From Suburb To Shtetl

Author : Egon Mayer,William B. Helmreich
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2017-07-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781351518437

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From Suburb to Shtetl by Egon Mayer,William B. Helmreich Pdf

"From Suburb to Shtetl" is an outstanding ethnography that moves beyond simple demographics. Mayer weaves an intricate tapestry of how family, school, and community leaders influence each other. Whether discussing the role of the rebbe or the matchmaker, those who know these communities will find what he says as relevant today as it was when first penned. This is hardly surprising, for the ultra-Orthodox community takes great pride in not changing, in maintaining itself as it was in Europe despite the allure of modern American society. His discussion of synagogue life is particularly informative and evocative. Those in charge of helping immigrants adopted the path of least resistance, allowing and even encouraging them to retain their identities except for those few aspects that might threaten the country's national interests. The American Orthodox community was tremendously augmented by the arrival from Europe, after World War Two, of thousands of Orthodox Jews who remained devoted to that way of life. Egon Mayer was himself part of a smaller, but significant group of Jews who came to the U.S. and settled mostly in Boro Park in the wake of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The interaction between the Hasidim and their less fervent Orthodox counterparts described and analyzed in this volume tells us a great deal about how people negotiate their beliefs, values, and norms when forced into close contact with each other in an urban setting within the larger American culture. By exploring these and many other related issues Mayer has given us the chance to assess and forecast the future of American Jewish life as a whole.

Author : Jeffrey Shandler
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2014-01-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813562742

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Shtetl by Jeffrey Shandler Pdf

In Yiddish, shtetl simply means “town.” How does such an unassuming word come to loom so large in modern Jewish culture, with a proliferation of uses and connotations? By examining the meaning of shtetl, Jeffrey Shandler asks how Jewish life in provincial towns in Eastern Europe has become the subject of extensive creativity, memory, and scholarship from the early modern era in European history to the present. In the post-Holocaust era, the shtetl looms large in public culture as the epitome of a bygone traditional Jewish communal life. People now encounter the Jewish history of these towns through an array of cultural practices, including fiction, documentary photography, film, memoirs, art, heritage tourism, and political activism. At the same time, the shtetl attracts growing scholarly interest, as historians, social scientists, literary critics, and others seek to understand both the complex reality of life in provincial towns and the nature of its wide-ranging remembrance. Shtetl: A Vernacular Intellectual History traces the trajectory of writing about these towns—by Jews and non-Jews, residents and visitors, researchers, novelists, memoirists, journalists and others—to demonstrate how the Yiddish word for “town” emerged as a key word in Jewish culture and studies. Shandler proposes that the intellectual history of the shtetl is best approached as an exemplar of engaging Jewish vernacularity, and that the variable nature of this engagement, far from being a drawback, is central to the subject’s enduring interest.

Author : Robert Rand
Publisher : Syracuse University Press
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0815607210

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My Suburban Shtetl by Robert Rand Pdf

A novel about growing up in Skokie, Illinois, home to one of America's largest communities of Jewish Holocaust survivors.

Author : Samuel C. Heilman
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2006-07-25
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780520247635

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Sliding to the Right by Samuel C. Heilman Pdf

"Heilman is one of the most productive, interesting, and important sociologists writing about Jewish communities in the world today. This book is a significant snapshot, filled with Heilman's fine-grained observations of particular cultural practices such as humor, posters, and Rabbi portraits. Heilman is a first-rate thinker, an excellent researcher whose work is richly empirical, and an unusually clear and lively writer."—Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, author of Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage

Author : Haym Soloveitchik
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
Page : 149 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2021-09-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781800857865

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Rupture and Reconstruction by Haym Soloveitchik Pdf

The essay that forms the core of this book is an attempt to understand the developments that have occurred in Orthodox Jewry in America in the last seventy years, and to analyse their implications. The prime change is what is often described as ‘the swing to the right’, a marked increase in ritual stringency, a rupture in patterns of behaviour that has had major consequences not only for Jewish society but also for the nature of Jewish spirituality. For Haym Soloveitchik, the key feature at the root of this change is that, as a result of migration to the ‘New Worlds’ of England, the US, and Israel and acculturation to its new surroundings, American Jewry—indeed, much of the Jewish world— had to reconstruct religious practice from normative texts: observance could no longer be transmitted mimetically, on the basis of practices observed in home and street. In consequence, behaviour once governed by habit is now governed by rule. This new edition allows the author to deal with criticisms raised since the essay, long established as a classic in the field, was originally published, and enables readers to gain a fuller perspective on a topic central to today’s Jewish world and its development.

