The Immigration Debate—in Cartoons
When he died in 1965, Benjamin Rosenbloom was described by the Wheeling Intelligencer as a forgotten trailblazer. As a legislator—he was elected to the West Virginia Senate and then the U.S. House of Representatives—he was staunchly opposed to Prohibition and a pioneer in anti-pollution legislation. A casual internet search confirms Rosenbloom as a feel good lead-in to a Secret Jewish History of West Virginia: the only Jewish congressman from the state; a brainy jock at University of West Virginia on a football scholarship. A more problematic Rosenbloom, however, shows up in a 1924 Yiddish cartoon about anti-immigration legislation titled “Evil-doer, Why Do You Beat Your Brother?” (He’s the evil-doer of the title.) It’s part of the new, eerily timely YIVO exhibit The Door Slams Shut: Jews and Immigration in the Face of American Reaction.
The Door Slams Shut features Yiddish political cartoons from Der Groyser Kundes, a satirical New York newspaper of the 1920s. Though the show is small, the cartoons are well chosen and powerful, with some standout work by Yosl Cotler, whose energetic lines buzz and leap with all the power of the industrial age. Political cartoons don’t generally have much of a shelf life, certainly not one measured in decades, but the fundamental questions raised in these cartoons, about American values and what we owe refugees, have never been more timely. There’s even an echo of the Yiddish slogan that was suddenly everywhere in 2018, mir veln zey iberlebn. A cartoon titled “Zi vet zey iberlebn” (She Will Outlive Them) shows a woman representing the Declaration of Independence languishing in jail, as the Ku Klux Klan and Jingoism keep watch on her cell. Like I said, eerily timely.