Jews of Brooklyn (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1584650036 ISBN 13: 9781584650034

Publisher: Brandeis University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Flatbush Avenue, Borough Park, Coney Island and Brighton Beach, Brooklyn Bridge, Loehman's and Lundy's, Mrs. Stahl's potato knishes, the Dodgers, Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen, front stoops and back porches, Hasids and Socialists, a place, a feeling, a state of mind -- Brooklyn and American Jewry grew up together in the 20th century. From the first documented settlement of Jews in Brooklyn in the 1830s to the present day, Jewish presence -- always between a quarter to a third of Brooklyn's entire population -- has been key to the development of the borough. Jewish families and foodways, businesses, schools, and synagogues, simchas and celebrations, have been an essential component of Brooklyn life. In Jews of Brooklyn, over forty historians, folklorists, museum curators, musicians, and ordinary Brooklyn Jews with something to say about egg creams and Brooklyn accents, present a vivid, living record of this astonishing cultural heritage. Essays in the first section, "Coming to Brooklyn" explore the creative and often bewildering foundations of immigrant life. Juxtaposed are arrival experiences of eastern European Jews, Syrian Jews, Jews from Israel, and Holocaust survivors, and the kinds of shops, factories, synagogues, and schools they established there. "Living in Brooklyn," looks at neighborhoods, culture, and institutions from the 1930s to the present. Evocative portraits of Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Brighton Beach, Brownsville, Canarsie, Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Williamsburg describe street life and local characters, offering an intimate look at Jewish family life, even as they convey a sense of evolving neighborhoods and changing times. "Leaving Brooklyn / Returning to Brooklyn" features essays on famous Brooklynites such as Barbra Streisand and Danny Kaye as well as numerous personal reminiscences and family portraits of ordinary folk, making it clear that Brooklyn, for better and for worse, maintains a lasting presence in the lives of Jews born and raised there. Ilana Abramovitch's Introduction provides general historical context. The book also features a detailed timeline of Jewish immigration to and settlement in borough's neighborhoods, and of key events and turning points in the history of Jewish Brooklyn, as well as a Selected Bibliography.

About this title

From the Publisher:

8 1/2 x 11 trim. 150 illus., Map LC 2001-004502

About the Author:

MARJORIE AGOSÍN is Professor of Spanish at Wellesley College, and author of Uncertain Travelers: Conversations with Jewish Women Immigrants to America (1999, a volume in the Brandeis Series on Jewish Women), Always from Somewhere Else: My Jewish Father (1998), Ashes of Revolt (1996), A Cross and a Star: Memoirs of a Jewish Girl in Chile (1995), and 18 books of poetry, fiction, and short stories. In 1995 she received First Prize for Poetry from Letras de Oro and the Latino Literature Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brandeis University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1584650036
• ISBN 13: 9781584650034
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Abramovitch Ilana, Galvin Seán