Nov. 12, 2001

Michael Gold, Jews Without Money #1

This seminar dealt with both autobiographical and socio-cultural contexts of Michael Gold’s Jews Without Money. As the book that operates on a variety of distinct levels, an elucidation of some cultural and personal facts proves to be a key to the novel.

The reader first encounters trouble when dealing with the person Michael Gold. Clearly there are autobiographical ambiguities: it is not clear whether Gold’s original name is Ytzok Granich, Irvin Granich or even Ivan Granich. Biographers and critics alike vary in their references. Of course, given Gold’s political broadside, Ivan would suggest political implications.

The book is set at New York’s Lower East Side, an area of immensely dense population. It might be identified as an autobiography of sorts, shot through with confessional and mythological elements. The young protagonist Mikey Gold, spends six years in elementary school. In addition to this American education, he visits a Chider, a place to accostume himself with elements of Jewish tradition: language, the study of the Thora. This school presents his passage into Jewish life. This particular Jewish way of life, imported from the old European shtetl community to America is still tremendously powerful within Jewish life. The shtetl in Europe was a culturally and socially very closely knit community, with clear borders and clear concepts of who is an insider and who is an outsider.

Michael Gold quit school aged 12, and took on a steady job. In order to dodge his draft he moved to Mexico for 2 years. Coming back to America, after a brief stint at Harvard (a fact he would later deny) he joined the Privincetown Players, the group of playwright Eugene O’ Neill. O’Neill, by that time was known as an outright anarchist, and the group’s concepts were radically avantgarde. Gold felt that World War I was essentially a proxy war of capitalist elites, fought with proletarian armies. For him there was no motivation to join in that enterprise when he could effectively only lose.

Another major trait in Mike Gold is his sense of self education, closely tied to strong moral and social objectives. To him Walt Whitman, the oft quoted ‘democratic poet’ who would champion egalitarianism, was a decisive influence. But also Tolstoi, with his vision of a Christian Social revolutionary, or Dostoievsky, author of Notes form the Underground where he promoted social change, might be seen as significant influences.

As a next step Michael Gold began to write. He turned into editor cum chief contributor of ‘The New Masses’, an official Communist paper. It is in this publication that the individual sketches that eventually made up Jews Without Money appear in their original form.

Socio-economically the 1920 have witnessed a marked rise in prosperity. Economic rise characterised the era to the extent that even the working classes could participate in that new pool of resources. It was only in 1930 that the Great Depression really hit the US. Consequently, Jews Without Money, given its genesis, is really a text of the 1920’s. A counter discourse, complementing F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Turning to the structure and organisation of the book, it is not exactly clear how much restructuring and editing went into the final version. The exact nature of the book, an autobiogaphy, a novel, an autobiographical novel, a memoir is a heavily discussed topic. In the sense that it lacks narrative coherence, one might argue that it’s merely a compilation. Those who prefer to read it as a memoir point out that it is distinctly episodic in character. Individual experiences eclipse any overall coherent agenda, there is no identifiable thematic umbrella. It has also been argued that the book, in it’s historic context, the 1920’s, appears to be oddly out of time, and out of place. With it’s echoes of European life, Jewish shtetl life, it seems to be out of tune with the burgeoning capitalist age of modern America.

Michael Gold’s ideological background might provide an additional layer of interpretation. Throughout his life Gold was a staunch Communist. He hardened throughout the 1930’s, and remained a party faithful through the following decades. During the Red Scare of the McCarthy era he was officially labelled a persona non grata.

David Baldinger

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