Gentrification and the Jews

by Lily Hoffman Simon Jewish immigrant communities coming to North America around the turn of the 20th century faced many problems, including poverty, anti-Semitism, and poor living conditions. Most immigrants congregated in densely populated urban neighbourhoods. Today, many immigrant areas are undergoing processes of gentrification, with contemporary shopping centres and cafes barely reflecting the impoverished history. From the 1870s-1930s, Jewish immigrants to the US and Canada filtered through several hubs particularly prone to immigration, such as Montreal and New York, at least partly because of the large immigrant populations that already existed in these cities. As the number of Jewish immigrants grew, originating mainly from Eastern Europe, strong Jewish communities began to establish themselves in the New World. As with most immigrants arriving in North America with little or no material wealth, the new Jewish presence was...

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It’s cheese! It’s mustard! It’s…a knish?

By Symi Rom-Rymer If you happened to be walking down Second Avenue in New York’s East Village last Sunday afternoon, you might have seen an unexpected sight:  a small and solemn processional of people dressed in yellow.  This was no McDonald's protest or cheese parade.  Instead, it was a celebration and memorialization of an oft-forgotten history. In the 1920s, Second Avenue—then part of the Jewish Lower East Side-- was known for two things: Yiddish theater and food.   Artistically, it rivaled Broadway in its offerings, putting on plays by renowned playwrights such as Leo Tolstoy and George Bernard Shaw even before they reached mainstream American audiences.   So great was its popularity that when Yiddish theater great Jacob P. Adler, father of famed acting coach Stella Adler, died in 1926, two thousand people flooded the streets to pay...

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