A type of copy: on emigration and immigrants in Dvora Baron’s “America”

ABSTRACT

Dvora Baron’s “America” is a poetic essay expressing the author’s views on the emigration of East European shtetl communities at the beginning of the twentieth century and their successful integration into American society. Published in Israel in 1949 in the aftermath of the Holocaust, “America” is an elegy to the annihilated shtetl and a eulogy to the revival of its spirit in America. Baron’s contemporaries predominantly disengaged themselves from discussion of Jewish emigration to destinations other than Palestine/Israel. Against this background “America” stands out as it looks closely at the process of Jewish immigration, its motivations and strategies of relocation that led to a thriving community away from the Zionist destination. The richly textured language of the essay disguises the confrontation with hegemonic conventions, but a close reading reveals Baron’s radical stance towards the concepts of homeland, immigration, and gender of the national narrative.

KEYWORDS:

• Dvora Baron
• America
• Immigration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Tsila Ratner was born in Israel and was a lecturer in Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv University. After moving to the UK she taught Hebrew literature and language at Cambridge University and Leo Baeck College, as well as chairing the Modern Hebrew GCE. Since 1995 she has been teaching literature and Gender Studies in the department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London. She was the head and founder of UCL’s graduate programme of Gender Studies. Her main field of research is the politics of gender and migration in Hebrew women’s writings. Her latest book was jointly written with Hannah Naveh of Tel Aviv University. Entitled: Tzena, Tzena: In and About the Dowry Box, it is a comprehensive research on literary representations of women’s material culture in Modern Hebrew literature.

Notes

1 Alroey, “And I Remained Alone,” 267–85.

2 Baron, Sunbeams, 109–99.

3 The representation of immigrants to the USA in I.D. Berkowitz’s “Karet” [Severe] does not undermine this assertion. First published in Miklat, New York, in 1919, at the time Berkowitz lived there (1913–1928), the story is concerned with the rejection of traditional Jewish values by the Americanized immigrants. Baron, on the other hand, wrote and published “America” in Israel, the centre of the Zionist discourse and the production of Hebrew literature.

4 Rina Lapidus’s research on the literary essay in Hebrew literature defines it as a ‘fluid’ genre mixing publicist and literary styles and addressing social, political and cultural agendas. Its common stylistic features such as poetic language, alternating impersonal and personal tones and multiple punctuation marks, characterize Baron’s style in “America” (Lapidus, The Essay). Hamutal Bar-Yosef sees the prevalence of literary essay writing among Hebrew writers in the first half of the twentieth century as a transitional stage from realism to symbolism (Bar-Yosef, The Essay). “America” certainly moves between realistic depictions and highly metaphorical expressions.

5 The exception is Hannah Naveh’s discussion of “America” (Naveh, Men and Women, 48–53). Naveh was the first scholar to place it in the context of the immigrant’s journey. The narrative was further discussed, although from a different perspective, in our book (Naveh and Ratner, Tzena, Tzena), This paper transfers the theory, methodology and findings of our book into the immigration context.

6 All references to “America” in this paper are taken from this translation. Quotes are referred to by page numbers.

7 Govrin, The First Half, 11–12; Naveh and Ratner, Tzena, Tzena: 329–30.

8 On the use of this character see, for example, Govrin, The First Half, 24, 150; Jelen, Intimations, 31, 57.

9 Naveh and Ratner, Tzena, Tzena: 328–9.

10 In the Hebrew original: “shele’ahar kikhlot hakol,” as in “Adon Olam,” second verse: “veharey kikhlot hakol.”

11 Miron, “The Endless Cycle,” 17–32.

12 Such as Mirl in “As a Driven Leaf,” Ita and Faige in The Exiles, to name but two.

13 As Brenner argued in From Here and There, that one might find life in Eretz Yisrael impossible and still one has to stay there.