Author : Hella Winston
Publisher : Beacon Press
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2006-11-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780807036280

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Unchosen by Hella Winston Pdf

A “complex and heart-wrenchingly compelling” exploration of Hasidic Jews struggling to live within, or outside, their restrictive communities—for viewers of Unorthodox and One of Us (Boston Globe) When Hella Winston began talking with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn for her doctoral dissertation in sociology, she was surprised to be covertly introduced to Hasidim unhappy with their highly restrictive way of life and sometimes desperately struggling to escape it. Unchosen tells the stories of these “rebel” Hasidim, serious questioners who long for greater personal and intellectual freedom than their communities allow. She meets is Malky Schwartz, who grew up in a Lubavith sect in Brooklyn, and started Footsteps, Inc., an organization that helps ultra-Orthodox Jews who are considering or have already left their community. There is Yossi, a young man who, though deeply attached to the Hasidic culture in which he was raised, longed for a life with fewer restrictions and more tolerance. Yossi's efforts at making such a life, however, were being severely hampered by his fourth grade English and math skills, his profound ignorance of the ways of the outside world, and the looming threat that pursuing his desires would almost certainly lead to rejection by his family and friends. Then she met Dini, a young wife and mother whose decision to deviate even slightly from Hasidic standards of modesty led to threatening phone calls from anonymous men, warning her that she needed to watch the way she was dressing if she wanted to remain a part of the community. Someone else introduced Winston to Steinmetz, a closet bibliophile worked in a small Judaica store in his community and spent his days off anxiously evading discovery in the library of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, whose shelves contain non-Hasidic books he is forbidden to read but nonetheless devours, often several at a sitting. There were others still who had actually made the wrenching decision to leave their communities altogether. In her new Preface, Winston discusses the passionate reactions the book has elicited among Hasidim and non-Hasidim alike.

Author : Thomas Bender,Carle E. Schorske
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
Page : 426 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 1994-01-13
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1610440404

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Budapest and New York by Thomas Bender,Carle E. Schorske Pdf

Little over a century ago, New York and Budapest were both flourishing cities engaging in spectacular modernization. By 1930, New York had emerged as an innovating cosmopolitan metropolis, while Budapest languished under the conditions that would foster fascism. Budapest and New York explores the increasingly divergent trajectories of these once-similar cities through the perspectives of both Hungarian and American experts in the fields of political, cultural, social and art history. Their original essays illuminate key aspects of urban life that most reveal the turn-of-the-century evolution of New York and Budapest: democratic participation, use of public space, neighborhood ethnicity, and culture high and low. What comes across most strikingly in these essays is New York's cultivation of social and political pluralism, a trend not found in Budapest. Nationalist ideology exerted tremendous pressure on Budapest's ethnic groups to assimilate to a single Hungarian language and culture. In contrast, New York's ethnic diversity was transmitted through a mass culture that celebrated ethnicity while muting distinct ethnic traditions, making them accessible to a national audience. While Budapest succumbed to the patriotic imperatives of a nation threatened by war, revolution, and fascism, New York, free from such pressures, embraced the variety of its people and transformed its urban ethos into a paradigm for America. Budapest and New York is the lively story of the making of metropolitan culture in Europe and America, and of the influential relationship between city and nation. In unifying essays, the editors observe comparisons not only between the cities, but in the scholarly outlooks and methodologies of Hungarian and American histories. This volume is a unique urban history. Begun under the unfavorable conditions of a divided world, it represents a breakthrough in cross-cultural, transnational, and interdisciplinary historical work.

Author : Ezra Mendelsohn,Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 9780195134681

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Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XV: People of the City by Ezra Mendelsohn,Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry Pdf

This collection of articles is devoted to the theme of Jews in the modern city, including topics such as Jewish-Christian relations, klezmer music, and urbanization.

Author : Ezra Mendelsohn
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2000-02-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780190285494

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Studies in Contemporary Jewry by Ezra Mendelsohn Pdf

The Jews have been an urban people par excellence, and their influence on the urban landscape is unmistakable. Who can imagine modern Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, or New York, to name just a few examples, without their large, vibrant, and creative Jewish populations? Conversely, the urban experience has been a decisive factor in modern Jewish history. This new volume in the acclaimed Studies in Contemporary Jewry series is devoted to the theme of Jews and the modern city. It features essays on Orthodox Jewry in the city, Jewish-Christian relations, klezmer music, the impact of urbanization on German Jewry, the Jewish communities in New York and St. Petersburg, and the emergence of the first "Hebrew City" (Tel-Aviv). It also includes a discussion of the new prayer book of the Conservative movement in Israel. Like others in the series, this book presents current scholarship in the form of a symposium, essays, and book reviews by distinguished experts in Jewish studies from around the world. Published annually by the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Studies in Contemporary Jewry continues to be an invaluable resource for scholars of modern history and culture.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 600 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 1978
Category : Jewish veterans
ISBN : UOM:39015020717164

