Goodbye O Lord. I'm going to America.


Among the first releases in the new wave of independent films of the 1970s, writer/director Joan Micklin Silver's portrait of turn-of-the-century New York is also important for its unflinching look at women's issues. Russian Jewish immigrant Gitl (Carol Kane) joins her husband Jake (Steven Keats) in New York after he has gone ahead to establish himself. Jake has quickly assimilated many American customs, much to the dismay of Gitl, who clings to her Old World ways. Gitl's discovery of how Jake was able to finance her trip to America leads to more tension, and Gitl is soon on her own with few resources on which to draw. Although the film performed modestly at the box office, it was a sign of changing times when Kane's quietly assured performance was nominated for an Academy award, a rare recognition by Hollywood of a film made outside the studio system.


Hester Street is based upon a novella by Abraham Cahan, Yekl. Although it seemingly appears to be the struggle of all first generation immigrants, assimilation versus maintaining traditional ways, the story is much deeper. It attempts to demonstrate that the freedom that America at the turn of the century offered was less than ideal.[citation needed]
Abraham Cahan was a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania who came with the more than two million Jews that emigrated to the U.S. between 1887 and WWI. He became a member of and advocate for the Socialist Labor Party of America. In 1897 he founded the Yiddish newspaper The Forward, which he used as a platform for the Socialist and Labor movements. In The Forward he referred to Jews who cast off the yoke of their religion and adopted socialist philosophy as Free Thinkers. The Free Thinkers disdained not only traditionalists who maintained their religious practices but also those who exploitatively pursued capitalism.
Cahan disdained those entrepreneurial immigrants who attempted to improve their standing through capitalistic free enterprise.[citation needed] His view was that the owners and bosses advanced themselves through the exploitation of their workers. This theme was repeated in editorials in The Forward and in his acclaimed book, The Rise of David Levinsky.
In Hester Street we see this theme repeated. Yekl comes to America, changes his name to Jake and attempts to assimilate. He tries to get ahead through his own hard work. He dates an assimilated Jewish woman, Mamie, in whom he becomes more interested when he finds out she has money saved up. Jake represents the blind pursuit of money in a capitalist society.
When Jake's wife and son appear on Ellis Island, he is confronted with his traditional Jewish past. Although his wife Gitl wants to maintain their traditional ways, Jake encourages Gitl to assimilate. Although she tries it, Jake still rejects her because he is not interested in assimilation, he is interested in the pursuit of money as represented by Mamie. The film equates the pursuit of money to prostitution in a scene between Jake and a prostitute after rejecting his wife's attempt to assimilate.
In the end, the film implies that the pursuit of money is futile because in order to get Gitl to divorce Jake, Mamie offers Gitl a sum of money. By the time the divorce is finalized, Gitl ends up with most of Mamie's money. She is seen continuing to pursue a traditional Jewish lifestyle with Bernstein, a boarder in Jake's apartment who is portrayed as a Jewish Talmudic scholar and teacher with a limited future due to his attachment to tradition. And when Jake finds out that Mamie has lost her money, he appears to be hesitant about his future with her.
Cahan's conclusion in this and all his stories was that neither capitalism nor tradition were the roads that his co-religionists should follow, but rather that socialism was their future.


Hester Street was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress - Carol Kane. In 2011, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[1] In making its selection, the Registry said that Hester Street was "a portrait of Eastern European Jewish life in America that historians have praised for its accuracy of detail and sensitivity to the challenges immigrants faced during their acculturation process


Release Date: October 1975


Distrib: Midwest Films