3 Review(s)

New York Jews, so visible and integral to the culture, economy and politics of America’s greatest city, has eluded the grasp of historians for decades. Surprisingly, no comprehensive history of New York Jews has ever been written. City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, a three volume set of original research, pioneers a path-breaking interpretation of a Jewish urban community at once the largest in Jewish history and most important in the modern world. Volume I, Haven of Liberty, by historian Howard B. Rock, chronicles the arrival of the first Jews to New York (then New Amsterdam) in 1654 and highlights their political and economic challenges. Overcoming significant barriers, colonial and republican Jews in New York laid the foundations for the development of a thriving community. Volume II, Emerging Metropolis, written by Annie Polland and Daniel Soyer, describes New York’s transformation into a Jewish city. Focusing on the urban Jewish built environment—its tenements and banks, synagogues and shops, department stores and settlement houses—it conveys the extraordinary complexity of Jewish immigrant society. Volume III, Jews in Gotham, by historian Jeffrey S. Gurock, highlights neighborhood life as the city’s distinctive feature. New York retained its preeminence as the capital of American Jews because of deep roots in local worlds that supported vigorous political, religious, and economic diversity. Each volume includes a “visual essay” by art historian Diana Linden interpreting aspects of life for New York’s Jews from their arrival until today. These illustrated sections, many in color, illuminate Jewish material culture and feature reproductions of early colonial portraits, art, architecture, as well as everyday culture and community. Overseen by noted scholar Deborah Dash Moore, City of Promises offers the largest Jewish city in the world, in the United States, and in Jewish history its first comprehensive account. About the Author Deborah Dash Moore is Director of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Howard B. Rock, a professor at Florida International University for thirty-six years, has written extensively on the history of New York City. His first book, Artisans of the New Republic, triggered a new interest in artisan studies. His most recent work, Cityscapes: A History of New York in Images (with Deborah Dash Moore) was a graphic analysis of New York’s 350 year history. He is also the 2012 Runner-Up for the Dixon Ryan Manuscript Award presented by the New York Historical Association. Annie Polland is Vice President for Programs and Education at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Ana New Yorketiver, Daniel Soyer teaches history at  Fordham University in the Bronx. He is the author of the prize-winning Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939, and co-editor and translator of My Future Is in America: East European Jewish Immigrant Autobiographies. He lives in Brooklyn. 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 and as associate editor of American Jewish History. He lives with his family in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Diana L. Linden is an art historian who has taught at Pitzer College and the University of Southern California and served as Museum Educator at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Table of Contents Foreword by Deborah Dash Moore, General Editor General Editor’s Acknowledgments Authors’ Acknowledgments Introduction: The Emerging Jewish Metropolis 1. Neighborhood Networks 2.“Radical Reform”: Union through Charity 3. Moorish Manhattan 4. Immigrant Citadels: Tenements, Shops, Stores, and Streets 5. Capital of the Jewish World 6. Jews at the Polls: The Rise of the Jewish Style in New York Politics 7.Jews and New York Culture 8. Conclusion: The Jewish Metropolis at the End of the 9. Immigrant Era 10. Visual Essay: An Introduction to the Visual and 11. Material Culture of New York City Jews, 1840–1920 Notes Bibliography Index About the Authors