The Immigrant Jewish Middleman Identity - Isabella Tuch (revised)

 

Being a Jewish American has always had a plethora of meanings regarding my identity. It was not even until after my six childhood years in Hebrew school that I learned that I was not only religiously Jewish but ethnically Ashkenazi as well. Navigating this identity has proved challenging as I have always felt that there was no true way to define my struggles as a Jewish American.

There were three waves of immigration of Jews to the United States: that of Sephardic Jews, that of Western European Jews, and that of Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews. Sephardic and Western European Jews had an easier time acclimating to the U.S. than Eastern European Jews, denoting them as the Jewish Elite. They immigrated much earlier and had experienced much more similar to that of Western Culture. Along with that, Eastern European Jews immigrated much later in mass immigration from the 1880s to 1924 when immigration limits came into play, escaping the lack of freedom, poverty, and pogroms in the Eastern European rural towns. Therefore, these Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews typically ended up in unskilled labor positions such as in the garment industry. I hope to examine how Ashkenazi Eastern European Jews operate their identity both amongst other Jews and Gentiles.

In Bonacich’s 1973 “A Theory of Middleman Minorities” notes that middleman minorities occupy intermediate economic roles rather than the low-level roles typically possessed by other ethnic minorities. These middlemen “tend to concentrate in certain occupations, notably trade and commerce,” and they “play the role of middleman between producer and consumer, employer and employee, owner and renter, elite and masses” (Bonacich 583). We see this in the Ashkenazi Jewish economic position as they operate both with other Jews and Gentiles in the garment industry, working in menial but not low-level positions. Even amongst the Jewish elite, they operate in a higher-level position than other ethnic minorities and even amongst other Jews but still operate as minorities as they cannot surpass the position of the white elite.

This image shows a 1910 photograph of Jewish women working in the garment industry. Despite being paid low levels at these positions, they were still awarded some opportunity to earn a living and socially mobilize. In fact, the garment industry allowed many impoverished Ashkenazi immigrants to move up in position or to raise funding to move into the up-and-coming cinema industry. This industry, being so largely new, did not require prior experience, and led to many Jewish immigrants shifting from the garment industry to the film industry. These intermediate-level positions saw the accumulation of Jewish immigrants and allowed for some social mobility.