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‘In Glasgow but not quite of it’? Eastern European Jewish immigrants in a provincial Jewish community from c.1890 to c.1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2013

AVRAM TAYLOR
AVRAM TAYLOR*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, Northumbria University.
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Abstract

This article makes use of autobiographies and oral interviews in order to explore the lifestyles of the first generation of immigrants within one particular provincial Jewish community – the Gorbals in Glasgow – between 1890 and 1945. The experience of this generation of immigrants was characterised by diversity to an extent that was not true of the second generation. Thus, the community cannot be described in terms of either ‘assimilation’ or ‘separation’. Instead, an alternative description has been coined: ‘variegated acculturation’ in order to encompass the complexity of the lives of the immigrants.

«a glasgow, mais pas tout à fait»? les immigrants d'europe de l'est dans une communauté juive provinciale de 1890 à 1945 environ

Cet article repose sur une série d'autobiographies et d'interviews qui permettent d'explorer les modes de vie de la première génération d'un groupe d'immigrants juifs, ici au sein d'une communauté juive provinciale – quartier des Gorbals à Glasgow – entre 1890 et 1945. L'expérience vécue par cette première génération d'immigrants se caractérise par une grande diversité, contrairement à ce que connut la seconde génération. Ainsi, ni le terme d'«assimilation» ni celui de «séparation» ne peuvent s'appliquer à cette communauté. Il a fallu forger une autre expression qui corresponde à la diversité des expériences que ces immigrants traversèrent: c'est une «acculturation panachée» qui permet de tenir compte de la complexité des parcours de vie.

„in aber nicht ganz aus glasgow“? osteuropäische jüdische einwanderer in einer jüdischen gemeinde von ca. 1890 bis ca. 1945

Dieser Beitrag nutzt Autobiographien und Zeitzeugeninterviews, um die Lebensweise der ersten Generation von Einwanderern in einer einzelnen jüdischen Gemeinde – Gorbals in Glasgow – zwischen 1890 und 1945 zu untersuchen. Die Erfahrungen dieser Einwanderergeneration waren in einem Maße unterschiedlich geprägt, wie es in der zweiten Generation nicht mehr gegeben war. Diese jüdische Gemeinde lässt sich daher mit den Begriffen „Assimilation“ oder „Abspaltung“ nicht fassen. Stattdessen wird als alternative Bechreibung der Begriff der „vielfältigen Akkulturation“ verwendet, um die komplexe Lebenswelt der Einwanderer einzufangen.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , December 2013 , pp. 451 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

ENDNOTES

1 David Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: social relations and political culture 1840–1914 (New Haven and London, 1994), 7–10.

2 Jerry White, Rothschild Buildings: life in an east end tenement block 1887–1920 (London, 1980).

3 On Jewish immigrants in the inter-war years, see Cesarani, David, ‘A funny thing happened on the way to the suburbs: social change in Anglo-Jewry between the wars, 1914–1945’, Jewish Culture and History 1, 1 (1998), 5–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Todd M. Endelman, Radical assimilation in English Jewish history 1656–1945 (Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana, 1990), 173–5; and Englander, David, ‘Policing the ghetto: Jewish East London, 1880–1920’, Crime, History and Societies 14, 1 (2010), 29–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an introduction to the literature on Irish migrants in Britain, see Donald M. MacRaild, Irish migrants in modern Britain 1750–1922 (Basingstoke, 1999). On Irish migration to Scotland, see Ben Braber, ‘Immigrants’, in T. M. Devine and Jenny Wormald eds., The Oxford handbook of modern Scottish history (Oxford, 2012), 491–509.

4 Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2002), 127.

5 Ibid., 129–30.

6 Harvey L. Kaplan, The Gorbals Jewish community in 1901 (Glasgow, 2006), 3.

7 Kaplan, The Gorbals, 8. Kaplan also provided the estimate for the 1911 census.

8 Benjamin Braber, Jews in Glasgow 1879–1939: immigration and integration (Edgware, 2007), xiv and 142.

9 Kenneth Collins was a pioneer in this field. See his Second city Jewry (Glasgow, 1990), and Be well! Jewish health and welfare in Glasgow, 1860–1914 (East Linton, 2001).

