The Wandering Jew
A Study of The Jewish Community On Devon Avenue
A Personal Note:
For two thousand years Jews have been leaving the countries in which they’ve lived, either by force or for the purpose of seeking a safer, more successful life somewhere else in the world. Practicing Judaism freely has often been forbidden and Jews have been persecuted, and in the most extreme of cases, killed for who they are. Many have sought refuge in America, a country that has been for the most part friendly and open to Jews. One of the main cities that Jews have emigrated to is Chicago, as it is a diverse city full of economic and social opportunities that these wandering people love to take advantage of. Jews from Eastern Europe have formed a very vibrant, devout Jewish community on and around Devon Avenue in Chicago, in a neighborhood called Rogers Park. They arrived there in the 1930’s and 1940’s when their countries no longer welcomed them and they risked being systematically murdered, and then again in the 1970’s and 1980’s when they were able to escape the former Soviet Union and it’s intolerable religious policies. The circumstances under which they left their previous countries have created a unique collective identity centered around these historical events. Religion is celebrated and encouraged to be passed down and taught from generation to generation, to ensure that it is never lost and that Jews never completely assimilate.
A personal connection I have to this history is through my grandfather who was born in Poland in 1927, survived the Nazi concentration camps and moved to New York where he met my grandmother and has lived ever since. I have grown up listening to stories, both joyous and horrifying, of what Jewish life was like in Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe before, during and after World War II. Keeping Judaism alive and thriving has always been very important to my family, and especially to my grandfather who sees every dinner or holiday celebrated together as proving Hitler and his “Final Solution” wrong, along with everyone else who has tried to rid the world of the Jewish people. This connection has also sparked my interest in studying the communities in which people like my grandfather have ended up, and how their descendants and other community members share in this past and in the pursuit of Jewish continuity. It is important to research and observe what rituals, objects and customs are crucial to the community, along with the values and lessons parents and grandparents try to instill in their children and grandchildren.
A Peek Into the Community
Over the past ten weeks I have been studying Visual Sociology of Chicago in my First-Year Seminar at Northwestern University. We have learned in depth about the different ethnicities, religions and cultures that make up the neighborhoods of Chicago, individually, and how they interact with one another. Chicago is a unique city in which divides are often clear and strictly observed, preventing a true metropolitan melting pot, but preserving many practices and traditions from past times and other countries. Devon Avenue is a specific area where one can observe vibrant religion and culture from many different groups, including Jews, Muslims and Hindus. There are kosher supermarkets alongside Halal restaurants and Hookah shops with Arab writing in the windows. According to David Hollinger, Devon Avenue is an example of pluralistic multiculturalism, where the society is depicted as “an expanse of internally homogeneous and analogically structured units, each possessed of a comparable myth of diaspora” (Livezy: 2000 67). There are enclaves of the different groups and a certain seamlessness between them, though there is little to no intermingling. The groups like to stay among themselves but are aware and prosper off of the other groups of homogeneous people around them. Most people who reside in the area are devout people, who are religiously and culturally devoted. Although there must be conflicting opinions and practices, this devoutness creates a mutual respect between the different groups, who all understand the value of religion and keeping certain customs and institutions alive.
During the weeks of my sociology course, I have delved more deeply into the Orthodox Jewish community that inhabits sections of Devon Avenue. Many of the residents are immigrants from Eastern Europe, and more specifically Russia, or former Soviet Union. Since the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, when the movement to rescue Jews from the Soviet Union was in full swing, until today, Russian Jews have been flooding into the Chicago area. With their arrival also came the dedicated Jews who wanted to help these people acclimate and become successful Jewish citizens of America. During this time, the organization F.R.E.E., Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe, was established. This is an organization with a center on Devon Avenue and a mission statement aimed to “provide material needs and feed spiritual hunger” of the immigrants and greater community living there. F.R.E.E. staff are there to help members with tasks such as filling out forms at the doctors office and enrolling children in school, along with the more spiritually fulfilling job of teaching Judaism and its importance and meaning in every day life (F.R.E.E.of Chicago). The practices of the Orthodox Jews already living in the area were being taught to and celebrated with these new immigrants, and in turn, new traditions, flavors and songs were being introduced. Jewish culture was rich and thriving during this time, and I was interested in whether this community has succeeded at continuing to be a flourishing Jewish community through years of possible assimilation and common flight to the suburbs. I was interested in exploring both the individual and collective identities of the Jews on Devon Avenue, and what exactly is holding this subculture together.
