Jewish New York - The Remarkable Story of a City and a People

'This volume narrates the history of the New York Jews, with an eye to their distinctive story as well as consciousness of how Jews embedded their particularity within the city's contentious past'. Jewish New York is nowadays a reality of the diasporic Jewish history and present, and this book, based on serious historical and sociological data, might create at least one more topic for a further academic investigation. For instance, the issue of American Zionism, and therefore the ways in which American Jews are positioning themselves in relation with the state of Israel and the everyday political struggles from the country.

The evolution of the Jewish community is analized back in the 17th century, which makes this volume a valuable source of information for recreating a process of creating mentalities and social patterns. It also offers a multi-layered approach, which goes back and forth from the economic, cultural, social and citizens rights perspectives, creating a pretty accurate landscape where people are relocating continously, adapting their habits from the Old Country while maintaining a certain degree of individuality. With more than a million Jews living in New York, the city is considered a symbol of Jewish life in the diaspora but at the same time, at least in the last 2 decades, there are Jewish communities in many other locations in the USA, which increases the diversity of Jewish life. Although the book has the focus on NYC, a short comparison would have even better outline the specificities of the city. Another omission of the book in my opinion is that it ignores the strong Israeli community in the city, which although remains a distinctive group among the various Jewish communities, it has its own dynamic and specific influence on the cultural patterns and habits of the bigger group as such.

The book is a recommended read to anyone looking to become familiar, in an academic way, with the Jewish history of New York, either for academic or pure knowledge purposes. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Walking through old Brownsville with Alfred Kazin

I have a weakness for post-war books about Jewish Brooklyn, describing with acriby the old and the news, the changes between generations while some things still stay the same. It is that combination between sadness and despair and hope that impresses me. 

Kazin's A Walker in the City has not only a clear literary value due to its beautiful and vivid descriptions, but also a sociological and anthropological importance, documenting the life of various generations of immigrants and their interactions with the outside world. It studies with the journalistic acriby people coming and going, the new generation and the old residents, or the social and religious network. 

The success of the residents of Brownsville's part of Brooklyn was confirmed by their departure from here. 'We were at the end of the line. We were the children of immigrants who camped at the city's back door, in New York's rawest, remotest, cheapest ghetto (...)', he described his native neighbourhood. When new people are coming, like the mysterious Solovey family, chosing this place after a life in big cities in France or Italy, there are soon to enter the big family of failures. 

He describes his school years, learning with rigid teachers, or the bar mitzvah preparations, reduced by some learning by heart practice. Although he is a socialist believer, and part of a secular family, he is curiously looking for some chasidim that might be a diversion to the distant religious practices, but there is no one around. But despite this, there is a feeling of togetherness shared at the family table every Friday evening: "We had always to be together: believers and non-believers, we were a people. I was of that people. Unthinkable to go one's own way, to doubt or to escape the fact that I was a Jew. I had heard of Jews who pretend they were not, but could not understand them". As he will outline later on: "Jews were Jews. Gentiles were Gentiles. The line between them had been drawn for all time". In later public appearances, he will said: "I was by temperament created for the idea of revolution, in the sense of making the world over and creating a new society".

The most terrible word is aleyn, alone. "Socialism would be one long Friday evening around the samovar and the cut-glass bowl laden with nuts and fruits, all of us singing tzuzamen, tzuzamen, ale tzuzamen!"

The first American born of the family, he is supposed to over achieve as a confirmation that the efforts of the parents of moving in this strange land, far away from der heym, were not in vain. "It was not for myself alone that I was expected to shine, but for them - to redeem the constant anxiety of their existence". Different perception of der heym shows the dramatic differences between generations and explains the strong American identity of 2nd or 3rd generation of Jewish immigrants. For Kazin, it was a 'terrible word". "I associated with that old European life only pain (...) and hopelesness". 

His life in Brownsville involves going out of the ghetto often searching for books, sharing his long love for reading and literature. As he will later confess: "Literature has been my lifework, my passion and oddly enough my 'profession'". "My idea of heaven is to settle down in a jet with a book, a notebook and a Martini" he said in an interview and he shared to the world his part of heaven through his books and literary analysis.