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Abstract
Research often argues or implies that the First World War suddenly discontinued the age of Jewish mass migration and led to increased sedentarism. Indeed, the former main destinations like the USA drastically cut down on the arrival of East European Jews. This did not, however, result in the end of Jewish mass migration. This article will demonstrate that it rather led to manifold attempts to circumvent the newly introduced and increasingly exclusive measures, to a rising complexity of transnational movement patterns, and finally to the emergence of new destinations and Jewish communities all over the globe. This movement, however, was overshadowed and impacted by the almost global rise of xenophobia and fascism. Based on local histories, statistical and legal sources, as well as reports and communications by delegates of Jewish relief organizations, this article presents a social history of the intersection between global Jewish migration and politically motivated migration management. It leaves behind the focus on “departure” and “arrival” in Jewish migration history and elaborates on the relevance and dynamics of transmigration, the dominance of migrant networks and the complex relationship between national policies and migrants' agency.
Notes on contributor
Frank Wolff is an assistant professor for modern history and migration studies at Osnabrück University (Germany). He earned his PhD in history at Bielefeld University (Germany) in 2011. During his time as a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA) in 2010/11 his work on migration history led to a specific interest in the interwar period and subsequently to this contribution. He owes sincere thanks to Johns Hopkins University and Kenneth Moss for their support during the initial stage of this project. He authored several articles on Jewish migration history and the book Neue Welten in der Neuen Welt: Die transnationale Geschichte des Allgemeinen Jüdischen Arbeiterbundes 1897–1947 [New worlds in the New World: the transnational history of the Jewish Labour Bund 1897–1947], published with Böhlau, Köln (Industrielle Welt) in 2014. He is recently writing on a book on the history of German-German relations during the period of the Berlin Wall and is co-editing a collective volume on interdisciplinary approaches to migration regimes as an analytical concept. Together with Brendan McGeever he also is review editor of East European Jewish Affairs.
Notes
1. Leon Oler, “Di ‘tsveyer’ in poylishn ‘bund’,” 124.
2. YIVO, New York, RG 1400, ME-18, 2: Referat fun der driter yehrlikher konventsh (1906), 8f.; ibid., ME-18, 226: Litevka Files; Pinie Vald, Bletlekh [Hojas. Semblanzas de mi ambiente] (Buenos Aires: Yidisher literatn un zshurnalistn fareyn in argentine, 1929); Grosman, “Geleyent dem ershtn numer fun ‘unzer tsayt’ in kobe,” 77f.; Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics, 113; Frank Wolff, “Eastern Europe Abroad.”
3. Torpey, The Invention of the Passport; Salter, Rights of Passage.
4. Brinkmann, “From Immigrants to Supranational Transmigrants and Refugees;” Wolff, To the Harbin Station.
5. See the work of the HIAS office in Harbin, China: CAHJP, DAL/1/182, 197 (letters), 108–17 (annual report, 1918–19).
6. Hoerder, Cultures in Contact; Manning.
7. McKeown, Melancholy Order; Fanning, Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation; Epple, “The Global, the Transnational and the Subaltern.”
8. Sachsenmaier, Global Perspectives on Global History, 1f.
9. Glick Schiller, “A Global Perspective on Transnational Migration.”
10. Especially: Lucassen and Lucassen, “From Mobility Transition to Comparative Global Migration History;”Glick Schiller and Salazar, “Regimes of Mobility across the Globe.”
11. For initial steps, see: Fornberg, Evrejskaja ėmigracija; Traub, Jüdische Wanderbewegungen vor und nach dem Weltkriege; Lestchinsky, Wohin geyen mir?; Wishnitzer, To Dwell in Safety.
12. This is true of works of very different quality; for example: Lewin, Cómo Fue La Inmigración Judía a La Argentina; Sofer, From Pale to Pampa; Lesser, Welcoming the Undesireables; Levine, Tropical Diaspora; Rutland, Edge of the Diaspora; and many more.
13. Inspiring exceptions are: Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics; Elazar and Medding, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies.
14. Wimmer and Glick Schiller, “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond;” Bauböck and Faist, Diaspora and Transnationalism.
15. Hence despite emphasising the agency of migrants and relief organisations I cannot speak of any form of an “autonomy of migration” as articulated in: Hess and Tsianos, “Ethnographische Grenzregimeanalysen;” Hess, “Caught in Mobilty.”
16. Hilbrenner, Diaspora-Nationalismus; Shanes, Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia; Gechtman, “Conceptualizing National-Cultural Autonomy;” Kuhn, “Jüdischer Antizionismus in der sozialistischen Bewegung Galiziens;” Gechtman, “Nationalising the Bund?”
17. This article is therefore closely connected to the contributions by Kenneth Moss and Eli Lederhendler in this special issue.
18. Kulischer and Kulischer: Kriegs- und Wanderzüge, Europe on the Move; Bade, Europa in Bewegung.
19. Brubaker, “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora,” 1.
21. Wolff, “‘Osteuropa’ als migrationshistorische Kategorie;” Stratton, “The Color of Jews.”
22. Zolberg, “Global Movements, Global Walls.
22. Kraut, Silent Travelers; Fry, Nativism and Immigration; Schrag, Not Fit for Our Society.
23. In migration studies regimes are generally understood as normative clusters of regulations and distribution that include state and non-state actors. See: Oltmer, “Einführung;” Glick Schiller and Salazar, “Regimes of Mobility across the Globe.” A more complex model that takes into account the relation between normative frameworks and migrants’ agency is subject to further research.
