Diasporic Memory and the Call to Identity: Yiddish Migrants in Early Twentieth Century East London

Abstract

This article explores the associational politics and diasporic memory of Jewish migrant workers in early twentieth century East London. It examines the ways in which associational activity, and specifically landsmanshaftn (hometown associations), tied migrants to sending contexts in both material and affective ways. This meant that diasporic memories were woven into the day-to-day political practices of these migrants, and were mobilised politically in response to the call to identification represented by traumatic events ‘back home’, as is illustrated in two examples, the protests at the 1903 Kishinev pogrom and solidarity with the civilian victims of the First World War. The article also shows that these mobilisations exemplify the ways in which such processes made a difference to the forms of identity and identification available to Jewish migrant workers in this period.

Keywords:

• Diasporic Memory
• Migration
• Jewish Diaspora
• Jewish Migrants
• Yiddish East London
• landsmanshaft
• Associational Politics

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgements to Victor Seidler, Michael Keith, Thomas Lacroix, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Nadia Valman, Jane Garnett, Alana Harris, Gil Toffell, Evan Daniel, Jose Moya and the extremely thorough anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft for the opportunities to think through the issues presented here, for discussing them with me and/or for helpful editorial comments.

Notes

[1] The literature on landsmanshaftn is in turn part of a considerable wider literature on migrant associationalism. The turn within that literature against methodological nationalism and to a transnational and/or diasporic perspective on migration in the last decade. See Moya (2005) on migrant associationalism in general, and Moya (2012) for a placing of Jewish associational – in this case in Argentina – within a diasporic perspective which parallels my own argument in this article.

[2] For typologies, see Rontch (1939) and Weisser (1985).

[3] Tower Hamlets Archive W/PRI (formerly TH/8262; NRA 32352).

[4] London Metropolitan Archives LMA/ACC/289.

[5] Recent academic discussion of Kishinev's symbolic importance has highlighted the role of Bialik's poem ‘In the City of Slaughter’, written in Hebrew (and a foundational text of modern Hebrew literature) after Bialik had collected the testimony of pogrom survivors. However, this was not published until spring 1904, and the echoes of Kishinev began to be heard in London within weeks of the event.

[6] Jewish Chronicle (henceforth JC) 22 May 1903.

[7] JC 15 May 1903.

[8] JC 22 May 1903.

[9] JC 5 June 1903.

[10] Times 22 June 1903. See Gidley 2003, pp. 145–156 for fuller details.

[11] JC 5 June 1903.

[12] 26 June 1903.

[13] JC 26 June 1903.

[14] This Bulletin had an English and a Yiddish section; in quoting from it, citations from the English section are referenced here by page numbers E1 etc., the Yiddish section by Y1 etc. The fact that it had these two sections is itself significant, as are the differences between the English and Yiddish texts. Following Prager (1990) and others, I have transliterated the Yiddish text as it appears, rather than as if it followed contemporary standard Yiddish orthography; I understand the departures from standard Yiddish (e.g. Germanisms) as part of the data and relevant for reading the text.