The Bagel has earned its place among what many consider one of the most colloquially Jewish foods of all. Meaning, If your bobbe arrives at the bris and there aren’t bagels there, it’s considered to be a great shmear on the family name. And though the innovation of the bagel comes from the Alter Shtot of Poland, the reinvention of the bagel owes itself to the hands of those masterful Jewish bagel bakers from the Lower East Side of Manhattan.¹ The bagel appeared on the Lower East Side just before the turn of the century in 1900, and with it, the grit and grind of the Jewish immigrants who were trying to make an honest wage and support their families. Often, this came at the expense of their own health, with bagel rollers or “benchmen” pressed to make over 900 bagels an hour, working in the sweltering heat of coal ovens and unregulated safety conditions.² Harboring the socialist and communist ideals held by their ancestors, the Jewish bagel bakers of Manhattan began to organize. While many of the first attempts to unionize fell short of accomplishing their goals, local 338 of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union, more descriptively known as The Beigel Bakers Union, soon gained control over nearly all of Manhattans bagels, dealing with both production and distribution.³ The transliterated spelling of the word בייגל as beigel stuck as the official spelling of the union until later in the 1950s, at which point much of the union’s membership consisted of the younger generations of bagel bakers who had been raised in America. Up until that point, “the minutes of the union’s executive board were written in Yiddish.⁴” 

The Union fought many battles for the rights of bagel workers and continually demanded to receive the benefits that all bagelers deserve. After having won many battles for bagel workers’ rights in the first half of the century, the full force of the bagelers who had banded together was felt not only by the factory owners but by the public as well. At the beginning of February 1962, terms between the bagel union and factory owners were up for re-negotiation. Bagel workers saw their opportunity to demand more equitable compensation for their work. With the factory owners denying their demands for more fringe benefits, including another week of paid vacation, safer working conditions, and a raise in salary, the workers went out on strike. In big letters on the front page of the February 10th, the Saturday issue of the Yiddish Forverts has printed “Ten Thousand Bakers Going Out On Strike Today in New York.” The article from Y. Fogel details the largest bagel workers strike in history. And it wasn’t only the bagel bakers themselves who were involved. Fogel recounts how six unions conjoined against the owners of the city’s largest baking firms, pitting “The Bread Baker Union Local 3, the Cake Bakers Union Local 51, conjoined with the American Bakery End Confectionary Workers Union from the United Workers movement, the Clerks Local 1111, the Sales Clerks Local 150, and the Teamster Baker Union Local 802” up against “Retail Specialty Owners of America, Gotham Wholesalers, Metropolitan Guild, Empire State Association and Manhattan Retailers.⁵” This, however, was only the beginning of one of the greatest bagel recessions that New York had seen. While Fogel reports that the factory owners seemed to want the workers to go out on a strike that would cost them a pretty penny, workers were willing to hold out longer than manufacturers had hoped. The strike continued for 29 days until the factory owners finally heeded the union’s demands. During that time, the cities bagel supply was operating at an 85% deficit. It wasn’t long, however, before the union lost nearly all of its power, caused by the advent of machine-made bagels in 1963. In that year, Daniel Thompson, creator of the machine, sent out letters to a number of large bagel bakeries in the United States inquiring about their interest in acquiring such a device. Murray Lender, working at Lender’s Bagels in New Haven took the bait, and so the machine-made bagel revolution began. 

To this day, New York City maintains its reputation as an heir to the great tradition of bageling. It remains one of the few cities that one can attain bagels of all different flavors, and even in an entire rainbow of colors. Though Nick Russ Federman, co-owner of the bagel shop “Russ & Daughters” on the Lower East Side, advises against the latter.⁶ Throughout the years, the bagel has become a staple of the Manhattan diet. Meaning it’s no surprise that Columbia University’s John Jay dining hall operates a bagel booth for its attendants most mornings of the week. And if the campus taste doesn’t kick it, there are a number of renowned bagel bakeries within walking distance including “Absolute Bagels” on 107th and Broadway, which often has a cue outside its doors open at six in the morning. There one can catch a glimpse back in time to the handmade bagel-making tradition that so many early Jewish immigrants to New York City would hope to master. So despite the fact that decades of union bagel workers lost their power with the advent of mechanized production, their legacy remains in the unadulterated taste of every handmade New York City bagel. 

(Courtesy of Noshman’s Bagels)

Sources:

1.  Balinska, Maria. The bagel: The surprising history of a modest bread. Yale University Press, 2008. pp. 21
2.  Frost, Natasha. “The Forgotten History Of New York’S Bagel Famines”. Atlas Obscura, 2019, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/bagel-union-strikes-new-york-city.
3.  Goodman, Matthew. “The Rise and Fall of the Bagel.” Harvard Review, no. 28, 2005, pp. 91–99. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27569004.
4.  Ibid. pp. 93
5. http://jpress.org.il/Olive/APA/NLI/?action=tab&tab=browse&pub=FRW#panel=document
6.  Cohen, Michelle. “The New York Bagel: The ‘Hole’ Story from History and Chemistry to Where You’ll Find the Good Ones.” 6sqft, 16 July 2018, https://www.6sqft.com/the-new-york-bagel-the-hole-story-from-history-and-chemistry-to-where-youll-find-the-good-ones/.

For a translation of Y. Fogel’s article in the Forverts, click here.