10 Braber, Jews in Glasgow.

11 Linda Fleming, ‘Jewish women in Glasgow c.1880–1950: gender, ethnicity and the immigrant experience’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Glasgow, 2005), available on http://theses.gla.ac.uk/953/ [accessed 29 September 2011]; William Kenefick, ‘Comparing the Jewish and Irish communities in twentieth century Scotland’, in David Cesarani, Tony Kushner and Milton Shain eds., Place and displacement in Jewish History and memory Zakor v' Makor (London and Portland, 2009).

12 Feldman, Englishmen, 15.

13 Richard Alba and Victor Nee, ‘Rethinking assimilation theory for a new era of immigration’, in Charles Hirschman, Philip Kasinitz and Josh DeWind eds., The handbook of international migration: the American experience (New York, 1999), 137–8.

14 Ibid.

15 Oscar Handlin, The uprooted: the epic story of the great migrations that made the American people (Boston, 1990), 6.

16 Ibid., 153–5, 165.

17 Ibid., 226.

18 Jason McDonald, American ethnic history: themes and perspectives (Edinburgh, 2007), 139.

19 Panikos Panayi, Immigration, ethnicity and racism in Britain 1815–1945 (Manchester and New York, 1994), 76–97.

20 Panikos Panayi, An immigration history of Britain: multicultural racism since 1800 (Harlow, 2010), 85.

21 J. W. Berry and D. Sam, ‘Acculturation and adaptation’, in John W. Berry, Marshall H. Segall and Cigdem Kagitcibasi eds., Handbook of cross-cultural psychology, volume 3: social behaviour and applications (Boston, MA and London, 1997), 296–7.

22 Bame Nsamenang, ‘Regionalism and national integration in Cameroon: psychocultural perspective’, in Paul Nchoji Nkwi and Francis B. Nyamnjoh eds., Regional balance and national integration in Cameroon: lessons learned and the uncertain future (Bamenda, Cameroon, 2011), 142.

23 Berry and Sam, ‘Acculturation and adaptation’, 297.

24 Endelman, Radical assimilation, 175.

25 Braber, Jews in Glasgow, xvi.

26 Endelman, Jews of Britain, 179–80.

27 For further description of these autobiographies, see Taylor, Avram, ‘“Remembering spring through Gorbals voices”: autobiography and the memory of a community’, Immigrants and Minorities 28, 1 (2010), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Antony Polonsky, The Jews in Poland and Russia: volume II 1881 to 1914 (Oxford and Portland, 2010), 5–21.

29 Endelman, Jews of Britain, 128–9.

30 David Englander, A documentary history of Jewish immigrants in Britain, 1840–1920 (Leicester, London and New York, 1994), 21–2.

31 Dominic A. Pacyga, ‘Polish diaspora’, in Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember and Ian Skoggard eds, Encyclopedia of diasporas: immigrant and refugee cultures around the world: volume 1, overviews and topics (New York, 2005), 255.

32 Halina Grzymala-Moszczynska, ‘Migration processes in Poland’, in Leonore Loeb Adler and Uwe P. Gielen eds., Migration: immigration and emigration in international perspective (Westport, 2003), 183–4.

33 Braber, ‘Immigrants’, 504–5, 508.

34 David Cesarani, ‘The transformation of communal authority in Anglo-Jewry 1914–1940’, in David Cesarani ed., The making of modern Anglo-Jewry (Oxford, 1990), 118.

35 T. M. Devine, Exploring the Scottish past: themes in the history of Scottish society (East Linton, 1998), 121.

36 John Butt, ‘The industries of Glasgow’, in Hamish W. Fraser and Irene Maver eds., Glasgow volume II: 1830 to 1912 (Manchester and New York, 1996), 96–140.

