The Last of the Ellis Island Jews: A Brooklyn Memoir - Paperback

by Joel Dinerstein (Author)

A tragicomic memoir of a dysfunctional, working-class Brooklyn Jewish family.

The Last of the Ellis Island Jews is a tragicomic memoir of a dysfunctional working-class Brooklyn family that illuminates both the vitality of urban life in the twentieth century and the social turmoil of white flight. As a child of immigrants born to older parents, Dinerstein has a unique perspective on four generations-from his grandparents escaping Russia's pogroms to his parents' embattled marriage to his older Boomer siblings (split between feminist and Republican politics) to his own hippie hopes. As a white teenager in majority Black public schools, Dinerstein's firsthand experience led to his academic career as a scholar of race and music. Yet his family fits no paradigm of Jewish success due to a father with rage and gambling problems, resulting in the four siblings escaping early to the Brooklyn streets. As a family growing up with a diasporic identity, the Dinersteins provide a primer of ethnic Jewish culture through iconic scenes: a selfish Seder, a chaotic Bar Mitzvah, a videotaped bris, an allergy attack at Dachau, a staring contest with the Rebbe. Most of all, The Last of the Ellis Island Jews is a chronicle of lost worlds.

Author Biography

Joel Dinerstein is Professor of English at Tulane University, where he holds a Sizeler Professorship in Judaic Studies. His many works include The Origins of Cool in Postwar America and Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the World Wars. He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.