New York Jews and the decline of urban ethnicity, 1950-1970 / Eli Lederhendler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lederhendler, Eli.

Series:

Modern Jewish history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--New York (State)--New York--Intellectual life.

Jews.

Jews--Cultural assimilation--New York (State)--New York.

Jews--New York (State)--New York--Identity.

Jews--New York (State)--New York--Politics and government--20th century.

Politics and government.

Identity (Philosophical concept).

Jews--Cultural assimilation.

Intellectual life.

New York (N.Y.)--Ethnic relations.

New York (N.Y.).

National Book Committee.

Ethnic relations.

New York (State)--New York.

Physical Description:

xix, 275 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Edition:

lst edition.

Place of Publication:

Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press, 2001.

Summary:

Here is an intriguing look at the cause and effect of New York City politics and culture in the 1950s and 1960s and the inner life of one of the city's largest ethnic/religious groups. The New York Jewish mystique has always been tied to the fabric and fortunes of the city, as has the community's social aspirations, political inclinations, and its very notion of "Jewishness" itself.

Insightfully and meticulously Eli Lederhendler explores the decline of secular Jewish ethnic culture, the growth of Jewish religious factions, and the rise of a more assertive ethnocentrism. Using memoirs, essays, news items, and data on suburbanization, religion, and race relations, the book analyzes the decline of the metropolis in the 1960s, increasing clashes between Jews and African Americans, and postwar transiency of neighborhood-based ethnic awareness.

Contents:

1. Jews and the Great Urban Utopia 1

2. Past and Premonition: Mass Society and Its Discontents 36

3. A Culture of Retrieval 63

4. What's to Become of Man, Then? 93

5. Why Can't They Be Like Us? Race, Class, and Civic Culture 127

6. Fragment and Confront: The Politics of Division 164

7. City and Ethnicity 201.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-263) and index.

ISBN:

0815607113

OCLC:

45575722