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New York Jews and The Great Depression

January 1995

by Beth S. Wenger, University of Pennsylvania

Beth Wenger is the first recipient of the Doctoral Prize of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, 1993-1994.

 

Discussions about the Great Depression generally provoke images of breadlines, bank closures, evictions, and street-corner apple vendors.   Economic devastation was a pervasive reality for Americans of all ethnic backgrounds in the 1930's, but the decade also represents a unique period in American Jewish history.  My forthcoming book, to be published by Yale University Press, examines New York's Jewish community during the Depression years, exploring the dynamics of Jewish social, religious, and political culture in an era of economic adversity, increased anti-Semitism, and generational transition.

 

The Depression decade literally bridged the immigrant period of the early twentieth century and the well-integrated, highly acculturated Jewish community that emerged after World War II.  By the mid-1920's, Jewish immigration had virtually ceased, a generation of immigrants had established roots on American soil, and a new American-born generation was coming of age.  During the thirties, American Jewry became for the first time a predominantly American-born rather than an immigrant population.   The Great De pression struck just as immigrant patterns were gradually giving way to new formulations of Jewish community and culture.

 

A careful examination of the 1930's reveals that many Jewish trends of the post-World War II era emerged in the midst of turbulent years of the Great Depression.  In the 1930's, Jewish youth remained in school, acquiring education that would ultimately accelerate Jewish economic advancement in the postwar years.  Young Jews of the 1930's also began to delay marriage and have fewer children, patterns that continue to
characterize Jewish families to the present day.  The 1930's marked the birth of the Democr atic coalition, as Jews flocked to support Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs.  During the Depression years, the immigrant tradition of radicalism remained vital and Jewish working-class neighborhoods were frequent sites of eviction protests, rent strikes, and consumer boycotts.  Yet the radicalism of the 1930's ultimately gave birth to New Deal Democratic liberalism which emerged as a hallmark of Jewish identity in the second half of the twentieth century.

 

Jewish communal institutions, particularly Federations and synagogues, struggled to remain financially solvent during the economic crisis.  In the process, they refined their mission and purpose within the Jewish community.  As the government assumed responsibility for relief and welfare under the New Deal, Jewish philanthropies were forced to reconsider the long cherished ideal that Jews take care of their own.  Whole-heartedly supporting federal welfare, Jewish philanthropies redefined themselves as instruments of ethnic identity and persistence rather than as the dispensers of material aid.  Post-World War II Jewish agencies continued that trend; for many American Jews, supporting Jewish organizations quickly became a key expression of Jewish identity. 

 

Religious leaders experienced their most trying years during the Great Depression and attempted to attract Jews to financially strapped synagogues by addressing contemporary issues and incorporating secular activities within their programming.  The dramatic growth of synagogue affiliation in the postwar era testified to the success of integrating the secular and the sacred.  After World War II, record numbers of Jews joined synagogues, but most were not primarily interested in worship services but rather wanted to demonstrate and preserve ethnic consciousness by participating in the social, cultural, and educational activities of the synagogue.  The Great Depression presented both economic and ideological challenges to Jewish communal institutions.  In responding to the crisis of Depression, individual Jews and Jewish institutions developed lasting patterns of American Jewish life.

 

My dissertation describes the Great Depression as a moment of both crisis and transition, a period of creativity and innovation as well as insecurity and anxiety.  For all its adversity and upheaval, the Depression era provides crucial insights into the ongoing process of Jewish acculturation and adaptation in America.