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The Jewish Veteran by Anonim Pdf

Author : Irwin Altman,Abraham Wandersman
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2013-06-29
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781489919625

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Neighborhood and Community Environments by Irwin Altman,Abraham Wandersman Pdf

This ninth volume in the series deals with a fascinating and complex topic in the environment and behavior field. Neighborhoods and com munities are in various stages of formation and transition in almost every society, nation, and culture. A variety of political, economic, and social factors have resulted in the formation of new communities and the transformation of older communities. Thus we see nomadic people set tling into stable communities, new towns sprouting up around the world, continuing suburban sprawl, simultaneous deterioration, re newal and gentrification of urban areas, demographic changes in com munities, and so on. As in previous volumes, the range of content, theory, and methods represented in the various chapters is intended to be broadly based, with perspectives rooted in several disciplines-anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, urban studies. Although many other disciplines also play an important role in the study and understanding of neigh borhoods and community environments, we hope that the contributions to this volume will at least present readers with a broad sampling-if not a comprehensive treatment-of the topic.

Author : William B. Helmreich
Publisher : KTAV Publishing House, Inc.
Page : 454 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : History
ISBN : 0881256412

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The World of the Yeshiva by William B. Helmreich Pdf

In the advance yeshiva, adult males spend long periods of time-sometimes their entire lives-studying and interpreting traditional writings on Jewish law and theology, all but totally cut off from the mainstream of American life, and indeed, the lives of most American Jews. Why is this East European incarnation of an ancient Jewish tradition flourishing in present-day America? What does its successful transplantaion tell us about Orthodox Jewish life?

Author : Steven T. Katz,Steven Bayme
Publisher : University Press of America
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2012-07-10
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780761851462

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Continuity and Change by Steven T. Katz,Steven Bayme Pdf

This collection of essays was inspired by the desire to create a suitable tribute to Dr. Irving Greenberg. Dr. Greenberg has been one of the truly major figures in the American Jewish community for the past forty years. A community activist and a theologian of distinction, he has influenced not only the practical direction of Jewish life, especially through his work with the leadership of Jewish Federations throughout the country, but also the shape of contemporary Jewish thought through his writings on the Holocaust, the State of Israel, and traditional Jewish themes. The outstanding list of authors who have contributed to this volume, writing on central issues in traditional and modern Jewish thought and history, are a testimony to Dr. Greenberg's repercussive presence and theological contribution. Those interested in the contemporary American Jewish community and the nature and shape of modern Jewish thought at the beginning of the new millennium will find this a valuable, thought-provoking addition to their libraries.

Author : Robert W. Snyder
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2019-02-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780231548588

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All the Nations Under Heaven by Robert W. Snyder Pdf

First published in 1996, All the Nations Under Heaven has earned praise and a wide readership for its unparalleled chronicle of the role of immigrants and migrants in shaping the history and culture of New York City. This updated edition of a classic text brings the story of the immigrant experience in New York City up to the present with vital new material on the city’s revival as a global metropolis with deeply rooted racial and economic inequalities. All the Nations Under Heaven explores New York City’s history through the stories of people who moved there from countless places of origin and indelibly marked its hybrid popular culture, its contentious ethnic politics, and its relentlessly dynamic economy. From Dutch settlement to the extraordinary diversity of today’s immigrants, the book chronicles successive waves of Irish, German, Jewish, and Italian immigrants and African American and Puerto Rican migrants, showing how immigration changes immigrants and immigrants change the city. In a compelling narrative synthesis, All the Nations Under Heaven considers the ongoing tensions between inclusion and exclusion, the pursuit of justice and the reality of inequality, and the evolving significance of race and ethnicity. In an era when immigration, inequality, and globalization are bitterly debated, this revised edition is a timely portrait of New York City through the lenses of migration and immigration.

Author : Martin E. Marty,R. Scott Appleby
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 863 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2004-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226508863

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Accounting for Fundamentalisms by Martin E. Marty,R. Scott Appleby Pdf

Accounting for Fundamentalisms features treatments of fundamentalist movements, groups that often make headlines but are rarely understood, as part of the multivolume Fundamentalism Project. This book remains a standard reference source for comprehending the dynamics of fundamentalist movements around the world. Surveying fundamentalist movements in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, the contributors to Accounting for Fundamentalisms describe the organization of these movements, their leadership and recruiting techniques, and the ways in which their ideological programs and organizational structures shift over time in response to changing political and social environments.