WE LIVED THERE TOO: In Their Own Words and Pictures--Pioneer Jews and the Westward Movement of America 1630-1930

by Kenneth & Irving Howe Libo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1984

The authors of How We Lived, documenting the Lower East Side Yiddish culture of Howe's Worm of Our Fathers, here document Jewish settlement of the country at large--overlapping in part, but only in part, Harriet and Fred Rochlin's fine new photographic history of Jewish life in the Far West. Libo and Howe's subjects--""pioneers"" only in the loosest sense--stretch from the first arrivals in New Amsterdam to a serviceman in WW II Alaska. They include prosperous Jewish colonials, like the Philadelphia Gratzes; the protean journalist/dramatist/politician Mordecai Noah (1785-1851); a swarm of mid-century Bavarian peddlers; Levi Strauss and Mike Goldwater and the Guggenheims. Moreover: ""No history of Jews in America would be complete without noting the achievements of Otto Mears, a Russian Jew. . . known as 'the Pathfinder of the San Juan' "" (among many other lesser-knowns included). There is note of religious adjustments, with wry comment: ""A new country where Jews were seen by and large as fellow citizens required a new kind of rabbi willing to suppose that the Diaspora was a blessing not a curse."" There is attention to early Jewish communities, local congregations, the problem of Jewish education. And in the post-1880 period, the authors' particular identification with the Yiddish culture of the East European newcomers brings the book's most unusual material: Midwest anecdotes with a Yiddish accent, accounts of Plains life translated from the Yiddish. Nothing is really missing here: not unionism (Sidney Hillman), radicalism (Emma Goldman), or ""the birth and growth of Zionism in Kansas City."" Lots of flavorful selections, intelligently framed and intriguingly illustrated.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION