Purim 1882: Celebrating the holiday on the sacred soil of America

“American rabbinic leaders [in the 19th century],” writes President Zev Eleff of Gratz College, “saw in the Purim holiday an opportunity to engineer a religious revival.”

They focused on that part of the Purim story where the heroine Queen Esther and the sinister Haman dueled. Esther, the Jewess, identified with Mordechai’s insistence that saved the Persian Jewish people. Eleff builds on this noble act of Esther, her revival as a Jew. He emphasizes that “rabbis of all stripes were anxious to recruit young Jews back to the emptied synagogues.”

The traditional theme of the holiday – encouraging gifts for the needy – was also a perfect background for what happened on Purim on Ward’s Island.

Purim on Ward's Island

It is the day of Purim; we are on Ward’s Island in the New York Harbor in March 1882. Immigrants are being housed there before they enter the United States officially. Joy fills the air, the food is wonderful. A dozen pleasant voices can be heard singing Russian songs. Then a special guest, Rabbi Gustav Gottheil of New York’s Temple Emanu-El, asks for the Russian national anthem. “They answered with the words of the psalmist slightly altered. ‘How can we sing the desecrated song on the sacred soil of America?’”

The holiday of Purim in the United States was celebrated in a variety of ways during the 18th and 19th centuries. However, because Purim was a biblical holiday well known to the Christians, there are even a few references during the Revolutionary War.

George Washington, as the commander in chief of the American Revolutionary forces, frequently emphasized that war profiteers should be “hanged on gallows five times as high as Haman’s.” Other American Revolutionary War leaders compared the rebellion of the colonists with the armed action of the Jews defending themselves from Haman’s edict of destruction.

IN 1860, the creation of a Purim Ball in New York, in the spirit of the balls of the Middle Ages, was initially proposed by Samuel Meyer Isaacs, a New York lawyer. Two years later, even though the Civil War offered a gruesome daily background for civilians in the North and South, the first Purim Ball was held. This annual merriment continued for almost 40 years.

The funds collected were used to fulfill the Purim commandment to “give gifts to the poor and needy.” These balls supported several institutions in New York dedicated to giving professional help to citizens, not just Jews, who needed various types of care and financial assistance.

Then, at the outset of the 1880s, the Jews began to flee from the brutality of the Russian government. The United States opened its doors, and Jews in great numbers were admitted. The procedure of entering the country occurred on islands in New York Harbor, not just Ellis Island. So it was on March 3, 1882, that the following article appeared in the Jewish Messenger, a noted weekly of that era.

“This year the festival will have peculiar significance for American Israelites, owing to the few thousand refugees who are celebrating Purim for the first time on American shores. They are the helpless victims of Russian persecution... had no way to obey the behest to be glad and joyful.” American Jews should do their share “for those tempest-tost emigrants” so that they would “secure a happy home and be enabled to become a useful and independent American citizen.” The call went out to the New York Jewish citizenry to help graciously. And help they did.

That 1882 celebration became well known because it was described in memorable, detailed fashion on March 10 of that year in a letter to the Jewish Messenger. Understanding a few important parts of the structure of that “letter to the editor” can help us appreciate this special observance of the Purim holiday.

The letter begins with a noisy welcome awarded to the guests who had come to be “joyful” with the adults, the children and the “healthy-looking babies.” Even back then, these events dramatically motivated the guests, one of whom “wrote out a check” to provide more assistance. In the 1880s and the next decades as well, the German Jews – who at times were quite critical of Eastern European Jews – knew they had to help and did. HIAS and other organizations were born through their leadership.

Next spoke a Christian commissioner, from the area where Ward’s Island is located. He stressed the necessity for “self-help.” “The Jewish refugees,” he noted, “have transformed a building here on the island, which was in a most deplorable and dilapidated condition, into one which has been so improved that it can be hardly recognized.”

Then Alderman Felix Levy of the Lower East Side spoke. “I present myself to you on this important day, not only as your Jewish brother but also as a representative of the municipal government.” He stressed that surely they had never seen in their “bigoted” country a Jewish government officer. “Here,” Levy continued, “be honest, industrious men [and] women, and your religion will be no obstacle to reach the highest position.” Several noted attendees included philanthropist Leonard Lewisohn and cantor Karmanschoff of B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue in Manhattan.

Then a cry went up for Mr. Bergman, who had organized the event. “Mr. Bergman was unceremoniously seized by half a dozen strong arms, bodily carried to the center of the room, and repeatedly lifted up in the air to the delight of crowing children.”

THE CLIMAX, as described in the letter, came with the arrival of Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, noted spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El, his wife, and poet Emma Lazarus. Without a moment of hesitation, Gottheil mounted a long bench and “delivered a touching and eloquent address: ‘No inducement on Earth would tempt me to leave home on such a day; but the body had to yield to [the] wish of the soul, which desired to share in your celebration of the great feast.’”

Gottheil wanted to boost them up even more. After imploring them to keep their name “bright and unstained,” he encouraged them to “show the world at large how much you can accomplish when the yoke of bigotry and intolerance is lifted from your shoulders.”

As mentioned above, the rabbi wanted to hear Russian songs, and the singing filled the air.

The close of the letter contained an important reminder to Jewish American citizens, as well as the new immigrants. “See how our Russian friends enjoyed their double celebration of Purim – besides rejoicing that their ancestors had escaped the persecution of the ancient Haman, feeling that they themselves escaped the persecution of the modern Haman, the Czar of all Russians. It might be said from the Book of Esther, ‘The Jews had light, and gladness and honor!’” 