Papers by Eli Lederhendler
Ajs Review-the Journal of The Association for Jewish Studies, Nov 1, 2016
Libby Garland's study of Jewish migration to the United States during the era of immigration quot... more Libby Garland's study of Jewish migration to the United States during the era of immigration quotas based on national origins, and her particular interest in those migrants who entered the United States outside official or proper procedure, is timely. The American immigration regime continues to be a political issue of great concern to the administration, to Congress, and to voters, not to speak of its vital importance to undocumented immigrants already living in America and those wishing to join them. Indeed, the timeliness of the book is embodied in its mission, since the study is nothing if not engagé: Garland sets out to explore historical issues that, she contends, highlight both the difficulty (at the very least) and the unfairness of strictly policed immigration controls. "There is a profound clash between unilateral state efforts to control borders and the forces of global migration," she states, "for however much states seek to regulate the movement of people in and out of nations, there are always those who continue to move transnationally and who elude state control" (216). Hence, "Illegal immigration points to the impossibility of defining citizens and borders, insiders and outsiders, as cleanly as states would like" (216). Garland correctly notes that although there was never a "Jewish quota" within the 1920s' national origins immigration program, Jews were nonetheless considered to be one among a number of "suspect" groups, whether they were judged on the basis of their purported racial-stock attributes or on the grounds of their radical-leftist political affinities. The issue of controlling the volume of Jewish immigration, along with other eastern and southern European migration, thus turned on the undesirability, and perhaps, downright dangers accompanying the influx of such people into American society. With this explanation in place, Garland is set to demonstrate how Jewish immigrants (legal and illegal) fared then and how this story might resonate with present-day dilemmas surrounding post-2001 US migration controls, policing of immigrants, and deportations. The book opens with a welcome and carefully parsed review of US immigration practices from the early years of the nation until the end of the nineteenth century. Here, Garland reminds us not only that immigration was hardly ever free of policy controls of some sort, but also that the apparatus of land-border demarcation, federal bureaucracy, population control, documentation of individuals and
Brandeis University Press eBooks, Oct 20, 2023
Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas
Nationalities Papers, 1996
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 17, 2011
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Apr 1, 2008
In this paper I examine the economic and political factors that undermined the social class struc... more In this paper I examine the economic and political factors that undermined the social class structure in an ethnic community—the Jews of Russia and eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. Compared with the documented rise and articulation of working classes in non-Jewish society in that region, Jews were caught in an opposite process, largely owing to discriminatory state policies and social pressures: Among Jews, artisans and petty merchants were increasingly reduced to a single, caste-like status. A Jewish middle class of significant size did not emerge from the petty trade sector and no significant industrial working class emerged from the crafts sector. Historians have largely overlooked the significance of these facts, in part because they have viewed this east European situation as a mere preamble to more sophisticated, modern class formation processes among immigrant Jews in Western societies, particularly in light of the long-term middle-class trajectory of their children. Those historians interested in labor history have mainly shown interest in such continuity as they could infer from the self-narratives of the Jewish labor movement, and have thus overstated the case for a long-standing Jewish “proletarian” tradition. In reassessing the historical record, I wish to put the Jewish social and economic situation in eastern Europe into better perspective by looking at the overall social and economic situation, rather than at incipient worker organizations alone. I also query whether a developing class culture, along the lines suggested by E. P. Thompson, was at all in evidence before Jewish mass emigration. This paper is thus a contribution to the history of labor—rather than organized labor—as well as a discussion of the roots of ethnic economic identity.
Page 1. ELI LEDERHENDLER JEWISH RESPONSES TO MODERNITY New Voices in America and Eastern Europe P... more Page 1. ELI LEDERHENDLER JEWISH RESPONSES TO MODERNITY New Voices in America and Eastern Europe Page 2. Page 3. Jewish Responses to Modernity This Ono UHP3-B4X-C3EN Page 4. Page 5. REAPPRAISALS ...
Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2019
The New Jewish American Literary Studies, Apr 18, 2019
The question raised here is: What is the significance of ‘imagined homelands,’ as reflected in pr... more The question raised here is: What is the significance of ‘imagined homelands,’ as reflected in prose fiction by American Jewish writers? Specifically, how does Israel (and related topics, such as Israelis) as a literary device, figure in recent literature written by American Jews? In a mirrored dialectic of image and counter-image, it is argued that ‘Israel’ has become an important site in American Jewish fiction not only because it helps such writers to reassess their relationship to America, but also because it helps to define them as a distinctive literary group within American letters.
Keywords:
Auster, Paul; Chabon, Michael; Diaspora; Foer, Jonathan Safran; Israel (State of); Krauss, Nicole; Roth, Philip.
The Modern Jewish Experience
The Modern Jewish Experience
The Modern Jewish Experience
Studies in Contemporary Jewry an Annual XV 1999, 2000
... pupils consti tuted 33 percent of total school enrollment, Jewish teachers accounted for 45 p... more ... pupils consti tuted 33 percent of total school enrollment, Jewish teachers accounted for 45 percent of the faculty, and Jews were a majority among school principals.32 Thus, though they were acting in "non-Jewish" capacities, this ostensibly nonethnic civic presence went hand ...
... 3. Ezra Kopelowitz, Who Has the Right to Change Tradition? Evolving ... parlance. As EzraKope... more ... 3. Ezra Kopelowitz, Who Has the Right to Change Tradition? Evolving ... parlance. As EzraKopelowitz puts it in his essay, The continual experience of [ideological] schism is at the same time a process of ideological specification. Specification ...
Uploads
Papers by Eli Lederhendler
Keywords:
Auster, Paul; Chabon, Michael; Diaspora; Foer, Jonathan Safran; Israel (State of); Krauss, Nicole; Roth, Philip.
Keywords:
Auster, Paul; Chabon, Michael; Diaspora; Foer, Jonathan Safran; Israel (State of); Krauss, Nicole; Roth, Philip.
No Small Matter visits five continents and studies Jewish children from the 19th century through the present. It includes essays on the demographic patterns of Jewish reproduction; on the evolution of bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies; on the role children played in the project of Hebrew revival; on their immigrant experiences in the United States; on novels for young Jewish readers written in Hebrew and Yiddish; and on Jewish themes in films featuring children. Several contributions focus on children who survived the Holocaust or the children of survivors in a variety of settings ranging from Europe, North Africa, and Israel to the summer bungalow colonies of the Catskill Mountains. In addition to the symposium, this volume also features essays on a transformative Yiddish poem by a Soviet Jewish author and on the cultural legacy of Lenny Bruce.