This is an opinion piece printed in The Sentinel on March 1, 1945 concerning Purim and the state of American Jewry. It is written in the form of a story, although it is less a story and more a report on the current status of Judaism in the life of the younger generations. The author tells the story of the fictional Bindersky family – parents, daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren. The parents seem to be traditional Jews who celebrate all of the Jewish holidays but “had not succeeded in influencing his daughter to share his dreams that the Jewish people will be redeemed.” Their daughters, “married young men of average American Jewish second generation families,” and while they all celebrate Passover, they had not celebrated Purim together previously, as it had not appealed to their sons-in-law. The story relates that this year they agreed to attend the Purim seudah (festive meal) if not the Megillah reading in the synagogue. At the meal, the sons-in-law surprise their father-in-law by joining B’nai Brith and purchasing trees from the Jewish National Fund. The children love the hamentaschen that their grandmother made, and when one boy asked why his own mother didn’t make them, his father answered: “Baking Hamentaschen and playing mah jong don’t go together.” To this, the grandmother defends her daughter: “well… this is America. Young people have their ways.”
The story ends with the grandfather giving his grandchildren some Jewish education. He tells his grandchildren the Purim story. On hearing about Haman who was hung together with his sons, one of the grandson says: “Gee I am sorry, Hitler hasn't got even one son.” The grandfather then shows them pictures of children in Israel celebrating Tu B’Shvat and says:
"They are the children whose fathers and mothers lost their life in Europe. They will find a safe home in the land of our fathers and they will be as happy there as you, my dear grandchildren are here in America."
The article offers a glimpse into Jewish life in American in the 1940s including issues about the generation gap, integration into the American society, Jewish observance, the place of women in society, the aftermath of the Holocaust, and the building of the Land of Israel.
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Purim - Purim is celebrated on the 14 Adar as the day the Jewish people were saved from destruction during the fourth century BCE. The heroine of the Purim story, Queen Esther, worked together with her uncle, Mordechai, to reverse the decree of genocide issued against the Jewish people by Haman, the vizier of Persia. It is the tradition on Purim to dress up in costumes, distribute small food packages known as mishloach manot, give charity, and listen to the reading of the Megilla – the Book of Esther.
Jewish Community of the United States – At the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, between 1,500 and 2,500 Jews were living in the United States, most of them Sephardi. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a wave of German Jews, largely secular and educated, arrived in the United States. Another wave of immigration arrived from Eastern Europe, a result of pogroms and the difficult economic situation in these countries. Most of these new immigrants were Ashkenazi and spoke mainly Yiddish. They arrived, believing that the United States was a “goldene medina,” a country of gold, but the reality was hard. Many of the newcomers worked as manual labourers in difficult conditions, such as in the sweatshops in New York’s Lower East Side. By the beginning of the twentieth century, more than a million Jews lived in the United States, most of them in New York City. Despite immigration quotas, by 1940 the American Jewish population numbered more the 4.5 million. While the first generation of immigrants lived in close-knit Yiddish-speaking communities, the next generation integrated quickly and, in many cases, assimilated into American society and became prominent in many areas of American life. Today American Jews are extremely influential in American politics, business, academia, and culture. Over the last few decades Jews from many countries, such as Russia, Iran, and Israel, have arrived in the United States. The American Jewish community is the second largest Jewish community in the world, numbering between 5.5 and 7 million people. More than 2 million Jews live in New York, making it the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. Half of American Jews consider themselves religious, and there are many Jewish organisations and institutions in the country.
B’nai Brith – B’nai Brith is an organisation that was founded in 1843 in the United States by German Jewish immigrants. The original mission of the organisation was to help immigrants to acculturate to their new surroundings through mentorship and education. Over the years, B’nai Brith has become involved with helping poor people around the world, building hospitals, low-income housing, and schools, providing disaster assistance, supporting Israel, creating youth groups and Jewish centres on university campuses, assisting Holocaust survivors, and combating anti-Semitism.
The Chicago Sentinel - The Chicago Sentinel, a weekly newspaper for the Chicago Jewish community, was one of the longest continuously published Jewish weeklies in the United States. The first issue of the Sentinel was published on February 4, 1911. The newspaper focused on cultural events and included many eye-catching illustrations and photographs. It also published short stories and reports about events in the various Jewish communities. The Sentinel differed from many other English-language, often highbrow, Jewish weeklies, because it reached out to the Zionist immigrants who preferred to read in English and not Yiddish. The Sentinel is a treasure trove for social, cultural, and religious historians who are interested in American Jewish life outside of New York during the twentieth century.
