people even if they don't believe in being chosen anymore. interesting.

abraham. >> a large percentage of factory owners were jewish and maybe like unions needed to have like a jewish identity to feel some sort of compassion for them. so maybe the union would be more successful if they labeled themselves jewish if they were dealing with a jewish owner. >> oh, interesting. since a lot of the jewish employers -- rather, a lot of the employers of jewish labor are themselves jewish, you could use their jewishness to say look, we're all jews here, why are you treating them this way. that's interesting. [ inaudible question ] >> yes, absolutely. there's possibly an overrepresentation of jewish ownership in the factories in which jews work. certainly. absolutely. >> also there were certain services they couldn't receive. with one bank they couldn't receive loans without collateral. they needed to establish that personally for jews. >> all of these reasons that

jews perhaps share with other laborers, but in other ways are specifically jewish. the other sort of answer here, along with jewish socialism, jewish socialists are saying workers of the world unite. the other workers are saying like, yeah, you're jewish, we're not hanging out with you. you have the problem of idealistically people think we, as workers, should throw away these ideas of german or russian or english or maern american or immigrant. we're workers. but they haven't been able to convince others that. in the same way, hearkening back to the beginning of the course, all men are created equal -- except for those men who are not quite fully men and we don't know what women count as. certainly not the native americans whose land this is. they don't count. we have those ideals but when push comes to shove, those ideals don't always work out. in the same way, some jews believe that work is the way to unite these people but they

haven haven't convinced non-jews of that. >> -- by 1922 there are only 85,000 people who were in all the different branches. even though that's a lot, also seems like a low number for the amount of people who were coming over. >> that's particularly jewish organization. not all those immigrants are jews. it's maybe one-third of those immigrants are jews. yes, we can see that some issues will be addressed, and not others. we might as well then get to this question -- we'll go briefly -- the jews who do organize have also shown this idea for social protest is something that they don't mind

as someone over here said attacking jewish ownership. the kosher meat boycott of the early 20th century is an example of this. here you have mostly jewish women attacking mostly jewish male -- but also attacking policemen when they try to break it up -- because they believe the price of meat is too high, that organized crime has set the price of meat very high. when we talk about this at the end of the course we'll see that questions of morality, ethics in the kosher meat industry, not just in pricing but in the humane way animals are treated and the humane or inhumane ways that workers at these plants are treated is still very much a concern of jews in the 21st century. we'll talk about that later. here we have jews who see protest as a tool for them, an organizing with others. in this case, not only jews but other jewish women, organizing is a means for expressing their

problem with social injustice at the time. and all of these different questions come together in something that michaels writes about the arbiter rick which is known as the work man's circle which is an organization established mostly by yiddish speaking eastern european jews. and it becomes something -- another layer of american-jewish life which challenges the supremacy of these religious institutions. we have the reform movement which as it develops dreams of being really the american jewish movement. the array of different types of jews who come over in the large migration between 1880 and 1915 puts an end to that dream of reform domination or consensus among american jews. you have all these different other religious groups pop up. but you also have groups who say, i'm not particularly religious. they don't just blend into american society. they don't just become secular.

many many of them begin to organize into socialist organizations. jewish socialist organizations. so it is not just, well, if the socialists won't let us at their meeting, we'll gr to a differo t meeting, they developed whole sets of institutions for the propagation of their own ideology. these include by the 1920s, over 47 yiddish schools. by 1900 a national organization which uses yiddish as a major tool for disseminating knowledge, but also for binding these people together. in many ways, both labor unions and arbiter ring draw upon traditional jewish culture and values and modern jewish political organization. you begin to have at that

point -- and it is hard to remember now because the arbiter ring has somewhat disappeared from the american-jewish life, that this was a possible model of being jewish in america. right? these included not only schools for discussing modern socialist values, but also a clear dedication to the inclusiveness of women, whether it is fully successful or not, they really say they're dedicated to include women in a way that really many of the religious organizations were not. there is an interest in growth which essentially supersedes maintaining a strict socialist agenda. becoming so popular, the feeling that, well, we're helping immigrants, we're helping other jews. if some of the jews who we help don't agree with our political ideals but they still want to join us, growth and size of our organization may ultimately be more important than those socialist ideals. perhaps they'll come along

later. then there is a discussion as it grows, as with all of these religious movements, how much do we stay true to our ideals or how much are we dedicated to growth, survival and perhaps leading american judaism. >> -- were those totally gone by this point? >> so yes, there is some sort of appeal to rituals. they talk about temples of labor as their meeting places. but it's not really religious rituals as we see them. right? there's not necessarily the life cycle rituals that we see there. what we do see interest in other things such as burial plots. making sure everyone has burial. once again, it was something that was very much the purview of religious organizations. charity towards their own. we see the birth of a landsman,

a fellow from the same town, with a hyphen here, shops by organizes of all the people who come from the same neck of the woods, not necessarily city but neck of the woods from europe that you're in. so you can come and say, well, we're polish-jews in america. if there's too many polish-jews in your area, you may not know all of them but you know these guys from krakow so the krakow jews would form a landsman shop. it functions, in part, as a club, as a mutual aid society. if someone from that shop gets fired, may help them get a job. if the bread earner in the family gets killed, sometimes that is a woman, you might find a way to help that family along financially. you might help with burial. you might show up at the house during a marriage ceremony or a

birth of a child or some of those things that are somewhat life cycle events to share in that event with them. they don't develop ritual quite the same way as these other religions do, however. there is a religious organizations do, however. any other questions before we go on? the question how to make knowledge and knowledge that will set the worker free really. how you make it available to the masses is one of the problems that plagues the arbiter ring and other organizations like it, as well as it does the religious movements. how do you educate the young. is it sunday school movement. is it a day school movement. how do you propagate your own sort of ideology. there's this question of, well, we should have schools. we mentioned that. those schools should also have outings. this is something that becomes part of the arbiter ring creed,

that you would take these people on cultural outings to museums, other cultural outings to teach them about culture in your particular way. concert halls. a lot of this education committee interest in the arbiter ring overlaps with the jewish theater and arts groups at that time. the yiddish stage becomes very popular in the late 19th, early 0 20th century, catering, mostly because of language, to jewish clientele. there are dozens of stage companies in new york alone and dozens more that tour the country as a way of providing yiddish culture. sometimes those themes are overtly religious. often they're not. sometimes they become means of a culturation. we talked about this before -- shakespeare or other popular non-jewish plays being done in yiddish in order to really modernize or americanize the

jewish audience. in the same way the arbiter ring will take you to concert halls, to the yiddish stage for sort of propagandist reasons. maybe not the right word, but there will be plays about socialist things. songs that one day the worker will break the chains of bondage, et cetera, et cetera. so you have this odd combination of religiously or culturally specific organizations. these are for jews. right? these are -- yiddish is spoken here. these are alternatives to jewish schools in a lot of ways, and yet the ideology that they're teaching is this universal ideology, all of mankind. as if there is a world in which these students can go out into and join hand with the greek and polish and methodist porkers who went to their schools talking about socialism. the fact is, they're a little bit in front of curve here.

right? you're preparing jewish wokers for a socialist paradise which really america isn't ready for yet. and we'll see really after the 1950s there is a huge decline in jewish interest in this area. any questions on this? speaking of yiddish as a uniting immigrants, i want to take a look at the brief that we had assign for today. i want to say briefly that yiddish newspapers, as the yiddish stage, become important places to disseminate knowledge and also for jews to connect one with the other. we saw jews using periodicals as early as the oxidant in the early 19th century as keeping informed on other jewish subject and keeping tabs on other jews.

it becomes less clearly or overtly religious organ for this. many of the aspects or articles or advertisements in the newspaper aren't catering to a religiously jewish clientele, but not everything. there's also a clear left leaning socialist content here as well. the founder and editor of the forward is really a force of nature in american judaism for quite some time. and here we have with this brief a sort of glimpse into the lives of average jews in this period. now a caveat here -- we're not really sure if these are actual letters and actual specific answers by different people. with a we might have is a little bit of fiction being portrayed here where some of the editors are maybe creating what they see are composite letters or the

type of letter they wish they got so they could answer it. we're not 100% sure, but what we can understand is that taking together these do reflect certainly there are a couple things the reader's got to read and they reflect some of the ideology of the time, some of whether they're real or imagined, ways in which jews had to fight for identity in america at this time. we have some folks up here in the front who will help read. then we can go by and analyze this. let's take a look at this one on page 58 that someone referenced earlier. i think daria did. about this girl from galecea. for my spanish majors, this is not from spain. this is a corner of a settlement of poland, what was considered then one of the poorest parts of eastern europe and it had a very large dense jewish population,

and many of the immigrants who come to america are from galeca. they are known by other jewish immigrants abc ts the poorest, most backward. it was originally like calling someone a hick, right? or stupid or unrefined. these jews themselves didn't like this, but it gives you some idea of the internal divisions, even among the so-called "rustics" and not american, not modern as the jews of german ancestry. take a pause. >> dear editor, i am a girl from galecea. in the shop where i work i sit with a russian jew with whom i was always on good terms. why should one worker resent another. >> what's interesting about the way she starts out this piece.

about nest language she uses. yeah. >> she kind of acknowledges that she was not against -- >> she starts out, i don't have anything against anyone. i always mind my own business. >> she identifies as a worker? >> yeah. >> given the potential socialist conflicts -- >> she identifies as a worker. why should one worker resent mother? this is not -- why should one jew get into a fight with another jew. after all, we have no problems from the non-jews. this is this socialist ideology here of, the ideal is all us workers get along. and then the reality is, but i'm about to tell you a story in which we don't all get along. neither all-jews, or all workers, interestingly enough. >> when i asked him to repeat what he said that all galeans were no good.

he wishes they were all dead. >> quite strong here. not only you guys from that corner of the jewish world speak funny, but rather, i wish you were all dead. okay? she is naturally taken aback by this. >> i was naturally not silent in the face of such a nasty expression. he maintained that only russian jews are fine and intelligent. according to him, the galaceana are inhuman savages and he spoke of them so badly. dear editor, does he really have a right to say this? have the galeans jews not sent enough money for the pilgrims in russia? >> she's obviously upset by being called a savage. what's her first rebuttal to the editor but any reader? >> haven't we given enough money? >> okay. one of the reasons why we should be treated nice is what? >> that we've given a lot of

money. >> yeah. where might this >> so from the first week of class in reading the pieces from the trading companies and from peter stuyvesent, it was a matter of accepting jews because of their helpfulness, now this is a matter of, look, i'm being economically helpful, isn't this enough to be accepted. >> interesting.

one of the ways the jews still see their right to be at the table in america, their right in america, we understand the deal, we shouldn't and burden on anyone, we should take care of our own, and, hey, we fulfilled that. right? but if we hadn't, okay, you could yell at us for being savages if we hadn't done what we all agree is important for making our way in america, which is not being of the ibrihimic faith, their thing is, we get it. the social contract in america is everyone pulls their own weight and we're doing that. >> she's also questioning, too, like the fact that he's a russian-jew and that they were giving this money to the sufferers of the pilgrims in russia, like aren't we helping them? don't we realize that we're on their side? >> yeah. not only do we help other jews, but hey, man, we help jews from where you're from. there's a sort of umbrage taken with that as well. there's also, you haven't

mentioned it, but could this be, look, jews are supposed to give charity. and not all of us are all that religious, we're really workers, but still, we give to charity like we're supposed to, like a good jew. that may also be part of this, though it is hard to say whether this is charity. >> i also get kind after sense of -- you could read this anywhere and not think that they are in america because they're not really under this like one unified outlook. they're talking about like racial tensions or just tensions of judaism that could exist anywhere in the world so they could still be back in eastern europe around have the same discussion. it's socialist what she's saying but not very like this american ideal that like they should all kind of be more american together. >> so the call towards good americans don't treat each other the way he's treating me is up front there. interesting. yeah. you bring you up an interesting issue. we talk about jews in america. one could argue that really a

lot of these people operate in a space that's not distinctly american. it could be a space that you could find just about anywhere, especially in the factory. we'll pick it up there when a gentile. >> when a again file speaks badly of jews, it is immediately printed in the newspapers and discussed hotly everywhere. but that a jew should express hill self-so about his own brothers is nothing? does he have a right? are galaceans really so bad? and does the russian remain intelligent in spite of such expressions? >> what do you notice about the way that this ends? what's going on here at the very end of her letter? >> asking is he still going to remain fine and intelligent in

