and married his sweetheart. During the 1870s, he wrote Hebrew and Polish
poems and stories. He regarded Yiddish, at best, as a temporary vehicle
through which to reach the Jewish masses. In 1876, he completed law school
and was admitted to the Russian bar.
The events of 1881 transformed him, and he came to regard Yiddish as a
way of identifying with less fortunate Jews, though he continued to write in
Hebrew. In 1886, his license to practice law was revoked on false pretenses, at
which point he moved to Warsaw and was employed by the Jewish commu-
nity. He was critical of anti-Semites, but also of Jewish intolerance of other
Jews. His most famous story and sharpest critique of traditional Jewish life
was “Bontsche Schweig” (Bontsche the Silent). This story tells of an oppressed,
impoverished Jew who, despite an unrelentingly difficult life, remains silent
and never wavers in his faith in God. After his death, he stands trial before a
heavenly tribunal. The prosecuting angel, who ordinarily lists the misdeeds
of the deceased, merely says, “All his life he was silent; now I, too, shall be
silent.” At this point, with no misdeeds arrayed against him, Bontsche is
offered anything in paradise. He asks only for a fresh roll and butter every
morning, at which point the prosecuting angel laughs. Bontsche’s faith,
Peretz shows, had reduced him to the point where, offered all of paradise, he
could aspire to nothing more than a roll with butter.
American Jewry and the melting pot, 1881–1914
Amid the explosion of Jewish politics in Russia and the Land of Israel, a less
ideological though equally dramatic transformation of Jewish life was tak-
ing place in America. After 1881, several million Jewish immigrants
arrived on the shores of the New World. These Jews were part of a larger
wave of 20 million people who emigrated to the United States from eastern
and southern Europe.
Like the previous wave of Jewish immigrants, these Jews tended to be
neither the richest nor the poorest, but lower-middle or working-class.
Moreover, the most religious Jews tended not to go to America, where, it was
believed, “religion went to die.” The Jews who went there were moderately
traditional or moderately progressive. In contrast to other groups, Jews arrived
largely as families. By contrast, most Italian immigrants were single men
who traveled to the United States to make money; more than a third returned
to Italy. Jews went to America to stay.
Whereas the previous wave of Jewish immigration had taken place during
the westward movement, this wave arrived as America was entering its indus-
trial age. Most of these Jews followed the general pattern of settlement and
settled in industrial centers, primarily in New York but also in other indus-
trial cities. Most found employment as industrial workers in the harsh
condition of small-scale sweatshops. As in Russia, Jewish workers were
skilled or semi-skilled and tended toward light industry.
Anti-Semitism and Jewish responses, 1870–1914 199