Philadelphia Jewish Life 1940 1985

In a city with a long history of high social barriers and forbidding aristocratic preserves, Philadelphia Jews, in the last half of the twentieth century, became a force to reckon with in the cultural, political and economic life of the region. From the poor neighborhoods of original immigrant settlement, in South and West Philadelphia, Jews have made, as Murray Friedman recounts, the move from "outsiders" to "insiders" in Philadelphia life. Essays by a diverse range of contributors tell the story of this transformation in many spheres of life, both in and out of the Jewish community: from sports, politics, political alliances with other minority groups, to the significant debate between Zionists and anti-Zionists during and immediately after the war.In this new edition, Friedman takes the history of Philadelphia Jewish life to the close of the twentieth century, and looks back on how Jews have shaped-and have been shaped by-Philadelphia and its long immigrant history. Author note: Murray Friedman is Middle-Atlantic Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee and Director of the Myer and Rosaline Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including, most recently (with Albert D. Chernin), A Second Exodus: The American Movement to Free Soviet Jews.

Over the last 350 years, two million Jews emigrated to America from eastern & central Europe & from the Caribbean. Once settled as Americans, they created new Jewish religious, cultural, & charitable assoc. that fit the American experience. When Britain took the port of Phila. & territory around the Delaware River from Holland in 1664, it promised ¿liberty of conscience in church discipline¿ to settlers. From then on, Jewish traders could travel & live freely in PA. Contents of this study: Exploring Freedom: Jews in Colonial PA; Reshaping Jewish Life in Antebellum PA: Dividing & Uniting; Immigration & the Growth of Reform; 1880-1900: Immigration from Eastern Europe Increases; Shifting Crises: PA Jewry Before & After WW2; PA Population Table; & Glossary. Ill.

The Black Panther Party and Transformative Pedagogy: Place-Based Education in Philadelphia, by Omari L. Dyson,is the first scholarly text to detail the social relief efforts of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Branch of the Black Panther Party. Through a postcolonial lens, this story captures the lived resistances, highlights the socio-historical context, and examines the discourse of former members of the Black Panther Party and local residents of Philadelphia from 1968-1974. Overall, this book provides insight from a multiplicity of sources to better capture the identity(-ies) and complexity of the organization. Not only does this text resolve a dearth in the literature that highlights the multiple facets of the Black Panther Party (especially at the local level), but it serves as a template on effective strategies for researchers, educators, and policymakers to implement on their quest for social and educational transformation.

Philadelphia is famous for its colonial and revolutionary buildings and artifacts, which draw tourists from far and wide to gain a better understanding of the nation’s founding. Philadelphians, too, value these same buildings and artifacts for the stories they tell about their city. But Philadelphia existed long before the Liberty Bell was first rung, and its history extends well beyond the American Revolution.In Philadelphia: A Narrative History, Paul Kahan presents a comprehensive portrait of the city, from the region’s original Lenape inhabitants to the myriad of residents in the twenty-first century. As any history of Philadelphia should, this book chronicles the people and places that make the city unique: from Independence Hall to Eastern State Penitentiary, Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross to Cecil B. Moore and Cherelle Parker. Kahan also shows us how Philadelphia has always been defined by ethnic, religious, and racial diversity—from the seventeenth century, when Dutch, Swedes, and Lenapes lived side by side along the Delaware; to the nineteenth century, when the city was home to a vibrant community of free Black and formerly enslaved people; to the twentieth century, when it attracted immigrants from around the world. This diversity, however, often resulted in conflict, especially over access to public spaces. Those two themes— diversity and conflict— have shaped Philadelphia’s development and remain visible in the city’s culture, society, and even its geography. Understanding Philadelphia’s past, Kahan says, is key to envisioning future possibilities for the City of Brotherly Love.

From mayors and mummers to tap dancers and gamblers, South Philly has it all. This quintessential Philadelphia neighborhood boasts a complicated history of ethnic strife alongside community solidarity and, for good measure, some of the best bakeries in town. Among its many famous people South Philadelphia claims Marian Anderson, Frankie Avalon, Mayor Frank Rizzo, Temple Owl's coach John Chaney, Larry Fine of the Three Stooges, and "Loving" soap opera actress Lisa Peluso. For South Philadelphians, whether they stay or leave, the neighborhood is always happy to give you their opinions, and in this book they talk about their favorite subject to Murray Dubin, award winning journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, who also called South Philly home. Music and the arts are part of everyday life. Baritone Elliott Tessler says, "I'm not a celebrity, I'm a minor curiosity. If Pavarotti lived here, he would just be a minor curiosity, and probably because he was fat more than because he sang." Jean DiElsi remembers finding work in 1943 as a cashier at a diner that would become a South Philly landmark. "It was the only diner around and it was open 24 hours. If you went to dances, everybody would go to the Melrose Diner afterwards...No, there was no Mel or Rose. it was named after a can of tomatoes. In addition to being Philadelphia's first neighborhood, South Philly is the oldest ethnically and racially mixed big-city neighborhood in the nation. Catherine Williams remembers growing up black on Hoffman Street, "We had everything. We had the Jews, we had Italians, we had the blacks, we even had a Portuguese family. You never knew there was a color thing back then. I was the only black in my class at Southwark, but you never knew. In the third, fourth grade, some of those Italian boys was big, but you would have thought they were brothers to me." These are some of the people and the opinions that make up South Philadelphia and Murray Dubin will take you on a resident's tour of the ultimate city neighborhood. But for every interview, there's also a lot of history. And Dubin provides an historical examination that spans 300 years, from Thomas Jefferson living in South Philadelphia in 1793 to the burning of Palumbo's in 1994. Whether you're a South Philadelphian yourself, or just want to understand the South Philly phenomenon this book is a must. Author note: Murray Dubinwas born in South Philadelphia and is a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

From Paesani to White Ethnics analyzes the process by which people of Italian descent renegotiated their sense of community and ethnic self-perception in Philadelphia from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. At the turn of the century, Italian immigrants who arrived in Philadelphia originally formed allegiances and social clusters based on their localistic, provincial, or regional ties. By the late 1930s, however, the emergence of Italian nationalism together with the end of mass immigration from Italy and the appearance of an American-born second generation of individuals with loose ties to the land of their parents contributed to bring together Italian Americans from disparate local backgrounds and helped them to develop a common national identity that they had lacked upon arrival in the United States. Luconi explains how Italian Americans continued to distance themselves from other European minorities throughout the early postwar years until ethnic defensiveness against the alleged encroachments of African Americans as well as racial tensions over housing forced them to extend the boundaries of their ethnic identity in the 1960s and to redefine it within the broader context of the white ethnic movement. This process climaxed as Philadelphia polarized along racial lines on issues such as public education and crime in the late 1960s and a