Culture, Context, and Family Networks: Concluding Remarks
Millions of Europeans migrated in the four decades prior to World War I with the aim of starting a new life. The migrating populations in general and Eastern European Jewish migrants in particular have inspired scholars to ask questions concerning the interplay between the values and knowledge of the migrants and their new countries.
Nearly all migrants face a situation where they are given a minority identity upon arrival. The Jews, however, had already been a minority—albeit a substantial one—in their Eastern European Jewish homelands.
Our examples clearly demonstrate that the national borders between the Nordic countries were easily crossed many times in the search for a new life. This was a very common feature of the Nordic countries in general, but the Jews did not follow the common pattern. For instance, while most Swedes working in Norway settled in places fairly close to their Swedish place of birth, Jews moving from Sweden to Norway mainly settled where other Jews lived (Myhre 2005, 93).
This notion has important implications for understanding knowledge transfers. The transfer of knowledge did not stop at national borders. While Sweden was a centre, Jews moved to Denmark and Norway when opportunities arose or a Jewish spouse was to be found. Jews from Finland in turn found their way to Sweden. Sweden was also a centre of opportunities for Jewish individuals. When some decided to move on to Norway, the knowledge they had gained while living in Sweden most probably provided a comparative advantage.
This knowledge in most cases related to the skills and trades Jews brought from Eastern Europe and further developed in their new country of residence. Most Eastern European Jews, like Markus Schwartzman, went into a trade when they settled. Hence, the combination of work experience in the East and the political, social, and economic development in the Nordic countries play an important part in understanding why Jews settled and how they earned their living.
However, the basic skills Jews possessed were all in trades where the barriers to entry were generally low. As Eli Lederhendler has suggested, an Eastern European background as a petty trader or artisan was not necessary an advantage when settling. Lederhendler’s arguments, however, relate to the east coast of the United States, which at the time was clearly more industrialised than the Nordic countries. While there may be some truth to his assertions in the context of the United States, the Nordic countries were different; it may well have been the case that settling in the northern reaches of Europe was easier than it would have been in more industrialised countries—there was much less competition, but the demand for the products Jews were making and selling was increasing. The Nordic countries were less developed than the US at the turn of the twentieth century, but the great majority of the cities where substantial numbers of Jews settled witnessed rapid expansion as centres of industrialisation or transport hubs for goods produced in factories. Urbanisation led to a growing demand for skilled and unskilled workers and specialists, including those who could produce and sell ready-made goods. In sum, the Nordic countries provided a niche that could be capitalised on by kin like the Schwartzman and Lapidus families.Nevertheless, the Jewish communities in the Nordic countries remained small. As we have established above, the first and, to some extent, the second generation placed great value on finding a partner from the original home region. Thus, compared to cities like London or New York, Jews who eventually moved to the Nordic countries were already a somewhat select group. This is especially evident in Finland, where their right to stay was connected to military service in the Imperial army, which included Jewish merchants who outfitted the garrisons. However, it is possible that merchants like Markus Schwartzman were not among the poorest members of his home community, and while their children married spouses from the home region, those who moved to Sweden tended to have well-established networks upon arriving in the new country.
Most Jews remained in a trade-related business or continued to work as artisans. However, with gradually increasing individual exceptions, many advanced from being peddlers to establishing a shop and becoming involved in the production or wholesale trade of goods. Before establishing oneself, a trade was learned by working for a relative, in some cases as a self-employed ‘freelancer’. It is important to note that women also contributed significantly to this process.
Thus, despite the financial instability that characterised the interwar period, a number experienced an increase in their income that secured them a solid place in bourgeois society. Others remained a part of the lower middle class throughout their life. Thus, there were also class distinctions within the Eastern European Jewish communities. At the same time, the strong tendency to marry fellow Jews cushioned such distinctions.
There is no doubt that upward social mobility was desired and was in many ways a value in itself. Upward social mobility was the goal, and entrepreneurship was a tool to realise it. Spouses set up businesses together, and the work of the wives was often crucial for running the enterprise on a daily basis. Daughters often worked as sales assistants in their parents’ business. The partial gender blindness was caused by two seemingly conflicting values: on the one hand, there was an emphasis on middle-class values where the real place of a wife was in the domestic sphere; on the other hand, there was the long experience of business in Eastern Europe. The Jews, like many other middle-class families at the time, solved this conflict of values by making a male the public face of the company. While some moved on to academic professions, the majority of the second generation—and in the case of the Lapidus family, the third generation—remained in trade-related businesses.
When looking at the marriage patterns of the first and, to some extent, second generation of the Schwartzman, Lapidus, and Nissalowitz families, it is clear they were still mentally bound to Eastern Europe.
In a region where the selection of potential Jewish spouses was modest, a great effort was made to ensure Jewish intermarriage. However, the values placed upon Jewish marriage did change from traditional religious requirements into bourgeois middle-class values. This is highlighted in the family chronicle that was the point of departure of the study above: signs of upward social mobility such as degrees awarded or positions gained in society are carefully documented. While the chronicle’s author has a great nostalgia for the old, pre-war times and happy childhood memories when the family was still held together despite a lack of material means, Judaism as a religion is almost absent in the booklet. One can argue that religion was something the author took for granted. At the same time, it demonstrates that definitions of Jewishness and Jewish identities changed profoundly during the period. There is, however, no doubt that remaining Jewish—however redefined—was an important value. When adopting values from the Nordic societies, Jews from Eastern Europe did not adjust to an abstract set of ‘Nordic values’ but to bourgeois middle-class ideals. AcknowledgementsOne of the examples in this chapter (about the Weinstock family) was originally published in Vibeke Kieding Banik, A Gendered Integration Revisited: Work and Integration of Jews in Norway, 1900–1942, Modern Judaism—A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience Volume 35:2 (1 May 2015), 175–202. Oxford University Press.
Notes
1. We wish to acknowledge that Rita Bredefeldt played an important part in an early draft of this chapter.
2. Nayshtot (Yiddish) is today the Lithuanian border town Kudirkos Naumiestis. It is also known by its German name, Neustadt, and its Polish name, Władisławow. Today, the city is situated on the border of Russian Kaliningrad and Lithuania. We will use the name Nayshtot in our chapter.
3. The general information on Kudirkos Naumiestis, Rosin (n.d.).
4. In Imperial Russia, Jews were only permitted to live in restricted regions in western parts of the empire referred to as the Pale of Settlement, sometimes called the Pale.
5. There are plenty of oral history types of anecdotes on pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe regarding this phenomenon. Correspondence between Laura Ekholm and Dr Simo Muir, 6 June 2016.
6. Angaende i tjänst varande, och obestämd tid permitterad eller afskedad underbefäls och manskaps vid den i Finland forlagda ryska militär även om deras hustrurs och enkors rätt att här i landet utova näringsfang, given i Helsingfors den 30 June1869, § 17 (Law on forms of livelihood permitted for soldiers, given in Helsinki on 30 June 1869).
7. Nordstrom, however, left the business within a year.
8. Ministry of Justice 1901.
Archival Material
Emperor’s decree. 1869. Juni 1869, § 17, (Law on forms of livelihood for permitted soldiers, given in Helsinki on the 30th of June 1869). National Archives of Finland.
Ministry of Justice. 1901. S-1040 — Justisdepartementet, 2. sivilkontor C Aktor: S-3F-10065–2. sivilkontor C, L0024 Statsborgerbrev nr.24 nr. 35–2893 1901. National Archives of Norway Wergelands Barn. Norsk Folkemuseum.
Dagbok, T. H. Lapidus. 1914–1915. Courtesy of L. Lapidus, Gothenburg.
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