A Family Business: Transferring Values and Knowledge Through Employment

Entrepreneurship is regarded as an alternative way of gaining access to a rather ethnically homogeneous labour market (e.g. Berg and Ljunggren 2010). The Anglo-American debates—exemplified by the work of Andrew Godley—on the importance of culture versus the local context for upward social mobility among the Eastern European Jews are based on the fact that most Jewish migrants between 1880 and 1914 went into trade.

A common feature among the newly immigrated Jewish men from Eastern Europe was to start as peddlers or petty traders; quite a few then moved on to establish a larger store or an import or wholesale business. Many sold goods provided by Jewish retailers or wholesalers. The very same pattern prevailed in the Nordic countries. In Sweden, nearly three quarters of first-generation Jews worked in trade-related occupations (Bredefeldt 2008, 58). In 1910, eighty-nine percent of the Jewish population in Norway worked in the same areas (Gjernes 2012, 148.). Interestingly, the Danish Jews of Eastern European descent were found at the other end of the production line; they were independent tailors and cobblers (Thing 2008, 86). At the time, the line between manufacturing and retail was often blurred, meaning that the Danish Jews may have been closer to their other Nordic counterparts in terms of occupation than the statistics tell.

The legal restrictions set upon Jews in Finland pushed those who were not employed by the Russian military into trade. The Finnish Senate prepared an edict in 1869 on the means of gaining a livelihood permitted to Russian soldiers—regardless of religion—and their families throughout Finland. It stated that they could pursue trade with self-made products, sell berries, and trade in second-hand clothes and shoes and cheap commodities.6 A renewed edict in 1876 emphasised that this also applied to Jews; furthermore, they were not allowed to trade outside the restricted areas of Helsinki, Turku, and Vyborg (Torvinen 1989, 58–62).

In the case of Finland, most Jews—whether first, second, or third generation—were occupied in trade or small-scale manufacturing. Nevertheless, the trade-concentrated occupational structure did not change after the granting of full civil rights in 1918; rather, it remained strikingly stable (Ekholm 2013, 128). Given the history of the other Nordic countries, as well as the tendency of Jews to migrate to metropolises like London, New York, and Berlin, it is likely that trade would have been an obvious choice anyway, as the choices made by the children of Markus Schwartzman illustrate.

Markus Schwartzman’s two sons followed in his footsteps by establishing shops in small towns in Sweden. His daughter, Taube Hanna, moved to Boras with her husband, Berzik Lapidus. Boras was growing rapidly at the time to become the centre of the Swedish textile and clothing industry (Olsson 2012, 79–87). In 1880, the couple established a shop selling ready-to-wear men’s clothing (Suhonen 1990, 105–107). Eventually, they expanded into clothing manufacturing; in 1906, they established a mail order business (Suhonen 1990). Hanna Lapidus was the owner until she passed away—as a very wealthy lady—in 1937. By that time, the family firm had become a large commercial enterprise; in 1933, it employed 300 workers, plus an additional 300 women who did piecework in their homes (Suhonen 1990, 107).

The grandson of Markus Schwartzman, named Marcus after his grandfather—a traditional naming pattern among the Ashkenazi Jews indicating that the family still observed the traditions—worked as a salesman for the Boras-based company Erikson & Larson (Hollberg and Roth 1943).

As this firm was non-Jewish, it reveals the opportunity and desire to learn the trade beyond the family firms. After a few years of training in selling ready-to-wear products, Marcus Schwartzman married a Jewish woman in Uddevalla. He established a small business manufacturing men’s clothing with his (non-Jewish) friend, Hjalmar Nordstrom (Olsson 2012, 123, 125).7 Within ten years, Schwartzman & Nordstrom had expanded and was the third largest factory—and the largest employer of women—in the city (Olsson 2012, 123).

Such examples reveal the continuity and success in trading and manufacturing. Jewish families in Sweden and Finland—and, to a somewhat smaller extent, in Norway—specialised almost completely in a new product for the time: ready-to-wear clothing. Producing ready-made outfits for men, women, and children was a growing industry offering very intense competition but the best opportunities in these newly industrialising societies.

Small-scale, family-owned companies seldom leave any archival material, let alone written histories, and we only have sporadic sources showing how Jewish retailers ordered at least part of their selection from the Swedish-Jewish companies. The 1914–1915 ledger shows that some customers’ names are familiar from the family register (“Dagboken” T. H. Lapidus 1914–1915). Companies with more prestige sometimes appear in memoires. Such is the case with Kaplans Konfektionsfabrik of Stockholm. The company was owned by Oscar and Marcus Kaplan, who were originally from Novgorod, Russia. Before establishing themselves in Stockholm, the brothers trained by doing piecework for Schwartzman & Nordstrom in Uddevalla (Kaplan 1998, 217).

As briefly mentioned, many of the first wave of Jews from Eastern Europe moved to Sweden and then eventually on to other countries.

There are also clear signs that parents and other relatives passed on their knowledge of their trade and other means of income to their children, regardless of gender, and the business was generally organised as a family firm. However, there is no reason to romanticise the Jewish family business networks. In a very business-oriented community, a bankrupt company could lead many into trouble. The families were embedded by marriages yet competed in business. Disagreement in business could lead to break-ups within families (Ekholm 2013, 106).