Signs of a Thriving Religion
What I Found and What it Told Me
There are some very obvious signs that Judaism is still being very strictly followed, observed and even celebrated by members of the community just by walking down the blocks of Devon Avenue. These street names (pictured to the left) are of a prominent rabbi and of the only female prime minister of Israel and very influential character in the country’s history. There was yet another street named “Torah V’Chesed Drive” corresponding to North Troy Street. This phrase means Torah and charity, the original five books of the Old Testament according to which Orthodox Jews live their lives, and a major value in Judaism, respectively. These are people and ideas that the community members want to be reminded of every time they leave their homes and venture onto the streets to do errands or meet with friends. They are cultural objects and the standards to which these people hold themselves. Through more observation, I saw these ideas come to life in how siblings and even strangers acted towards each other. They held doors for each other, were patient in long lines at stores, helped each other across the street and spoke politely and with purpose. Very young children said Brachot, blessings over food, before they ate at Tel Aviv Kosher Pizza, and said Birkat Hamazon, a prayer thanking G-d for food, after they ate. Men attended one of the many Orthodox synagogues in the area to pray Mincha, the mandatory afternoon prayer service, together with their sons and fellow community members. It is evident that no matter where these people are in the world, they will live and breathe Judaism.
Another cultural object and outward representation of faith and devotion is the way the Jewish community members dress. A Torah commandment and strong value of Orthodox Jews is that of Tzniut, or modesty. I have in my cultural toolkit the general knowledge of the laws of modesty and took these into account when dressed to travel to Devon Avenue, as to not offend anyone and to create more comfortable interactions. I still could never act or seem as though I was a complete insider, though, as I have not been raised in or taught the values of this specific community. Modest dress has always been a custom among Jews, but there are specific traditions that originate from cities in Eastern Europe that I saw on the streets of Rogers Park. Men wear black pants, white shirts and big black hats. Women are covered past their collar bones, elbows and knees with skirts or dresses and generally wear black or other plain colors. It says a lot of the persistence and dedication of the community and its members that through every modern fashion trend and climate, their clothing remains basically the same. These practices are more like cultural schemas, “informal presuppositions that lie behind more formal rules” (Griswold 2013: 40), rather than strict laws of the book, that guide the Jews living in Rogers Park and create a certain tone and environment that is important to be upheld. When looking at the way these people present themselves, the kinds of stores in which they shop and the schools and community centers they attend, Durkheim’s notion of turning ordinary space into sacred space is seen. There is a conscious effort being made by all members of the community to making meaning out of the seemingly meaningless.
The Legacy of Devon Avenue
In general, the Jewish people are a community of memory. We use memory to preserve identity and ensure continuity, along with having it serve as a commonality between us all. If you read Jewish prayers and texts, there is a very common theme of resorting back to our exodus from Egypt, the destruction of our first and second Holy Temples in Jerusalem and, more recently, of the Holocaust. I and others of my generation are able to experience collective memory of these events and have that memory shape our lives, even though we never actually went through them ourselves. W. James Booth explains that, “In these and more everyday ways, we live surrounded by memory, individual and social: in our habits, our names, the places where we live, street names, libraries, archives, and our citizenship, institutions, and laws” (Booth 2006:Preface). This idea comes to life on Devon Avenue. The people living there have acted purposefully to remind themselves of their past, and these actions are what has kept the religion and culture in the area so rich. We, as a Jewish people, have experienced cultural trauma, helping us strive towards our collective response of “Never Again,” but grounding us with the fact that tragedy could indeed happen again. This trauma sets up a platform for groups to experience a primarily negative emotional response and then create new forms of social responsibility from it.
Looking Forward
Completing this sociological course and research project has been extremely interesting and fulfilling. During the ten weeks of the course I learned methods for doing visual sociological research that I never thought would be feasible or well-received by the community and people I was studying. But speaking to the elderly Russian bakery employee, the Israeli man working at the kosher pizza restaurant and the two women on the sidewalk next to one of the synagogues playing with their children, proved me wrong. They were interested in my project and, more importantly, interested in helping me.
This project adds to the research and knowledge that already exists about immigrants in America, along with how large of a role religion plays in many people’s lives, across borders and through generations. I would love to speak to more residents of Rogers Park in the future, and to members of other communities that are similar to Rogers Park, to gain more insight into how these neighborhoods change when the original immigrants are no longer around, or when new economic and social opportunities draw the younger generation away. Although storefronts such as that of the New York Kosher Sausage shop now lie empty along Devon Avenue, this dynamic Jewish community is impressive and clearly not disappearing any time soon.
Works Cited
Booth, William James. 2006. Communities of Memory: On Witness Identity and Justice. New York: Cornell University Press.
Carroll, Christopher. 2015. Visual Sociology of Chicago First-Year Seminar. Lecture: Winter Quarter 2015. Northwestern University: Evanston, IL.
Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe. 2003. “F.R.E.E. of Chicago.” Retrieved February 22, 2015. https://www.russianjewry.org/about/chicago.php
Griswold, Wendy. 2013. Cultures and Societies in a Changing World. California: SAGE Publications.
Livezy, Lowell W. 2000. “Communities and Enclaves: Where Jews, Christians, Hindus and Muslims Share the Neighborhood.” Public Religion and Urban Transformation Faith in the City.