14 Such as Schweid’s claim that Baron was unaware of the problematics of her contemporaries (Schweid, “The Puzzle,” 16) and Miron’s view of her tendency to translate historical tensions into cyclic mythical values (Miron, “The Endless Cycle,” 31–2). Shaked’s assertion that Baron was not a model writer of the Second Aliyah, refers not only to the topic of the non-Zionist immigration of the time, but it certainly highlights her uncommon attention to this immigration, which emphasises her awareness of the wider historical context beyond the concerns of the Second Aliyah writers (Shaked Hebrew Narrative Fiction, 453). Nurit Govrin offers a feminist perspective on Baron’s so-called ahistorical writing. She suggests that this was Baron’s deliberate act of disassociating herself from her contemporaries’ writing in order to carve her own independent place in the dominantly male literary milieu (Govrin, The First Half, 15–16).

15 Living in the same neighbourhoods as other immigrants of the same country of origin, using their languages, sharing religious and cultural practices, etc.

16 In Hebrew literature, Berkowitz’s “Karet” [Sever], (in Holtz 1973, 193–208), is a rare example of such a community, whose representative is the son of Mrs Rabinovitz. Although criticised for his treatment of his old mother, he has been fully integrated into American society (adopted an Americanized surname, married an American-looking wife, adopted American capitalist values). At the same time, he lives among Jews, he is a member of a synagogue and the burial society attached to it (Berkowitz, Works, 1964).

17 Community distinctiveness as a mean of subverting the Zionist call for uniformity appears in Baron’s novel The Exiles. When celebrating special events such as weddings, for example, women wear their ‘best’ dresses from their hometown that had been carefully kept but not worn; the unpopular Faige who has never managed to integrate into life in Eretz Yisrael is honoured as the keeper of old customs and tastes; people are identified by their home town origins, and so on.

18 As in Saul Tchernichovsky’s idylls, Yaakov Steinberg’s “Abshalom’s Journey,” Leah Goldberg’s “Pine,” to name but a few. On this subject see Hever, “Between Affirming,” 225–59.

19 Epitomized in the concept of the Return as a natural homecoming which is enshrined in Israeli law as the entitlement of any Jew to Israeli citizenship.

20 Zion is mentioned in the text only once: “And when longings engulf the soul they sing - here, in the foreign place – their old songs, suffused with yearnings for their beloved ones and their mother-Zion” (6). This is the liturgical meaning of Zion and certainly not Eretz Yisrael/Israel.

21 In the sense of “foundation stone and mirror.” In Nurit Govrin’s view, the shtetl in Baron’s writing is the centre in the same way that what has happened in childhood would be there in maturity (Govrin, The First Half, 278–9). In the context of migration this interpretation explains the successful integration into America where the shtetl could be relocated more easily than in Eretz Yisrael.

22 As in Agnon Only Yesterday, Brenner’s Nerves, Breakdown and Bereavement, to name but a few. Their protagonists are young individuals rather than communities. Their motivations, as Hannan Hever’s stated, stemmed from the deep spiritual crisis of young Jews of the time and therefore was a matter of choice rather than imposition (Hever, Between Affirming, 225–59). This understanding sets the characters of “America” even further apart from the typical oleh protagonists as well as from Baron’s women immigrant characters in Israel (Zierler, “In What World?” 127–50).

23 Baron, “As a Driven Leaf,” 546–58). English translation in Jelen, Intimations, 139–52.

24 The Exiles.

25 If the woman confidante of Mirl was around, she would certainly not have committed suicide. Ita was swept away by a rich merchant from Cairo, cutting off ties with her relative and the close knit community of exiles in Alexandria. Only after her death, her mother arrives and her orphaned baby daughter is embraced and cared for by her family and the community of women.

26 See Alroey, “And I Remained Alone,” 1–33

27 This is a very different representation of emigrant families from that in Baron’s “Fedka” (1909), looking at the sexually frustrated shtetl women who were left behind (Holtzman, Dvora Baron, 442–9), or “In What World” (1911) describing the hopelessness of two women left in the shtetl (Jelen, Intimations of Difference, 152–72). It is certainly different from the diaries and official documentation of the immigration to the USA of the period, which record cases of deserting husbands and wives who were left on their own, either back home or once they reached America. See for example, Alroey, “And I Remained Alone,” 39–72; Gartner, “Women,” 129–139.

