By Maria Trovato
The 1975 movie “Hester Street” gives a fairly accurate depiction of Jewish immigrant experiences in tenements at the turn of the 20th century, though there were far more accounts of filth and poverty in real life, Jewish History professor Marsha L. Rozenblit said following a screening of the film Oct. 18 in Shoemaker.
The movie follows the story of a Russian Jewish immigrant couple as they struggle to assimilate to American culture in the lower east side of Manhattan.
“‘Hester Street’ is an iconic film about Jewish immigration,” said Katarina Keane, executive director for the Center for Global Migration Studies and organizer of the event. “It’s a kind of film that a lot of people find connections to, and they can kind of see their grandparents’ stories reflected in the film.”
About 20 people attended the event, which was part of the Center for Global Migration’s “Immigration in Film” series.
Rozenblit is a social and cultural historian who focuses on Jewish people in Central Europe. Following the screening, she led a discussion about the themes it presented about Jewish immigration.
Rozenblit said the film exhibited a proper representation of the Jewish immigrant experience, but there were some differences between what the movie depicted and what actually occurred.
“It doesn’t look quite as poor in the movie as it probably was, but the [characters] are obviously poor,” Rozenblit said. “They’re obviously in crowded conditions, there are boarders and lodgers [and] people are mixing in each other’s business, which was accurate,” Rozenblit said.
Rozenblit said that the film did a good job showing how immigrants attempted to Americanize themselves. She pointed to learning to speak English and changing their names to sound more American as examples. In the film, the husband shaves his beard and goes to dancing classes.
“Traditionally Jewish men did not touch women they did not know,” Rozenblit said. “The dancing is a form of Americanization.”
The wife initially covered her hair with either a wig or a kerchief, which is traditional for married Jewish women. By the end of the film, she stopped covering her hair in order to assimilate.
“It’s a modesty thing, women should only be beautiful to her husband, not to all men,” Rozenblit said. “But when she comes to America, people wear their own hair, so she does.”
However, Rozenblit said the wife wearing a wig was unrealistic.
“Wearing wigs was not very typical, people just covered their heads with kerchiefs,” Rozenblit said. “To buy a wig was expensive, so only wealthy women wore wigs. She would not have had a wig, but it’s sort of more cinematic.”
Morgan Petteeone is a freshman bioengineering major who attended the film because she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and wanted to learn more about that culture.
“At first, I didn’t really understand the point of the movie,” Petteeone said. “As I watched it more, I realized it wasn’t just a story about a drama between a man and his wife. It was also about people who are immigrants getting Americanized.”