Orthodoxy as a Means of Becoming Good Jewish Americans: Two Jewish Orphanages in Chicago

This article compares and contrasts the two Jewish orphanages in Chicago--the Chicago House and the Marks Nathan Home. It focuses on the differences between the German Jewish immigrants and the Eastern European Jews and how these differences affected the orphanages. This article is available in Constructing the Past: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol7/iss1/9 Constructing the Past Orthodoxy as a Means of Becoming Good JewishAmericans: Two Jewish Orphanages in Chicago Natlie Burda Abraham Cahan's novel The Rise ofDavid Levinsky, published in 1917, is a classic "rags to riches" story set in early twentieth-century America. David is an Orthodox Russian Jew who immigrates to the New World. Although he was raised in a very strict and orthodox fashion in Russia, upon arrival to the United States he soon realizes that his skills, such as knowing Hebrew and reciting the Torah, are unnecessary for survival in America. In order to make money, David has to learn English and study the American way of doing business, such as using persuasive words or finding cheap labor. In doing so, David became a very successful businessman. At the end of the novel, David reflects on his life, and he finds that "the poor lad swinging over a Talmud volume at the Preacher's Synagogue,. seems to have more in common with my inner identity than David Levinsky, the well-known cloak-manufacturer. ,,298 David realizes that despite all the money that he had made, he is still the David that studied the Torah in Russia. The novel characterizes the struggles Jews·faced upon arrival in America. Like David, recent Jewish immigrants faced a dilemma: retain their ethnic identity or forego it to become American culturally. Each immigrant group resolved this dilemma differently. German Reform Jews, who came to America starting in the 1830s, were more likely to become fully Americanized than their later counterparts, the Eastern European Jews. By examining two Jewish orphanages that were established in Chicago in the early 1900s, one established by the German Jews and one by the Eastern European Orthodox Jews, the struggle between retaining an Orthodox Jewish identity or creating an American one becomes more evident: while Reform German JewS chose to assimilate, Eastern European Jews were able to create a link between becoming American while retaining a part of their Orthodox Jewish identity. The German Jews were the first of the two groups to immigrate to America. Growing German nationalism in the early to mid-1800s, manifesting itself in "official government discrimination and economic restrictions, including special 'Jew-taxes,'" finally pushed the. German Jews out of Europe to America. 299 While they were being pushed out a reform movement was sweeping the community of German Jews. Reform Jews wanted synagogue to be more modern, service to be in the German language instead of Hebrew, and even questioned the authority of the Talmud. 300 They also considered t1).emselves to be German citizens. The reform movement faced obstacles and there was "terrible opposition and hatred on the part of the strictly orthodox who thought that these people were hurting Judaism. ,,302 The movement was suppressed by the German government because they believed that anything new, even in religion, would be a 29R Abraham Cahan, TIle Rise ofDavidLevinsky (New York: The Modem library, 1917), 518. 299 Irving Cutler, The Jews ofChicago: From Shtetl to Suburb (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996),6. 300 Tobias Brinkmann, 'I' We are Brothers! Let us Separate!' : Jewish Immigrants in Chicago between Gemeinde and Network Community before 1880," ed. Chistof Mauch and Joseph Salmons, German-Jewish Identities in America (Madison: Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, 2003), 47. . 301 Rabbi Lee J. Levinger, A History ofthe jews in the United States (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1930),212. 301 Levinger, Hisf01Y ojJews, 212.