28 Alluding to Psalms 2:1: “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?”

29 Zierler, “In What World?”

30 Zierler argues that despite the physical migration from Eastern Europe to Eretz Yisrael, Baron’s women characters are ‘non-immigrants’ as they demystify “ … notions of upward and lateral mobility, portraying women whose lives remain circumscribed by the conditions of domestic servitude and exile” (Jelen and Pinsker Hebrew, Gender, 128–9).

31 The link between successful immigration and women’s identity politics as embodied in the interior of their houses is made clear in Daniel Miller’s research on Caribbean migrant women in the UK. Successfully integrated women migrants display mementos of their Caribbean life in specific ways that indicate a balance between former and present sense of selfhood and its location, not unlike the woman character in “America” (Miller, “Migration,” 397–414).

32 These are the iconic markers which identify a home as Jewish. See, for example, Bronner, “Introduction,” 1–42.

33 For the use of ‘biographical objects’ in the literary analysis of the ways women characters negotiate the tensions between traditional norms and subject position, see Naveh and Ratner, Tzena, Tzena, 150–66.

34 ‘Mirror of the Minute’ (Sa’ar Ben-Zvi, “In a Mirror,” 143–8) and ‘the Negative Glass’ (Naveh and Ratner, Tzena, Tzena, 91–4) are two characteristics of Baron’s poetics which magnify details of women’s life deemed negligible and trivial and thus marginalizing them, as a means of reinstating women’s position. Both rescue the very fabric of women’s life from its diminished position, moving it from the periphery of vision to the forefront of the narrative. For an elaborate discussion of Baron’s ‘negative glass’, see Naveh | Ratner, Tzena, Tzena, 325–41.

35 Yet, as de Certeau has argued, this act which he termed ‘poaching’ prevents the shock of deviation from everyday practices by being gently assimilated into them (de Certeau, “General Introduction, 63–75) See our discussion of de Certeau’s poaching in Naveh and Ratner, Tzena, Tzena, 78–91.

36 Edna Lomsky-Feder and Tamar Rapoport use the concepts of ‘visibility’ and ‘fields of social vision’ to deliberate on issues of power, on how institutional and inter-personal mechanisms construct the inclusion / exclusion relationships of immigrants and foreigners and strangers. These terms conceptualise the remodelling of the woman’s body as means of controlling her foreign ‘visibility’. Thus conceptualized, the reshaped body marks not only a self-defence strategy but also taking control of the ‘social vision’. This is an act of asserting power rather than defending against it from an inferior position (Lomsky-Feder and Rapoport, eds., Visibility 2010).

37 Women sharing their reading features in Baron’s stories Dreams, 56–63) and What Has Been 126–84), though not of news as in newspapers but fiction.

Reading newspapers by women as well as writing for them and targeting them is documented by Nurit Orchan (Orchan, Staking a Claim). On women’s reading in private and as a shared experience, see Naveh and Ratner, Tzena, Tzena, 252–90.

38 Alroey comments on the participation of women in the decision making about the emigration from Europe. His findings contradict the stereotype of women emigrants as passive followers of their husbands (Alroey, “Aliyah”). Gartner’s research reinforces those arguments (Gartner, “Women”).

39 The similarity of this gendered response to the migration/exile in The Exiles is clear. As Orly Lubin (Lubin, “Tidbits,” 91–105) has shown, female characters, Nechama Rothstein in particular, heal, feed and care, thus sustaining the community of Jaffa’s exiles, both physically and mentally. Male characters meanwhile are preoccupied with historical analogies and abstract ideologies. Like the woman in “America,” Nechama’s resilience is rooted in her adaptability, while her husband is staring into “the new void of exile” (Exiles, 16).

40 Chambers, Migrancy, 3–6.

41 Like any literary list, this one is far from being neutral. Iconic cultural objects that define the Jewishness of home are the first to be counted. The list moves to the effects of traditional practices: the smells of ‘home’ dishes and the festival of Sukkot and ends with the reiterated naming of children “in the chain of generations” (6). The list then is hierarchical, placing collective practices at the front, deeming ‘home dishes’ to be of less value. However, although the visibility of the woman character has been blurred once she was immersed in the male collective (‘they’), the text refers us back to what she considered to be of value (‘utensils sanctified by long use’). Vanessa Ochs’s research on domestic material objects and skills as markers of Jewish identity reinforces the significance of those of the woman character in “America” (Ochs, “What Makes a Jewish Home?” 491–510).

