The Jews of Harlem: The Rise, Decline, and Revival of a Jewish Community - Hardcover

Gurock, Jeffrey S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 147980116X ISBN 13: 9781479801169

Publisher: NYU Press, 2016

Synopsis

The complete story of Jewish Harlem and its significance in American Jewish history

New York Times columnist David W. Dunlap wrote a decade ago that “on the map of the Jewish Diaspora, Harlem Is Atlantis. . . . A vibrant hub of industry, artistry and wealth is all but forgotten. It is as if Jewish Harlem sank 70 years ago beneath waves of memory beyond recall.” During World War I, Harlem was the home of the second largest Jewish community in America. But in the 1920s Jewish residents began to scatter to other parts of Manhattan, to the outer boroughs, and to other cities. Now nearly a century later, Jews are returning uptown to a gentrified Harlem.

The Jews of Harlem follows Jews into, out of, and back into this renowned metropolitan neighborhood over the course of a century and a half. It analyzes the complex set of forces that brought several generations of central European, East European, and Sephardic Jews to settle there. It explains the dynamics that led Jews to exit this part of Gotham as well as exploring the enduring Jewish presence uptown after it became overwhelmingly black and decidedly poor. And it looks at the beginnings of Jewish return as part of the transformation of New York City in our present era. The Jews of Harlem contributes much to our understanding of Jewish and African American history in the metropolis as it highlights the ever-changing story of America’s largest city.

With The Jews of Harlem, the beginning of Dunlap’s hoped-for resurfacing of this neighborhood’s history is underway. Its contemporary story merits telling even as the memories of what Jewish Harlem once was warrants recall.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeffrey S. Gurock is Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University. A prize-winning author, he has written or edited fifteen books in American Jewish history. Gurock has served as chair of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society.He is the author of the recently published Parkchester: A Bronx Tale of Race and Ethnicity.

Review:

"Athoughtful and comprehensive history of Jewish Harlem." (American Jewish Archives Journal)

"Gurock traces anew the history of Jewish Harlem, a subject he first explored in When Harlem Was Jewish, 1870-1930. While the earlier work told the story of an important, but largely forgotten, community, this well-written, comprehensive study examines a neighborhood whose history "is not over, but rather a work in progress"... this book is not merely a localized case study, but one that has great significance for Jewish American as a whole." (Journal of American Ethnic History)

"The Jews of Harlemis a masterful work of scholarship that further concretizes Jeffrey Gurock's position as a preeminent academic practitioner. In parallel, it offers the reader a unique perspective from which to witness transitions in American Judaism, as well as the way one of its prime chroniclers interfaces with the story he tells." (Journal of Religion)

"This well-written volume makes clear that the Harlem Jewish community significantly influenced American Jewry as a whole . . . This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of American Judaism." (Publishers Weekly)

"What stays with you long after you have finished [The Jews of Harlem] is Gurock's steadfast devotion to his subject." (Jewish Review of Books)

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"Jeffrey Gurock has done it again! His well-crafted narrative presents a convincing history of Parkchesters transition from a whites-only melting pot to a complex and racially diverse alternative to suburbia. Gurock raises significant questions that are persuasively answered by his solid research and clear-eyed analysis. His chapters throb with real life tensions and controversies, and finally with lessons about how reason and comity ultimately can prevail over intolerance.

" (Thomas Kessner,The Graduate Center, City University of New York)

"Jeffrey Gurock offers an evocative account of the evolution of Jewish Harlem. This book is a 'must read' for anyone interested in race, religion, and culture in New York's ever-changing neighborhood." (Beth S. Wenger,Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania)

"Nearly forty years after the publication of his first monograph,When Harlem Was Jewish, 18701930(1979), Jeffrey S. Gurock has returned to Harlem, revisiting the story of the Jewish communitys beginnings in the 1870s and 1880s, its heyday in the early twentieth century, and its rapid decline after World War I, and adding something that seemed unlikely in the 1970s: the return of Jews to the neighborhood." (The American Historical Review)

"Jeffrey Gurock is the historian of Jewish Harlem, but he is also its anthropologist and sociologist. He chronicles the fortunes of this storied neighborhood treasured by blacks and Jews and now home to both groups with the fresh-eyed relish of an explorer discovering a new land yet with the authority of an old-timer intimately familiar with every block and alley. He has populated his fascinating tale of Jewish Harlem's development, decline, and resurgence not just with events and institutions but with flesh and blood people who bring the community to vivid life." (Joseph Berger,author of The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America)

"The Jews of Harlem skillfully traces Jewish Harlem from its tentative beginnings to the years when Jewish life there rivaled that of the Lower East Side, and from the massive migration elsewhere to the community's even more tentative reemergence today. It's an important piece of American Jewish history." (Segula Magazine)

About this edition

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 147980116X
• ISBN 13: 9781479801169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320