Ruth Gay's intimate, unforgettable account of the richly textured lives of a resilient people. Nearly three million Jews came to America from Eastern Europe between 1880 and the outbreak of the First World War. Mostly young, single, and uneducated, they possessed hope for a new life in a new land. Culturally, they skated on thin icemolded by a daily existence vastly different from what they found in America. For many, New York City provided a refuge, for in its densely populated, Yiddish-speaking enclaves, it was possible to cling to customs from life in the old country. Here Ruth Gay colorfully shades in details of the immigrant story rarely told: the tenacious resistance to assimilation by many Jews from the shtetl. We see housewives to whom nothing but a perfectly cleaned floor would do; we discover that a bed was a prized possession for people who stood on their feet all day; and we learn how food, especially, was a means of preserving traditions: the noodles, kosher meats, fresh cheeses, and the breads and the "plezl-crisp." Through hard work, laughter, and storytelling, the Eastern European Jews in New York maintained a sense of community longer than most immigrant groups until a new generation, born in America, matured, married, and moved out of the neighborhoods. A lively account of a generation that rejected melting-pot America.
- ISBN10 0393039919
- ISBN13 9780393039917
- Publish Date 17 November 1996
- Publish Status Inactive
- Out of Print 14 August 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English