Jewish Times: Voices of the American Jewish Experience - Hardcover

Simons, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395446805 ISBN 13: 9780395446805

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1988

Synopsis

Travels over a four-year period throughout the United States have brought forth a warm, honest, and telling account that reveals the unique character of the Jewish experience in America

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Reviews

"My father taught me how to make bagels," recalls a junior high school principal. "This was the big production that I had been waiting for my whole life. I was already an adult." His reminiscences, along with those of 226 others interviewed, infuse this kaleidoscopic oral history with Jewish humor and yeasty realism. Toting his tape recorder from Alaska to Florida, Simons, curator of Harvard's Neiman Foundation for Journalism, approached American Jews from all walks of life for their stories. They candidly discuss the traumas of immigration, shtetl networking kept alive in U.S. towns and cities, their experiences in politics, mixed marriage, anti-Semitism. We read their remembrances of Jewish street-gang turf wars on the Lower East Side, the Jewish presence in the old Wild West and Jews' contributions to the labor movement. Luminaries interviewed include Arthur Goldberg, Daniel Bell, Fred Schwartz ("Fred the Furrier") and radio host Larry King.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From interviews with 227 American Jews, journalist Simons seeks to distill the essence of the American Jewish experiencethe secret of how and why so many Jews succeeded in realizing the American dream. The range of those interviewed is impressive: young and old, rich and poor, immigrants and natives, religious and irreligious, Jews from all corners of the country. There are famous "voices" and lesser-knowns. Memoirs cover everything from the Leo Frank case to bagel-making. Neither scholarly nor comprehensive (the experiences recounted are in many cases far from normative), and with some embarrassing errors, this is still enjoyable to read and revealingly informative; for most libraries. Jonathan D. Sarna, Hebrew Union Coll . -Jewish Inst. of Religion, Cincinnati
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0395446805
• ISBN 13: 9780395446805
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 418