Between 1882 and 1914, approximately 7,300 Jewish immigrants from the
Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia settled in Winnipeg. Their decision to
travel across an unfamiliar continent, embark on a difficult and lengthy transatlantic journey, and finally make their way to an unknown city thousands of
kilometres from their port of entry was motivated by harsh necessity. Fleeing
destitution, state persecution, and sporadic but increasingly murderous pogroms, emigration was a calculated risk. However, the estimated 2 million Jews
who left the Pale of Settlement for the United States or Canada between 1882
and 1914 understood that, if they remained in Tsarist Russia, they had little
prospect of improving their lives and would continue to endure unremitting
hardship.1
They also knew that the traditional leaders of Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement were incapable of either protecting them from
oppressive state policies or alleviating their poverty. For those who made the
difficult decision to emigrate, hopelessness outweighed the uncertainties of
migration. After they arrived in Winnipeg, their previous experiences shaped
their settlement, the process of finding a means of earning a living, and their
founding of new Jewish communal institutions in an alien urban society. Freed
from the social, economic, and legal constraints that had impoverished them
and thwarted their ambitions, they were determined to earn a living either by
finding the same type of work or by reinventing themselves, embracing new
skills or occupations to take advantage of the diverse employment and business
opportunities offered by Winnipeg’s burgeoning market economy.