37 J. J. Smyth, Labour in Glasgow: 1896–1936: socialism, suffrage, sectarianism (East Linton, 2000), 19–20.

38 Collins, Second city, 18–19.

39 Kenneth E. Collins, Glasgow Jewry: a guide to the history and community of the Jews in Glasgow (Glasgow, 1993), 5.

40 Kenneth E. Collins, ‘Growth and development of Scottish Jewry, 1880–1940’, in Kenneth E. Collins ed., Aspects of Scottish Jewry (Glasgow, 1987), 5.

41 Collins, Second city, 12.

42 Ibid., 46–7.

43 Lipman, A history of the Jews, 56.

44 Collins, Second city, 40–50.

45 Ibid., 99–100.

46 Lipman, A history of the Jews, 56.

47 Chaim Bermant, Coming home (London, 1976), 52–3.

48 Harvey L. Kaplan, The Gorbals Jewish community in 1901 (Glasgow, 2006), 10–11.

49 The estimate for the Gorbals was provided by Harvey Kaplan, who also suggested that the majority originated from Lithuania.

50 Ronald Smith, The Gorbals: historical guide and heritage walk (Glasgow, 1999), 9–10; Michael James Miller, The representation of place: urban planning and protest in France and Great Britain, 1950–1980 (Aldershot, 2003), 31.

51 Elizabeth Wilson, The sphinx in the city: urban life, the control of disorder, and women (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992), 146.

52 Collins, Be well!, 41.

53 Maitles, Henry, ‘Jewish trade unionists in Glasgow’, Immigrants and Minorities 10, 3 (1991), 46–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 51; Collins, Second city, 71–2.

54 Collins, Second city, 13–14.

55 Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 97, 161–2. For a comprehensive list of Jewish organisations in Glasgow during the period, see The Mitchell Library G1296 0941435 GLA, Glasgow Jewish year book 1937–1938 (Glasgow, 1938), pp 52–73.

56 Stephan E. C. Wendehorst, British Jewry Zionism and the Jewish state, 1936–1956 (Oxford, 2012), 93.

57 Polonsky, The Jews in Poland and Russia, 33, 261.

58 Wendehorst, British Jewry Zionism and the Jewish state, 93; Endelman, Jews of Britain, 207.

59 Charles Withers, ‘The demographic history of the city, 1831–1911’, in Hamish W. Fraser and Irene Maver eds., Glasgow. Volume II: 1830 to 1912 (Manchester and New York, 1996), 150.

60 Mary Edward, Who belongs to Glasgow? 200 years of migration (Glasgow, 1993), 34–6; Withers, ‘The demographic history of the city’, 151.

61 Withers, ‘The demographic history of the city’, 149–50.

62 I. G. C. Hutchison, ‘Glasgow working-class politics’, in R. A. Cage ed., The working class in Glasgow 1750–1914 (London, Sydney and Wolfeboro, 1987), 129.

63 Ibid.

64 Tom Gallagher, Glasgow, the uneasy peace: religious tension in modern Scotland, 1819–1914 (Manchester, 1987), 37.

65 Braber, ‘Immigrants’, 498; Gallagher, Glasgow, 42.

66 Thomas Martin Devine, Clanship to crofter's war: the social transformation of the Scottish Highlands (Manchester, 1994), 247.

67 Ibid., 248.

68 Oral interview (hereafter Tape), Mr Zuckerman, 24 August 2003, 1653; Tape, Mrs Friedlander, 20 July 2005, 0400; Tape, Mr and Mrs Danzig, 28 August 2003, Side 2, 0285–0305; Tape, Mrs Cohen, 26 April 2002, Side 2, 2470–2480; Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 162.

69 Tape, Mrs Abrahams, 19 July 2005, 0190–0205; Tape, Mr and Mrs Danzig, 28 August 2003, Side 2, 0285–0305; Tape, Mrs Cohen, 26 April 2002, Side 2, 2480–2490.

70 Tape, Mrs Abrahams, 19 July 2005, 0100–0150; Tape, Mrs Friedlander, 20 July 2005, 0338–0450; Tape, Mr and Mrs Danzig, 28 August 2003, Side 2, 0290–0310.