24. Eckerson, “Immigration and National Origins;” Ngai, “The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law.”
25. For instance: Sorin, A Time for Building.
26. McKeown, “Global Migration,” 155f.
27. Alroey, Bread to Eat and Clothes to Wear, 1–32.
28. Weill, Población Israelita an la República Argentina.
29. Elazar, “Jewish Frontier Experiences in the Southern Hemisphere;” Newman and Evans, “The Poor Jew's Temporary Shelter and Migration to South Africa;” Shimoni, Community and Conscience; Shain, “Art.: Südafrika.”
30. Bressler, “Harbin's Jewish Community.”
31. Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics, 87; Levine, Tropical Diaspora, 33; Cimet, Ashkenazi Jews in Mexico, 12.
32. Levine, “Brazil's Jews during the Vargas Era and After,” 34.
33. Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics, 83; Raicher, Uruguay, la comunidad israelita y el pueblo judío, 4f.
34. Cohen, Jewish Life in South America, 170.
35. Kuchenbecker, Zionismus ohne Zion.
36. Weinberg, Stalin's Forgotten Zion; Grüner, “In Search of the Promised Land.”
37. Gerrits, “Antisemitism and Anti-communism;” Herbeck, Das Feindbild vom “jüdischen Bolschewiken”.
38. For example: Shain, The Roots of Antisemitism in South Africa; Stratton, “The Color of Jews.” A global history of this myth would be a seminal contribution to the study of class and race relations in the twentieth century.
39. Devoto, Historia de la inmigración en la Argentina, 355–361.
40. Goldman, The History of the Jews in New Zealand; Levine, The New Zealand Jewish Community; Stratton, “The Color of Jews ;” Rutland, The Jews in Australia.
41. In New Zealand, Jews of British descent filled the highest positions in the government but strictly opposed the immigration of East European Jews, see: Gluckman, Identity and Involvement; Voit, “Art.: Neuseeland.”
42. For intersectional approaches, see Schrover, Gender, Migration, and the Public Sphere.
43. See for instance: Seiferheld, Nazismo y fascismo en el Paraguay; Bauerkämper, “Transnational Fascism;” Backal, Camisas, escudos y desfiles militares.
44. Adler-Rudel, “The Evian Conference on the Refugee Question;” Ogilvie and Miller, Refuge Denied.
45. Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics, 147.
46. Ibid., 85; Kraus, “Art.: Paraguay,” 54.
47. Cohen, Jewish Life in South America; Young, Japan's Total Empire.
48. Devoto, Historia de la Inmigración, 361–79.
49. See for instance: CAHJP/DAL 1; DAL 14; DAL 31.
50. Moya, “A Continent of Immigrants.”
51. República Argentina, Ministerio de Agricultura de la Nación, Ley de inmigración No 817; Haim Avni, Argentine, “the Promised Land”.
52. Sofer, From Pale to Pampa, 2f.
53. Weill, Población Israelita an la República Argentina.
54. Lesser, Welcoming the Undesireables; Stratton, “The Color of Jews.”
55. For the impact of migration on the British Empire, see: Harper and Constantine, Migration, Settlers and the British Empire; Wood, Migration and Empire.
56. Martin Chanock, Unconsummated Union, 15, 56; Mlambo, White Immigration into Rhodesia, 4.
57. Bentwich, “Jewish Life in British South Africa,” 79; Cohen, “The Historical Background,” 4f.
58. Elazar and Medding, Jewish Communities, 178.
59. Hughes, An Encyclopedia of Swearing, 272.
60. Quoted in Shain, The Roots of Antisemitism in South Africa, 27.
61. Bentwich, “Jewish Life in British South Africa,” 79; Elazar and Medding, Jewish Communities, 158, 179.
62. This included a South African Nazi movement; see: Saron, The Jews in South Africa, 380; Shain, The Roots of Antisemitism in South Africa, 143f.
63. Wishnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 82, 97.
64. Sapir, The Jewish Community of Cuba, Settlement and Growth, 25; Levine, Tropical Diaspora, 20, 29–36, 59, 307f.; biographies in Corrales, The Chosen Island.
65. Bejarano, “La inmigración a Cuba y la política migratoria de los EE.UU.”
66. CAHJP, DAL.
67. Cohen, Jewish Life in South America, 114ff., 126ff.; Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics, 85, 148f.; Bieber, “Colonización agrícola judía en Bolivia;” Wishnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 288.
68. Jewish Argentina started as a planned community run by the ICA but soon developed into a largely urban community in the port cities; see: Sofer, From Pale to Pampa; Nouwen, Oy, My Buenos Aires.
69. Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land; Grüner, “In Search of the Promised Land.”
70. Metz, “Why Sosúa?” Howard, Coloring the Nation; Kaplan, Dominican Haven.
71. Cohen, Jewish Life in South America, 128, 172.
72. Goodman and Miyazawa, Jews in the Japanese Mind, 133; Tokayer and Swartz, The Fugu Plan, 14, 52–5.
73. Abramovitsh, “Vos toronter yidish klal-tuer zogn vegn Birobidzhan;” Feuchtwanger, Moskau 1937. Bergelson, The Jewish Autonomous Republic.
74. Weinberg, Stalin's Forgotten Zion, 90f.
75. Winsberg, Colonia Baron Hirsch; Zablotsky, “Colonia Mauricio.”
76. See Nayvelt, 2 (1927). Generally ideals of rural life re-emerged; see: Aizenberg, “Translating Gerchunoff;” Freidenberg, The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho.