Michael Gold's Jews Without Money

Michael Gold’s novel Jews Without Money is set in a slum area in the United States mainly populated by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In coming to the United States, usually, it is a hardship for many immigrants. Many deal with poverty and live in impoverished communities as well as class issues, due to being the oppressed race. As shown in Michael Gold’s Jews Without Money, Gold illustrates the hardships and struggles of growing up as an immigrant in America. Jews Without Money portrays the world of poverty leads to crime, a working class struggling to keep up with the progressing industrializing era, and capitalist views, all of which have relevance in today’s society. As well as still having relevance today, had it been published

The American novel was issued in 1930, through the early onset of the Great Depression. Due to the story dealing with an impoverished Jewish Community and working class struggles, it was captivating for people who were, at the time, exposed to the same conditions of poverty and economic depression leading to unemployment. In his author’s note, Gold wrote, “I have told in my book a tale of Jewish poverty in one ghetto, that of New York. The same story can be of a hundred other ghettoes scattered over all the world.” (Gold 10) Many were able to relate to the struggles of unemployment and a harsh living environment. As a result, people had a new found appreciation for the two million Jews crammed in tenements, in a small part of Lower East Side of Manhattan, unable to get elsewhere. If the novel had been published during the middle of the 1920’s, while the “Roaring Twenties”, an era of unprecedented affluence, was at an all-time high, the story of Michel Gold, a Jewish immigrant would have been disregarded among the excessive consumption of alcohol and prosperity. People would have neglected the suffering of this ethnic group due to anti-immigrant sentiment. In 1925, the novel, The Great Gatsby

Poverty does lead to crime due to desperation of not having anything; even the struggle of buying food. The Working class continues to struggle due to many not being able to keep up with the progressing era, now it is technology, during the 1930’s the world was industrializing. The capitalist system today still continues to care about money. Today’s world, as shown in the 1930’s is all about greed; money is everything. Had the novel been published a few years earlier, it would have had less of an impact due to the vast majority of people not being able to relate to what was occurring. Jews Without Money defines what the struggle of America