The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a Jewish space. While not all of its employees ascribed to Judaism, the religion was prevalent because the Jewish community was at the heart of the factory, which only began to change when the owners started firing the Jewish girls for striking and hired Italian [gentiles] in their stead.
Esther and Max were Jewish, and Mary believed that “the hundreds of girls [who worked in the shop] were mostly Jewish...” just like them, with a minority population of Italian immigrants.^42^ Even the factory owners themselves, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were a part of the Jewish community.^43^
It is entirely possible that Blanck and Harris went to the same synagogue as some of their employees. Did Blanck and Harris guiltily look away as Mr. Hochfield said Esther’s name before the Mourner’s Kaddish? Did they have to listen to name after name be called out in shul each year around the anniversary of the factory fire, knowing that they were the reason that there were so many deaths to remember? Their Judaism, and the Judaism of the people they employed, was inextricable to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
We can also see this in how the majority of the 146 victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire were Jewish people.^44^ When Esther Hochfield perished in the fire, Mary Domsky‐Abrams recalled that “All New York—certainly, all of Jewish New York—came to the funeral.”^45^
While it is unlikely the entirety of New York City, or even Jewish New York went to Esther’s funeral, the sentiment is still worth acknowledging. Perhaps Mary really meant that everyone who mattered to her was there. These could have been people from the factory, members of her synagogue, and her friends from the union.
It is also worth acknowledging that, to Mary, the response to the tragedy was distinctly Jewish, and that was probably because of the Jewish nature of the factory community.
News of the fire reached all the way back to Eastern Europe. This is evident from how, “Elizabeth Hasanovitz, who migrated shortly after the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1911, recalled how news of the disaster had reverberated throughout her small shtetl in Russia: ‘I still remember what a panic that news caused in our town when it first came. Many families had their young daughters in all parts of the United States who worked in shops. And as most of these old parents had an idea of America as one big town, each of them was almost sure that their daughter was a victim of that terrible catastrophe.’”^46^
Ultimately the factory community was made up of members of the Jewish community, so much so that the tragedy reached all the way back to their families in Eastern Europe. Many of the factory members, including the owners, worked alongside members of their families who had made their way to the United States. In order to better understand the fire, the lives that it took, and those that survived, it is essential to look into the Jewishness of the affected community, because it was so much of a part of their lives both at home and at work.
(Emphasis added.)