spite of what he says? so is what he's saying -- like does his prejudice take away from his intelligence? >> he calls us savages but only a savage would speak to us, right? his hatred makes him the true bad guy here. what else? what else is sort of striking about her argument. first is haven't we given enough money, haven't we done our share. what's the second argument? >> i'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but she's asking questions but they're all essentially rhetorical. i mean the answers are all sort of pretty evident through what she's already been saying. sort of you pointed out earlier that it seems sort of a little archetypal and possibly this was created by someone else because it does sort of go over these questions that don't -- that are sort of very easily answered. >> let's make it a statement. gentiles get called out when they speak bad about jews. what is she really saying here? >> like the interjewish sort of

struggles and badmouthing doesn't really merit anything. >> yeah. it hasn't made the papers. why is it that if a russian, who's an eastern orthodox russian, attacks me, the jews get up in arms and there is an investigative committee and it gets printed in the "new york times." but if a russian-jew attacks me, they say, it is among the jews. why is that? isn't there a civil rights issue here? >> well, we also talked in class -- and i guess my thought was that it may not necessarily be that she's asking rhetorical questions because we spoke about thu anti-semitism often caused some forms of self-doubt or questioning among jews. so it could be that she's used to having anti-semitism directed towards her on the part of gentiles, which is painful enough for her, but when another fellow jew who's in the same boat as her attacks her as well, it could cause even more of that same self-doubt that we

discussed. >> i'm not safe anywhere if even these other jews attack me, maybe i really am that bad. all right. interesting. might as well read the answer then. given by the editor. >> the galacean jews are just as good and bad as people from other lands. if they must be ashamed of the foolish and evil ones among them, the russians, too, must hide their heads in shame because among them they are such the idiot as the equatance of our letter writer. >> interesting, he doesn't really run to her aid. yeah, there are idiots everywhere. you're not that great, but you're not that bad either. an interesting sort of ending there. okay. i want to take a look at this letter which starts on page 63 from 1907. which talks about the young machini machinist. nate, you want to read? >> i am 18 years old and a

machinist by trade. during the past year i suffered a great deal just because i am a jew. it is common knowledge that my trade is run mainly by the gentiles and working among the gentiles, i've seen things that cast a dark shadow on the american labor scene. just listen. >> okay. so this is going to be about somewhat -- at least opens about fairly standard antisemitism. jews have no choice but to kokt into contact with gentiles in the workplace for the most part and that usually ends negatively. that's at least what our letter writer is saying. whether that's typical or not, we can talk about that. >> i worked in a shop in a small town in new jersey with 20 gentiles. there was one other jew besides me and both of us endured the greatest hardships, that we were insulted goes without saying. at times we were even beaten up. we work in an area where there are many factories and once when we were leaving the shop a group of workers followed us like hoodlums and beat us. to top it off, we and one of our attackers were arrested. the hoodlum was let out on bail

but we had to stay in jail. at the trial they fine the hoodlum $8 and let him go free. >> there is this question whether the mesh justiamerican system can ever work for the jews to their advantage. there is no representation in the justice system. you need jews on a police force to be fully protected. >> after that i went to work on a job in brooklyn. as soon as they found out i was a jew they tormented me so that i had to leave the place. i've already worked at many. places and i either have to leave voluntarily or they fire me because i am a jew. until now i was alone and didn't care. at this trade you can make good wages and i had enough. but now i've brought my parents over and of course i have to support them. >> take a pause right there. so obviously the -- i shouldn't say obviously. i will say that the motif here that's most obvious, antisemitism happens and it's bad and it is bad when it happens to you.

is there something else we can pull from this in this idea of social justice versus self-preservation? how might this shape, if this is true and it is common, how might this shape the way jews feel about questions of social justice versus questions of self-preservation if america? >> there might be a sense that people outside the jewish world don't really care about jewish self-preservation so that obviously should be their priority because otherwise there won't be jews to engage in social justice. >> right. this will actually be something that you hear jews talk about much later after the holocaust in which they really find their voice. they say for decades i was raised in the arbiter ring schools. one day the workers of the world unite. true today, the other workers don't want to talk to us but some day they will and we'll all unite. a group says, you know what? the workers don't want to unite

with us. they don't have the same idea of us being part of humanity the way they do, let alone does a christian flan fall lan throw pis worry. let's take a look then at the answer. >> in the answer, the jewish machinist is advised to appeal to the united hebrew trades and ask them to intercede for him and bring up charges before the machinists union about this persecution. his attention is also drawn to the fact that there are gentile factories where jews and gentiles work together and get along well with each other. finally, it is noted that people will have to work long and