While there is nothing particularly Jewish about helping family members to earn a steady income or training them for a future in business, seen from the verbatim interpretation of Jewish tradition, providing support for fellow Jews is a commandment, a Mitzvah. Yet according to the sporadic source material left, rather than providing direct work for life, the established companies more often provided the means for learning the trade and getting started in self-employment.

Furthermore, there is another important aspect to the Jewish family firm—namely, the different requirements placed on men and women within a traditional Jewish family. There are many examples of women inspiring and indirectly teaching other women how to make a living over several generations. Rachel and Salomon Oster immigrated to Oslo from present-day Lithuania in the late 1880s. While Salomon held the right to conduct trade according to the national censuses of 1900 and 1910, Rachel contributed to their income by keeping two lodgers, suggesting that it provided a steady income. In 1900, one of their daughters worked in a tobacco factory, while ten years later two other daughters, Marie Weinstock and Clara Oster, were listed as shop owners. In 1910, Marie Weinstock, who ran her shop with her husband, also had two lodgers, despite also having six children of various ages. A few years later, yet another sister established a similar enterprise with her husband in central Oslo.

The children of Marie Weinstock followed in her footsteps. Berta established and managed a shoe shop until Marie needed help with her store. Then Fanny, another daughter, took over the shoe store where a younger brother had been working for years. He later became an independent salesman. In addition, another brother, Meyer, worked as a sales clerk. Lastly, a third daughter, Esther, married a small-town Jewish merchant. She most likely worked part-time in the family shop.

This was a very common way for lower middle-class women in general to contribute to the family income at the time. Considering the prevailing ideal of the middle-class woman’s place being in the home along with the religious traditions valued by Eastern European Jews, the active role of the Jewish female entrepreneur may seem contradictory. However, within the traditions these families brought with them from their place of birth, the ideal family allowed men to focus on religious studies, which in practice gave the women a strong role in matters concerning daily life.

In Sweden, the story of T. H. Lapidus exemplifies this aspect of a gendered knowledge and value transfer. While Taube Hanna Lapidus was a co-owner together with her husband and ran the business with ‘an iron fist’, she is remembered as a woman who always kept herself in the background (Suhonen 1990, 106). It was her husband and later her sons who were the public faces of the company. Hence, she, at least publicly, followed the rules prescribed to middle-class women in society in general and among the Jews in particular. The ideal was being a homemaker, mother, and wife. However, if a Jewish family needed the extra income, running a store ranked highly in the hierarchy of work among female Eastern European Jews (Glenn 1990, 16). Thus, T. H. Lapidus’ case is also an example of the family’s combination of local and Jewish values as they navigated their existence in their new country of residence.

The story of Vera Stiller in Finland also serves as an example of the reversed public gender roles that were transferred from Eastern Europe to the Nordic countries. At the turn of the twentieth century, Wulf Nemeschansky, a wealthy Jewish merchant from Turku, married off his daughter, Vera, to a poor Jewish man, Abraham Stiller (Smolar 2003, 27). Abraham was the orphaned son of a Jewish soldier and a mother who had committed suicide; he had been adopted by a Jewish family in Helsinki. He was raised by the former soldier and petty-trader Jakob Josef Kaffkin, who wanted him to become learned in religious matters, someone who knew the Torah and Talmud. Thus, due to his religious knowledge, a poor Jewish boy like Abraham could ensure a wealthy marriage. Although the Stiller’s shop, Atelier Stiller, was formally run by Abraham Stiller, it was generally known that it was Mrs Stiller who ran the store and was behind its success as a dresser of upper-class ladies (Smolar 2003, 27).

Another example illustrates the closeness of the extended family and the transfer of knowledge. As mentioned above, Jenny, Abraham Schwartzman’s daughter, married the Finnish-born David Lexenberg in 1903. After a short stint in Oslo, where their first child was born, they moved to Halmstad in Sweden, where they briefly owned a cigarette factory, among other enterprises (Svensk tobakhistoria, Halmstad, Cigarettfabriken Progress, Gedin & Lexenberg). While we have not been able to prove any direct connection, it is likely that they learned something from Carl Julius and Lina Estersohn, who began their involvement in cigarette production there a few years earlier (Svensk tobakhistoria, Halmstad, Cigarettfabriken Symbol, retrieved 29 April 2015). Lina Estersohn, who ran the factory after her husband’s death in 1908, was the daughter of Berzik and Taube Hanna Lapidus, and hence a distant relative of Jenny Lexenberg. As with the Weinstocks, Lina Estersohn had learned her trade from her mother, Taube Hanna. Another example of relatives helping relatives is provided by Israel Schwartzman, Abraham’s brother. According to his great granddaughter, affluent relatives helped him financially to set up a shop selling garments (Norsk Folkemuseum, Wergelands Barn, NFAV.006–069).

Following Jewish families from Eastern Europe in the Nordic countries shows that transfers of knowledge and concrete help in terms of start-up capital took place on many levels. As demonstrated earlier, there was a connection between what Jewish migrants did for a living in Eastern Europe and their occupational choices in the Nordic countries. Work-related knowledge was also transferred within the Nordic countries and across the generations by individuals moving to other cities or countries after having been trained by close family or distant relatives.