42 See endnote 34.

43 Chambers, Migrancy, 6.

44 The man finds words only when he writes letters from America to his wife in the shtetl, as discussed earlier (10).

45 The problematic issues of duplicating the old home in the new one occupies a number of Baron’s stories. In “As a Driven Leaf” the protagonist, young Mirl, falls into the trap of duplication which turns out to be a delusion. Faige in The Exiles tries to impose the old practices on the new life in Eretz Israel and is doomed to a life of misery and discontent.

46 Shachar Pinsker interprets Baron’s use of intertextuality as an act of defiance in the broad sense. Namely, her strategy of challenging the exclusion of women in general and women writers in particular from the Jewish canon of texts (Pinsker, “Unravelling,” 145–72).

47 Pinsker, “Unravelling the Yarn,” 165.

48 Published in 1949, in Shavririm (Sunbeams). Tel Aviv: Am Oved; and later 1951, 1953, 1968, in Parshiyot- (Tales). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. This translation is from Parshiyot, 1968, 437–442.

49 In the Hebrew original: “she-le-achar kikhlot hakol”, as in “Adon Olam”, second verse:

“ve‘aharey kikhlot ha-kol/ levado yimlokh nora” (And when all shall end / He still all alone shall reign).

50 In the original: zeman, literally: time. Here it refers to religious schools’ terms.

51 Heder and Talmud Torah were schools for young boys. Parents had to pay the Heder teacher, the melamed, for their sons’ education. Talmud Torah were schools for the poor and were run by the community and the local authorities. Sending boys to Talmud Tora was therefore considered rather shameful.

52 In the original: ma’ot hitim which like kamha de’pasha, means literally money for wheat or Pesach flour. It refers to the special collection to help the poor with preparations for Pesach.

53 From the grace after meals: “We beseech thee, O Lord our God, let us not be in need of the gifts of men or of their loans, but only of thy helping hand.”

54 The beadle or “bedel” is a lay official of a synagogue who ushers, keeps order, makes reports, and assists in religious functions.

55 In the original: beit hakahal, literally: the congregation-house. The term refers to the multi-function synagogue building which in the small shtetls usually served as a religious and communal centre, as well as the living quarters of the rabbi and his family.

56 The partition (מחיצה) in this case means the separation between the quarter of the rabbi in his official capacity and the living quarters of his family, where his wife, the rebbetzin, attended to the needs of the women of the congregation.

57 Reference to the women left behind who received money from their husbands in America.

58 In the Hebrew original: agun which is a play on agunah, referring to a deserted wife whose husband has disappeared without divorcing her. “Agun” is the Hebrew masculine form which according to Jewish law is not applicable to a man.

59 In the Hebrew original: מצוות. Here in the sense of charitable and kind acts.

60 Using the Hebrew idiom: yimteku lo/la rigvey afaro (let the clods of earth be sweet to him/her) said over someone’s grave which is similar in its metaphorical sense to the phrase: may s/he rest in peace. Baron intensifies the predicament of the old woman who was left behind, as well as of those who left their home town, by diverting from the figurative meaning of the usual idiom. The sweetness of clods of earth in the text refers to the concrete location, the old cemetery, and to its physical soil, whereas the idiomatic phrase is a euphemism bypassing the actuality of death.

61 Alluding to Psalms 2:1: “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? “

62 Genesis, 8, 22.

63 As in Samuel II, 1:23.

64 Genesis 24:60.

65 Yahrzeit – anniversary of the death of a close relative.

66 In the original: “shenitreda af hi mi’mkom ha’mekhora,” translated here as driven away, displaced (or expelled) from the birth place, as in Rashbam’s commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:17: the righteous … were driven away (nitredu) from their place and the wicked replaced them.

67 In the original: mitpalely havatikin (participants of the morning prayers recited at dawn)

68 In the original: venàase imo hesed (and we shall show/do him kindness) as in 2 Samuel, 9:3: “The king asked, Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God's kindness?” Here in the sense of charity.

69 In the original: yartu le’negdam (blocked in front of them) alluding to Numbers, 22:32: ki yarat haderkch kenegdi (the way is contrary unto me).