Photoessay #1893 - Jewish Pale of Settlement

Last night, Naomi and I went to a meeting of Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington at the Stroum Community Center on Mercer Island. Likely I have been there before in all the years I have lived here, but I don't remember it. Large impressive facility even though we kind of got lost in the freezing fog trying to find the freeway entrance.

I've also never attended this group before. The speaker was Hal Bookbinder who gave two valuable talks on the changing borders of central Europe over the last thousand years and the Jewish Pale of Settlement. He had a lot of maps of entities that I've never heard of. I wish I had those maps so I could study them more.

I had heard the term "Pale" before but I didn't understand what it meant until last night. In the face of constant anti-semitism from the tsars and concern that the Jewish population would increase, the authorities set aside a fairly large part of western Russia, the Balkan areas and the then boundaries of Poland into a "Pale" which comes from "polis" or staking out a state, as the only places where Jews could live. Even at that time, the Jews didn't make up more than 11% of the population. The Pale existed from 1797-1917. I asked specifically and Poznan (now in Poland, in Prussia at this time) was not included in the Pale.

Starting in 1880, a large number (hundreds of thousands) of Jews from the Pale emigrated to the US constituting the third wave of Jewish emigration.

My paternal grandmother (Betty Cohen)'s parents emigrated from the Ukraine (in the Pale) in 1890 which puts them squarely in this wave of emigration from the Pale. According to my aunt, my young great grandparents Edward Cohen (the family story was that this was not his real name --maybe Kahn or Kingon and he took the name Cohen when he arrived because it was a Jewish name and short) and Sonia Roytenburg were already married in the Pale. My aunt's story continues...a Canadian citizen came to visit her ancestral village and they came to American posing as brother and sister, children of this Canadian. The boat stopped in Boston and they got off. Edward, a painter, immediately got a job in construction in Martha's Vineyard and Sonia stayed in Bostong likely working as a domestic.

The speaker's thesis last night was "Why did the Jews leave the Pale?" He didn't get to elaborate due to time limits. He pointed out that conditions were quite favorable for the Jews, the pogroms had not started up again and though, they were violent and destructive, they didn't affect that many Jews. The forced conscription had stopped. The Pale had strong educational facilities and a strong system of social welfare caring for the homeless, widows and orphans. Many Jews were able to provide for themselves financially.

The Jews (men and women) had literacy rates twice that of the rest of Russia. Better communication brought stories of opportunity in America. Previous immigrants sent back stories of prosperity. New railroad made it easy to get to the ports; previously they had to walk long long distances. Passage on steam ships was cheap ($7-$11), still a sum but most could put together the fare. The steamships crossed the Atlantic in 10 days. Why not?

I'm including a map of the Pale of Jewish Settlement and a picture of my great grandparents Edward and Sonia Cohen. I don't know when or where this photo was taken and is in an elaborate carved frame. They look young here; I'm guessing that it's in the New World (after 1890) and before the birth of their first child (Fannie in 1895). They had three daughters and then three sons. My grandmother was the third daughter and all through her life, she opined about her sad state "Who needs a third daughter?" yet I believe she was her father's favorite.

I met Edward Cohen as a young child. On my birth in 1952 he purchased a $750 Israeli bond for me. In 1964, my father converted it into a $1000 savings bond and I still have it. Always has been a rainy day fund for me.