East European Jews Navigating Marriage in Migration to the Americas in the Early Twentieth Century

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Between the 1880s and 1920s, over two million Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe to the Americas, often creating transnational families that faced unprecedented challenges. Starting in the 1920s, immigration restrictions in the United States—and subsequently in Argentina—further rendered Jewish migration a family matter, as mostly wives and children of citizens and residents became eligible for entry. How did mass migration shape how Eastern European Jews understood marriage and divorce? How did law, religion, and community mediate their treatment of family formation and separation?
This panel answers these questions by looking at Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe to the Americas (the US and Argentina) through the lens of marriage and divorce. It explores their struggles and strategies to overcome difficulties, such as immigration restrictions for Jews and women from Eastern Europe, mismatched legal systems between Eastern Europe and the Americas, and abuse in the family. Looking at the intersection of family, law, gender, and migration, the panel interrogates the meaning of marriage as a social and legal category in the early twentieth-century Americas, the functions of family and other social networks in migration, and the role of other institutions (such as press, welfare organizations, and courts) in mitigating the family troubles.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in the Americas

Chair

• Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University

Individual Presentations

• Straddling continents and legal systems: East European Jewish Marriage in the United States in the Age of Mass Migration - Geraldine Gudefin

• The Law of Divorce: Nationalizing Transnational Family Breakdown in Interwar Argentina - Lelia Stadler, Columbia University

• Visas and Passports for Ksuves: Marriage as a Migration Strategy of Polish Jewish Women in the 1920s - Aleksandra Jakubczak, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Respondent

• Rebecca Kobrin, Columbia University

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 02