Marni Davis
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814720288
- eISBN:
- 9780814744093
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814720288.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter focuses on the “third wave” of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe who altered the American Jewry's relation to alcohol in the nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1880s, thousands of ...
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This chapter focuses on the “third wave” of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe who altered the American Jewry's relation to alcohol in the nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1880s, thousands of eastern European Jews arrived in American ports every year, and most of them came with limited economic resources. Like their predecessors, alcohol commerce presented a historically and culturally familiar entrepreneurial choice. This new group regarded trafficking in liquor, beer, and wine as a conventional way to make a living, and gravitated to it in hopes of establishing an economic footing in their new country. Their orientation toward traditional religious practices also prompted them to create and support an emerging kosher wine industry, which both generated employment opportunities and helped to weave Jewish religious observance into the fabric of American consumer culture.Less
This chapter focuses on the “third wave” of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe who altered the American Jewry's relation to alcohol in the nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1880s, thousands of eastern European Jews arrived in American ports every year, and most of them came with limited economic resources. Like their predecessors, alcohol commerce presented a historically and culturally familiar entrepreneurial choice. This new group regarded trafficking in liquor, beer, and wine as a conventional way to make a living, and gravitated to it in hopes of establishing an economic footing in their new country. Their orientation toward traditional religious practices also prompted them to create and support an emerging kosher wine industry, which both generated employment opportunities and helped to weave Jewish religious observance into the fabric of American consumer culture.
Ariel Toaff
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781874774198
- eISBN:
- 9781800340954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781874774198.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter assesses how Jews faced particular problems in ‘carnivorous Europe’, where meat was eaten every day, servings were generous, and wine was drunk as though it were water. For Jews, ...
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This chapter assesses how Jews faced particular problems in ‘carnivorous Europe’, where meat was eaten every day, servings were generous, and wine was drunk as though it were water. For Jews, consumption of meat and wine was conditional upon their preparation according to strict rules. Adherence to Jewish dietary law thus entailed waste: on the one hand, of animals which had been found to be unfit after ritual slaughter, and on the other, of remains which could not in any circumstances be eaten by Jews. As such, a Jewish community needed a far greater supply of animals than a Christian one, irrespective of the appetites or financial means of individuals. The cost of a pound of kosher meat would have been prohibitive if the relevant butcher had not been able to sell the rejected parts to Christian customers. In summary, then, the presence of a Jewish community in any town was always dependent on the regular availability of kosher meat. As with meat, Jewish law laid down precise rules defining kosher wine. Wine was inevitably found at the tables of the Italian Jews of the period, above all in such a great wine-producing and consuming area as Umbria, whose countryside is today still characterized by extensive vineyards.Less
This chapter assesses how Jews faced particular problems in ‘carnivorous Europe’, where meat was eaten every day, servings were generous, and wine was drunk as though it were water. For Jews, consumption of meat and wine was conditional upon their preparation according to strict rules. Adherence to Jewish dietary law thus entailed waste: on the one hand, of animals which had been found to be unfit after ritual slaughter, and on the other, of remains which could not in any circumstances be eaten by Jews. As such, a Jewish community needed a far greater supply of animals than a Christian one, irrespective of the appetites or financial means of individuals. The cost of a pound of kosher meat would have been prohibitive if the relevant butcher had not been able to sell the rejected parts to Christian customers. In summary, then, the presence of a Jewish community in any town was always dependent on the regular availability of kosher meat. As with meat, Jewish law laid down precise rules defining kosher wine. Wine was inevitably found at the tables of the Italian Jews of the period, above all in such a great wine-producing and consuming area as Umbria, whose countryside is today still characterized by extensive vineyards.
Marni Davis
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814720288
- eISBN:
- 9780814744093
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814720288.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
From kosher wine to their ties to the liquor trade in Europe, Jews have a longstanding historical relationship with alcohol. But once prohibition hit America, American Jews were forced to choose ...
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From kosher wine to their ties to the liquor trade in Europe, Jews have a longstanding historical relationship with alcohol. But once prohibition hit America, American Jews were forced to choose between abandoning their historical connection to alcohol and remaining outside the American mainstream. This book examines American Jews' long and complicated relationship with alcohol during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the years of the national prohibition movement's rise and fall. Bringing to bear an extensive range of archival materials, the book offers a novel perspective on a previously unstudied area of American Jewish economic activity—the making and selling of liquor, wine, and beer—and reveals that alcohol commerce played a crucial role in Jewish immigrant acculturation and the growth of Jewish communities in the United States. But prohibition's triumph cast a pall on American Jews' history in the alcohol trade, forcing them to revise, clarify, and defend their communal and civic identities, both to their fellow Americans and to themselves.Less
From kosher wine to their ties to the liquor trade in Europe, Jews have a longstanding historical relationship with alcohol. But once prohibition hit America, American Jews were forced to choose between abandoning their historical connection to alcohol and remaining outside the American mainstream. This book examines American Jews' long and complicated relationship with alcohol during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the years of the national prohibition movement's rise and fall. Bringing to bear an extensive range of archival materials, the book offers a novel perspective on a previously unstudied area of American Jewish economic activity—the making and selling of liquor, wine, and beer—and reveals that alcohol commerce played a crucial role in Jewish immigrant acculturation and the growth of Jewish communities in the United States. But prohibition's triumph cast a pall on American Jews' history in the alcohol trade, forcing them to revise, clarify, and defend their communal and civic identities, both to their fellow Americans and to themselves.
