"May a Freethinker Help a Pious Man?": The Shared World of the "Religious" and the "Secular" Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants to America (Essay‪)‬

Beginning in 1902, the Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward), already well on its way to becoming the most widely-read Yiddish newspaper in New York, debuted a series of debates that provided conflicting perspectives on serious as well as frivolous issues, from questions of morality and honesty to the proper use of cosmetics. Given the Forverts' standing as the foremost secular and socialist Yiddish newspaper, it is surprising that debates focusing on religion sparked the most responses, and endured longer than all the other features. The debate over the question, "May a progressive lodge admit believing members?" ran from September through November 1904, drawing eighty letters. Interrogating the boundaries between ideology and practice, the 1904 debate examined the religious practices of socialists as it considered the case of members of the Workmen's Circle, a socialist fraternal organization, who had been "caught" attending High Holiday religious services. The following spring, an exchange titled "A shabesdige shayle" (A Sabbath question) garnered fifty letters from February through Apri. (1) In both debates, religious matters were analyzed seriously, if from a somewhat unconventional perspective. While discussions of the "Sabbath question" in the Yiddish press typically referred to the plight of observant Jews forced to work on Saturday, the Forverts addressed the topic from the standpoint of freethinking, or nonreligious, Jewish immigrants who encountered religious Jews and observed their Sabbath dilemma at work. The debate asked: Should a free thinking hat maker help his religious coworker finish his work on a Friday afternoon so that the religious coworker would be able to leave the shop in time for the Sabbath, or would this assistance, in its direct support of religious behavior, constitute a violation of free thought? This article examines the two Forverts debates, the 1904 Workmen's Circle feature and the 1905 Sabbath question forum, to gain insight on the complex and variegated religious identities of eastern European Jewish immigrants to America.