Overview
Jews Without Money is a semi-autobiographical 1930 novel by Itzok Isaac Granich, published under Granich’s pseudonym, Mike Gold. The book charts the impoverished conditions of the Lower East Side of New York City and the experiences of growing up in a community of predominantly Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century. Growing up in such a difficult environment informed the author’s socialist politics as an adult.
Plot Summary
Mike Gold is born and raised by a family of Jewish immigrants on the Lowest East Side of Manhattan. His father, Herman, is from Romania, and his mother, Katie, is from Hungary. Like Mike, his younger sister, Esther, was born in America. The family lives in a tenement building. Although the family is poor and they struggle to make ends meet, they love one another. The help and support of the community is the only way any of the poor immigrants are able to stay alive in such an impoverished slum.
The neighborhood is filled with crime and vice, and Mike is exposed to prostitutes and gangsters on a daily basis. He bands together with his young friends to make a street gang for his own protection. Mike and his friends fight children from other neighborhoods but often suffer from violence at the hands of the adults, showing them the dangers of the world in which they live.
Mike’s family helps other immigrants to move to America, housing relatives, friends, and unknown people who arrive in the country from Eastern Europe. Some of these people take advantage of the family’s generosity. Herman, who traveled to America with dreams of becoming rich, entertains his children with folk stories and tales from his life. Most stories from his life end in tragic failure. The one time he did succeed, his cousin Sam Kravitz cheated him out of partial ownership of a successful factory, and Herman has hated Sam even since. He now works as a house painter and resents being an exploited employee.
Living in close quarters in the tenement building brings Mike into close contact with disreputable men like Louis One Eye. Louis is a gangster who tends pigeons on the roof of the building and terrifies everyone. One day, he makes unwanted advances toward Mike’s beloved Aunt Lena. The neighbors unexpectedly stand up to Louis in her defense, but Mike recognizes how close to tragedy he and Lena were. When Mike is injured by a firework, the family cannot afford doctors. He is taken to a faith healer, who gradually helps him overcome his nightmares.
Mike’s mother is deeply religious and one of the strongest people Mike knows. Katie helps everyone, regardless of whether they are Jewish or a member of her community. She passes on her faith and her determination to her children. While Katie is a practical person who never expects to have any money, Herman cannot give up his dreams of success. He works for a new house painting company and befriends the owner, quickly achieving promotion. The owner embroils him in a potentially expensive and unwanted real estate deal. When Herman falls off the scaffolding at work and breaks his legs, he can no longer work. As a result, he loses his job and all the money he has invested in the real estate deal. Katie and Mike are forced to find jobs while Esther takes up all her mother’s duties around the house. The family’s struggle to pay for Herman’s medical care leads them to rely on the strange, eccentric, and cheap Dr. Solow. The doctor becomes a family friend and often attends dinners in the apartment. One evening, he unexpectedly proposes to Lena, though she turns down his offer because she is already in love with a union leader at her job.
A cold winter and a bad economy lead to a great deal of suffering. Katie tries to rally her neighbors in a fight against their exploitative landlord, but she is the only person strong enough to stand up to him. Mike begins to realize that his family will never escape their poverty. One day, Esther is killed by a horse-driven coach when she is out collecting firewood. Her death has a profound effect on the family, and they rely on the community for support while they recover. As the family struggles to deal with Esther’s death, they turn to Christian charities for support but receive nothing. Herman eventually takes a low-paying job as a banana salesman with a street cart. He makes Mike promise to study hard to become a successful doctor or businessman, but Mike knows that this will never happen. He drops out of high school and desperately searches for a job to help support his family. In response to his upbringing, he develops a radical political outlook and hopes that a workers’ revolution will one day bring an end to the suffering he experienced growing up.
