Description
Nobel Laureate Simon Kuznets, famous as the founder of modern empirical economics, pioneered the quantitative study of the economic history of the Jews. Yet, until now, his most important work on the subject was unpublished. This second collection of previously unavailable material issued by Transaction brings to the public, for the first time, the most important economic work written on Jewish migration since that of Werner Sombart a century ago.
This volume of Kuznets’ work includes three main essays. The first, titled “Immigration and the Foreign Born,” was Kuznets’ first work on immigration and discusses the impact of the general foreign born on the U.S. Kuznets and his co-author, Ernest Rubin, offer the essay as a quantitative antidote to the misinformation that led many Jews to support the restrictions ending Jewish migration in the 1920s. The second, “Israel’s Economic Development,” discusses the impact of mass immigration and other factors on Israeli productivity, providing in English for the first time one of the first detailed studies of the economic development of the state of Israel. The final essay, on “Immigration of Russian Jews to the United States,” is the most famous of Kuznets’ writings and provides a clear view, backed by a seminal paper that launched the contemporary social scientific study of Jewry. It discusses the details of the labor force, skills, and general structure of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to the U.S.
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Jewish Economies Volume II, 9.16.2011
Reviewer: Rossinna Ippolito
Jewish Economies is a two-volume set of texts by Nobel Prize winning economist Simon Kuznets (April 30, 1901 –July 8, 1985). Volume 1, which has recently been released, deals with the economic structure and growth of Euro-American Jewry. Volume 2 is subtitled “Comparative Perspectives on Jewish Migration.” Both volumes share the same preface and introduction.
The Jewish contribution to the study of economics is briefly explored in the introduction, with insight into why it has been that so many Jews have been drawn to the field. Also in the introduction, the reader learns the personal background of Simon Kuznets, who was a refreshingly humble man and an objective, careful scholar.
As an immigrant from what is now Belarus, Kuznets embraced American assimilation so completely that he refrained from speaking to his children in Russian or Yiddish, and he took pains to give them a secular childhood. He didn’t want anti-Semitism to be a part of his children’s experience, and he also didn’t want it to stain his professional work. As a contributor to the scientific study of economics Kuznets wanted to be seen as an absolutely neutral authority. He felt if it was widely known that he did research on Jewish issues, he might be seen as having some sort of bias and that his work might be questioned. So, he didn’t promote his writing on Jewish topics, and many of his papers were either left un-translated or weren’t published at all. Now, decades after his passing, the neglected parts of his cannon are finally being released.
The first selection in Volume 2 of Jewish Economies explains the US census process and provides general information on immigration to the United States. The reader learns of the discrepancies and errors in census taking and what steps were taken to reconcile data. This first section doesn’t really highlight Jewish immigration in particular– that is left to the third chapter, which details the immigration process of Russian Jews to America. There the reader learns that the bulk of US Jewish immigrants came from the Russian Empire, which had its borders drastically changed after the Great War. Within that Russian group, it was Lithuanian Jews from the northwest region of the Pale that made the most moves, and it was New York City which drew them, especially since they were able to transfer their skills to create success in the clothing industry.
The middle section of the text highlights the economic success of Israel and explains the reasons for Israel’s high GDP and GNP. The immigrants to Israel tended to be highly educated and tremendously motivated. Recent Israeli immigrants soon matched the status of “veteran immigrants” so that the country did not experience a great gap between the rich and the poor. This made them unique, and Kuznets provides many tables to illustrate the amazing triumph of the Israeli economy.
Kuznets was careful to stick to facts and numbers in his work and refused to go too far into speculation. So, although Kuznets brings up many interesting points in the text he leaves it to future researches to explore them further. Jewish Economies is a great starting point for those wishing to study the Russian Diaspora, Israeli success, and the history of immigration in the United States.
