Deborah Dash Moore - City of promises : a history of the Jews of New York

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A publisher of original scholarship since its founding in 1916, New York University Press Produces more than 100 new books each year, with a backlist of 3,000 titles in print. Working across the humanities and social sciences, NYU Press has award-winning lists in sociology, law, cultural and American studies, religion, American history, anthropology, politics, criminology, media and communication, literary studies, and psychology.

Jews in Gotham

New York Jews in a Changing City, 19202010

CITY OF PROMISES was made possible in part through the generosity of a number of individuals and foundations. Their thoughtful support will help ensure that this work is affordable to schools, libraries, and other not-for-profit institutions.

The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation made a leadership gift before a word of CITY OF PROMISES had been written, a gift that set this project on its way. Hugo Barreca, The Marian B. and Jacob K. Javits Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Malkin, David P. Solomon, and a donor who wishes to remain anonymous helped ensure that it never lost momentum. We are deeply grateful.

CITY OF PROMISES
A HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF NEW YORK

GENERAL EDITOR: DEBORAH DASH MOORE

VOLUME 1

Haven of Liberty

New York Jews in the New World, 1654-1865

HOWARD B. ROCK

VOLUME 2

Emerging Metropolis

New York Jews in the Age of Immigration, 1840-1920

ANNIE POLLAND AND DANIEL SOYER

VOLUME 3

Jews in Gotham

New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920-2010

JEFFREY S. GUROCK

Advisory Board:
Hasia Diner (New York University)
Leo Hershkowitz (Queens College)
Ira Katznelson
(Columbia University)
Thomas Kessner (CUNY Graduate Center)
Tony Michels (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Judith C. Siegel (Center for Jewish History)
Jenna Weissman-Joselit (Princeton University)
Beth Wenger (University of Pennsylvania)

CITY OF PROMISES

A HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF NEW YORK

JEWS IN GOTHAM

NEW YORK JEWS IN A CHANGING CITY, 1920-2010

JEFFREY S. GUROCK

WITH A FOREWORD BY

DEBORAH DASH MOORE

AND WITH A VISUAL ESSAY BY

DIANA L. LINDEN

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org

2012 by New York University
All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
City of promises: a history of the Jews of New York / general editor, Deborah Dash Moore.
v. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. Haven of liberty: New York Jews in the New World, 1654-1865 / Howard B. Rock v. 2. Emerging metropolis: New York Jews in the age of immigration, 1840-1920 / Annie Polland and Daniel Soyer v. 3. Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a changing city, 1920-2010.
ISBN 978-0-8147-7632-2 (cl: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8147-4521-2 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-8147-7692-6 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-8147-1731-8 (boxed set: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8147-2932-8 (e-set)
1. JewsNew York (State)New York. 2. New York (N.Y.)Ethnic relations. I.Moore, Deborah Dash, 1946- II. Rock, Howard B., 1944
F128.9.J5C64 2012
305.89240747dc23 2012003246

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Zev Jacob, Margot Harper, and Hannah Leah

CONTENTS

DIANA L. LINDEN

FOREWORD

[O]f all the big cities, Sergeant Milton Lehman of the Stars and Stripes affirmed in 1945, New York is still the promised land. New York Jews understood that there were many ways to be Jewish. The city welcomed Jews in all their variety. New York Jews saw the city as a place where they, too, could flourish and express themselves. As a result, they came to identify with the city, absorbing its ethos even as they helped to shape its urban characteristics. When World War II ended in Europe with victory over Nazi Germany, New Yorks promises glowed more brightly still.

New Yorks multiethnic diversity, shaped in vital dimensions by its large Jewish population, shimmered as a showplace of American democratic distinctiveness, especially vis--vis Europe. In contrast to a continent that had become a vast slaughterhouse, where millions of European Jews had been ruthlessly murdered with industrial efficiency, New York glistened as a city Jews could and did call their home in America. The famous skyline had defined urban cosmopolitanism in the years after World War I. Now the citys thriving ethnic neighborhoodsJewish and Catholic, African American and Puerto Rican, Italian and Irishcame to represent modern urban culture. New Yorks economy responded robustly to demands of war production. By the end of hostilities, its per capita income exceeded the national average by 14 percent.

As the city flourished during and after the war, it maintained its political commitments to generous social welfare benefits to help its poorest residents. Jews advocated for these policies, supporting efforts to establish a liberal urban legacy. In modeling a progressive and prosperous multiethnic twentieth-century American city, New York demonstrated what its Jews valued. Versions of Jewish urbanism played not just on the political stage but also on the streets of the citys neighborhoods. Its expressions could be found as well in New Yorks centers of cultural production.

By the middle of the twentieth century, no city offered Jews more than New York. It nourished both celebration and critique. New York gave Jews visibility as individuals and as a group. It provided employment and education, inspiration and freedom, fellowship and community. Jews reciprocated by falling in love with the city, its buildings hard angles and perspectives, its grimy streets and harried pace. But by the 1960s and 70s, Jews love affair with the city soured. For many of the second generation who grew up on New Yorks sidewalks, immersed in its babel of languages and cultural syncretism, prosperity dimmed their affection for the working-class urban world of their youth. Many of them aspired to suburban pleasures of home ownership, grass and trees that did not have to be shared with others in public parks. Yet New York City remained the wellspring of Jewish American culture for much of the century, a resource of Jewishness even for those living thousands of miles west of the Hudson River.

Jews had not always felt free to imagine the city as their special place. Indeed, not until mass immigration from Europe piled up their numbers, from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands, had Jews laid claim to New York and influenced its politics and culture. Its Jewish population soared from five hundred thousand at the turn of the twentieth century to 1.1 million before the start of World War I. On the eve of World War II, Jews, over a quarter of New Yorks residents, ranked as the largest ethnic group.flourishing popular music business, and extensive publishing in several languages. Jews were used to living as a minority in Europe and the Middle East. New York offered life without a majority populationwithout one single ethnic group dominating urban society. Now Jews could go about their business, much of it taking place within ethnic niches, as if they were the citys predominant group.

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