"A Ghetto Wedding" is a story by Abraham Cahan about Jewish immigrants in the late 1800's. It was set in the lower East Side of New York .
City, also known as the Yiddish Quarter. This was the same neighborhood depicted in such stories as "The Rise of David Levinsky", "Bread Givers", .
"The American Scene" and the movie "Hester Street". I found that there are several similar themes that flow through these writings, such as the immigrant's determination to succeed in this new world, the pride with which some upheld their religious beliefs and traditions, and the cost of assimilation. The prevailing theme, however, that I felt was most common to Cahan's "A Ghetto Wedding" and Henry James" "The American Scene" is that of poverty.
Between 1880 and 1924, over 20 million Eastern Europeans emigrated .
to America with the hopes of escaping political persecution and to pursue a .
more prosperous future. What they found upon arrival at Ellis Island was difficult times; a time when the Yiddish Quarter was going through what Cahan describes as " a long season of enforced idleness and distress" (90). This.
was a season that filled the people with a sense of desperation and shame. .
Reb Slominsky in "Bread Givers", as well as some of the immigrants, was surprised to learn that in America, the respectable study of the Talmud was .
not enough to make a living and put food on the table. Consequently, an elderly Slominsky faced no viable alternative other than peddling. Similarly, David Levinsky in "The Rise of David Levinsky", having arrived in the new world with no known trade or skills, found his humble beginnings in this business. Also Nathan, in "A Ghetto Wedding", because of the lack of work in his occupational trade, found himself peddling as a means of survival. At different stages in their .
lives and for various reasons, they were each forced to go out on the street .
and peddle goods which was an act that many of the immigrants felt "was beneath the dignity of their habitual occupations, and they were driven to it .