71 Tape, Mrs Laski, 21 July 2005, 0715–0725; Tape, Mr Sacks, 19 July 2005, 0785–0790.

72 Tape, Mrs Greenberg, 24 July 2005, 0285.

73 Tape, Mr Zuckerman, 24 August 2003, 1440–1450.

74 Tape, Mr Zuckerman, 24 August 2003, 1653–1655.

75 Fleming, ‘Jewish women in Glasgow’, 5.

76 Tape, Mrs Abrahams, 19 July 2005, 0100–0150; Tape, Mrs Adler, 24 July 2005, 1025–1035; Tape, Mr and Mrs Danzig, 28 August 2003, Side 2, 0285–0305; Tape, Mr Lipman, 19 July 2005, 1050–1060.

77 Fleming, ‘Jewish women in Glasgow’, 103.

78 White, Rothschild Buildings, 82.

79 Tape, Mr Cowan, 21 July 2005, 0138–0212.

80 Fleming, ‘Jewish women in Glasgow’, 103–4.

81 Tape, Mr Levy, 21 July 2005, 0188–0225.

82 Tape, Mrs Cohen, 26 April 2002, Side 2, 2460–2470.

83 Tape, Mrs Abrahams, 19 July 2005, 0190–0220.

84 Tape, Mrs Friedlander, 20 July 2005, 0340–0380.

85 Tape, Mrs Friedlander, 20 July 2005, 1776–1826. This practice is described in Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: an inclusive theology and ethics (Philadelphia, PA, 1988), 68.

86 Tape, Mrs Greenberg, 24 July 2005, 1530–1550.

87 Endelman, Todd M., ‘English Jewish history’, Modern Judaism 11, 1 (1991), 97–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 Glasgow merits only one mention in Colin Holmes' comprehensive Anti-Semitism in British society 1876–1939 (London, 1979), 205; Kenefick, ‘Comparing the Jewish and Irish communities’, 65.

89 Collins, Aspects of Scottish Jewry, 52; Collins, Be well!, 32.

90 Piers Dudgeon, Our Glasgow memories of life in disappearing Britain (London, 2009), 236–40.

91 Ralph Glasser, Growing up in the Gorbals (London, 1987), 6.

92 Tape, Mrs Abrahams, 19 July 2005, 0336–0338.

93 Sharman Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews: the Anglo-Jewish community, Britain and the Russian revolution (London, 1992), 48 and 208; Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 33.

94 Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews, 209.

95 Ibid., 210.

96 Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 33.

97 Murdoch Rogers, ‘The Lanarkshire Lithuanians’, in Billy Kay ed., Odyssey: voices from Scotland's recent past (Edinburgh, 1980), 19.

98 Rogers, Murdoch, ‘The Lithuanians’, History Today 35, 7 (1985), 2Google Scholar.

99 For a comparison of Jewish and Muslim experiences in Britain, see David Cesarani, ‘What the Muslims can learn from Jews’, The Times Higher Education, 3 September 2004, available on http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/190959.article [accessed 2 July 2013]; and Joel S. Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper, Muslims and the state in Britain, France, and Germany (Cambridge, 2005), 8.

100 Evelyn Cowan, Spring remembered: a Scottish Jewish childhood (Edinburgh, 1974), 99.

101 Smith, The Gorbals, 10.

102 Mrs Friedlander, 20 July 2005, 1873–1900.

103 Tape, Mrs Friedlander, 20 July 2005, 1915.

104 White, Rothschild Buildings, 87.

105 Tape, Mr Sacks, 19 July 2005, 1949.

106 Bermant, Coming home, i and 52.

107 Ibid., 57.

108 Ibid., 55.

109 Ibid., 55–6.

110 Maitles, ‘Jewish trade unionists in Glasgow’, 58.

111 H. Shapiro, ‘The Circle in Scotland’, in The Circle Golden Jubilee 1909–1959 (Central Committee, Workers' Friendly Society n.d.); Scottish Jewish Archives Centre (SJAC).

