As Jewish professionals, we find few policies that hit closer to home than those relating to asylum, flight, migration and xenophobia. This time, the targets may be Latinos, Haitians and other minorities, but Jews have a long history of asylum-seeking both here and abroad.

Artists can be prescient when they take on historical matters, whether it’s the linking of border policies to gender and race hatred in the 1920’s or highlighting how white supremacy works to suppress and divide marginalized groups. As I followed the news of the past few weeks, I was prompted to look back at images from the Yiddish press that I curated in an exhibition titled The Door Slams Shut: Jews And Immigration In The Face Of American Reaction in 2018 in response to the Muslim ban enacted then.

The current disputes over immigration are nothing new. While nativist animus today falls upon Latino and other migrants, about 100 years ago, it was Jews who were targeted. One of the first things President Warren G. Harding did after taking office in 1921 was to sign the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, a law that reduced the number of Jewish and Italian immigrants to a sliver of what it had been in previous years. His successor, Calvin Coolidge, signed a similar law in 1924 that virtually shut the door on Jewish and Italian migrants. With the knowledge that their families were not safe in Europe, the Yiddish press reacted furiously, publishing editorials and cartoons in support of a more open immigration policy.

Taking aim with their poison pens, Der groyser kundes, the Lower East Side’s premier Yiddish satire weekly, attacked the Immigration Quota Acts of 1921 and 1924, which were enacted to severely stifle Jewish immigration to the U.S. Well-acquainted with the dire circumstances in which Eastern European Jews found themselves, Yiddish cartoonists understood that a more fair immigration policy would be beneficial to both Jews and to America. Using political, cultural, and traditional Jewish imagery, the artists of Der groyser kundes crafted numerous cartoons that considered the situation from the perspective of a Jewish immigrant community for which the matter was potentially a matter of life and death.

100 years later, the players have changed. But the issues have remained remarkably similar.

What’s It Going to Be, Uncle Sam? (January 18, 1924): Uncle Sam sits between the good and evil inclinations. The good inclinations list reads, “Free immigration; tolerance; hospitality; American traditions; kind-heartedness; open-mindedness; idealism.” The evil inclination’s list reads, “Immigration ban; chauvinism; race hatred; anti-Americanism; hard-heartedness; closed-mindedness; egoism; cruelty; despotism.” Artist: Yosl Cutler for “Der groyser kundes.” Credit: YIVO Library, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

She Will Outlive Them! (July 4, 1924) Imprisoned and shackled with a ball and chain labeled “Their 100 percent Americanism,” a woman representing the Declaration of Independence languishes in a cell, as the guards, labeled “Ku Klux Klan,” “Jingoism,” and “Reaction” say, “Goddammit, she’s still breathing!” Creator: Zuni Maud for “ Der groyser kundes.” Credit: YIVO Library, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Her Caretaker (January 25, 1924) A shackled Statue of Liberty is led to prison by an “immigrant destroyer,” who says, “Come inside, my daughter, you’ll catch a cold out there.” Artist: Yosl Cutler for “Der groyser kundes.” Credit: YIVO Library, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

There’s No Place to Set One’s Foot Down (August 5, 1921). A Jewish refugee attempts to set his foot down somewhere on the planet, only to be met with knives blade-side up and marked with the names of the countries that don’t want him: Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, America, Latvia, Palestine, Austria, Canada, Estonia, etc., etc. Artist: Mitchell Loeb for “Der groyser kundes.” Credit: YIVO Library, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

This exhibit was also mounted by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (2019; 2022) as After Anatevka: Jewish Immigration and American Reaction in the theater lobby for Fiddler on the Roof.

Eddy Portnoy is a specialist on Yiddish popular culture and is director of exhibitions and senior academic advisor for the Max Weinreich Center at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The exhibitions he has created for YIVO have won plaudits from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, VICE, The Forward, and others. He is the author of Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press (Stanford University Press 2017).