'Children of the American Jewish Ghetto': A Jewish community’s cherished past - review

The historical narrative thread of the volume tells the story of the Russian Jews who flooded into America at the end of the 19th century, beginning with impoverished immigrant families living in overcrowded city neighborhoods.

It follows their children into schools, and from there into elite institutions and prominent careers, and, despite the ever-present antisemitism, emphasizes the next generation’s notable achievements across the whole spectrum of American life.

As a social history, the book is a celebration of upward mobility – an inspiring account of learning, resilience, and advancement from hardship to high achievement.

“Within 15 years of arrival,” writes Rosenberg, “most of the Russian Jewish immigrants had left the ghettoes for better neighborhoods, and reached a standard of living equal to that of native-born Americans.”

Rosenberg was born in South Africa in the 1930s. Before settling in the United States, he lived in Tel Aviv, London, and Sydney. Having trained as a psychiatrist, he served as associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University. After what he describes as “a gratifying psychiatric career,” he shifted his primary focus to American history and has written some 15 books, largely about the role of individuals in shaping American economic and social development.

The central section of his book – chapters 10 to 14 – is devoted to sketches and short biographies of the children of the original Russian Jewish immigrants who reached prominence across most aspects of American society.

Chapter 10 covers the sports scene. Boxing – a field in which Jewish immigrants featured strongly – is given due prominence, and readers are treated to stories, among others, of Battling Levinsky, Izzy Schwartz (“the Ghetto Midget”), Ruby Goldstein, and Benny Leonard (“the Ghetto Wizard”). Rosenberg then moves on to deal with Jewish giants in basketball, baseball, and various Olympic track events.

When he tackles composers and authors, his pages brim over with well-known names – Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, Stephen Sondheim. As he so aptly comments: “They helped define American popular and classical music.”

In the rest of the chapter, Rosenberg lists movie directors such as Sidney Lumet, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, and Woody Allen. He ends with a catalogue of playwrights such as Arthur Miller and Neil Simon, theater directors, and producers.

Between the 1940s and 1980s, at least 40 Nobel Prize winners were the first- or second-generation offspring of Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States.

Rosenberg begins his chapter on business and industry with a rundown in the cosmetics industry. “Helena Rubenstein, Estee Lauder, Max Factor, Charles Revson [of Revlon], Samuel Rubin, and Lawrence Gelb were pioneers in the American beauty business,” he writes, and proceeds to recount their life stories.

In explaining the astonishing success of this second generation of Russian Jewish immigrants, Rosenberg stresses that they had a powerful internal ambition to “achieve something,” formed against the background of poverty, antisemitism, and blocked mobility in the Pale of Settlement.

The wide availability of education was a key factor. From overcrowded neighborhood public schools, the most able pupils moved on to elite high schools and then “the nation’s leading universities,” which provided the credentials and skills for upward mobility. A crucial change from Russia was the perception that the wider society would “allow them an opportunity” so that effort and talent could realistically translate into success.

These offspring of the mass Russian Jewish migration achieved a very high degree of social and occupational integration into American life, while retaining a recognizable Jewish distinctiveness. But since Rosenberg describes them as “children of the American Jewish ghetto,” he emphasizes that they still saw themselves, and were seen, as a distinct Jewish group, marked by memories of the shtetl, Yiddish spoken at home, and communal networks, even as they became culturally “American” and upwardly mobile.