112 Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 97 and 171.

113 Ibid., 97.

114 Shapiro, ‘The Circle in Scotland’.

115 The Jewish Echo, 18 October 1935 and 18 January 1935.

116 Tape, Mr Levy, 21 July 2005, 1970; Tape, Mrs Cohen, 26 April 2002, Side 2, 2135–2145.

117 Glasser, Growing up in the Gorbals, 6.

118 Tape, Mrs Laski, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 1115–1250.

119 Tape, Mr Levy, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 2085–2130.

120 Tape, Mr Lipman, 19 July 2005, 1700–1754.

121 Tape, Mr Levy, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 0580–0590.

122 Tape, Mrs Greenberg, 24 July 2005, Side 2, 0850–0860.

123 Tape, Mrs Laski, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 1265–1270.

124 Tape, Mr Levy, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 0700–0730.

125 Schaffer, Gavin discusses Jews in military service in ‘Unmasking the “muscle Jew”: the Jewish soldier in British war service, 1899–1945’, Patterns of Prejudice 46, 3–4 (2012), 375–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

126 ‘British Legion, c1950s’, The Glasgow story, http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image [accessed 26 January 2011].

127 Tape, Mr Lipman, 19 July 2005, 1730; Tape, Mr Sacks, 19 July 2005, 1755.

128 Endelman, Jews of Britain, 99.

129 Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 21.

130 Tape, Mrs Adler, 24 July 2005, Side 2, 0700–0710; Tape, Mr and Mrs Danzig, 28 August 2003, Tape 2, 0340–0350.

131 Tape, Mr and Mrs Danzig, 28 August 2003, Tape 2, 0340–0350.

132 Tape, Mrs Laski, 21 July 2005, 0380–0448.

133 Tape, Mrs Adler, 24 July 2005, 1555.

134 Cowan, Spring remembered, 73.

135 Tape, Mrs Adler, 24 July 2005, 0600, 2100 and 2314.

136 Tape, Mr Goodman, 25 August 2003, 2242–2277.

137 Tape, Mrs Cohen, 26 April 2002, 1550–1665.

138 Tape, Mr and Mrs Danzig, 28 August 2003, Side 2, 0845–0855; Tape, Mr Sacks, 19 July 2005, 1545–1565.

139 Tape, Mrs Friedlander, 20 July 2005, 0790–0827.

140 Chaim Bermant says that he had never heard this term until he moved to Glasgow: see, Bermant, Coming home, 35.

141 Tape, Mr Levy, 21 July 2005, 1880–1890.

142 Tape, Mrs Cohen, 26 April 2002, 0455–0465.

143 Glasser, Growing up in the Gorbals, 53–5.

144 Bermant, Troubled Eden, 55.

145 Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 170.

146 Bermant, Coming home, 53.

147 Collins, Scottish Jewry, 26.

148 Andrew Gibb, Glasgow: the making of a city (London, 1983), 155–9.

149 Tape, Mrs Greenberg, 24 July 2005, 1770–1778.

150 Tape, Mrs Abrahams, 19 July 2005, 2105–2120.

151 Tape, Mrs Abrahams, 19 July 2005, 0374–0394.

152 Tape, Mrs Greenberg, 24 July 2005, 2100–2114.

153 Tape, Mrs Greenberg, 24 July 2005, 2115–2160.

154 Tape, Mrs Adler, 24 July 2005, Side 2, 0395–0405.

155 Tape, Mrs Laski, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 0160–0165.

156 Tape, Mrs Laski, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 0245–0255.

157 Braber, Jews in Glasgow, 165.

158 Tape, Mrs Laski, 21 July 2005, Side 2, 1810–1838.

159 Harry Diamond, Can you get my name in the papers? (Glasgow, 1996), 14.

160 Tape, Mr Cowan, 21 July 2005, 0230–0250; Tape, Mr Levy, 21 July 2005, 0560–0600.

161 Anthony P. Cohen, The symbolic construction of community (London and New York, 2003), 108.