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Full Description
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.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Prologue The Lost World of Jewish Flatbush (1974)
Acknowledgments
1. Bubbe and the Twins Leave the Old Country (1923)
2. The Baby of the Family (1958)
3. Adele-&-Joel Make a Pact (1963-64)
4. All in the Family (1964-66)
5. The Elevator Building (1966)
6. Florence and Sid in the '60s (1966-68)
7. The Holocaust Across the Street (1967)
8. The Joys of Flatbush (1968)
9. 1968, An Interlude
10. Growing Up Kosher (1969)
11. Miracles and Breakages (1969-70)
12. Race Changes in Junior High (1970)
13. (Not Your Average) Bar Mitzvah (1971)
14. Hippiedom at Wel-Met Camps (1968-1974)
15. A Gertie Way of Speaking (Yiddish)
16. Teen-Aged Working Life Blues (1972)
17. Cityboys and Suburban Teens (1973)
18. The Athletic Joys of Flatbush (1973)
19. The Four of Us (1973)
20. The Great Music Year (1974)
21. Black Culture at Erasmus (1974)
22. Exit Flatbush, White Flight (1975)
23. Freshman Year at UB (1975-76)
24. Death, Sex, and Summer Jobs (1976)
25. The Summer of '77
26. What's In A Name? (1978)
27. The RA vs. The Rabbi (1978)
28. Heading Down Thunder Road (1979-80)
29. The Year of California Dreaming (1980-81)
30. Adele, the Wandering Jew
31. The Prodigal Son Comes Home, Inverted (1981)
32. A Haunting in Munich, Germany (1981)
33. An Epiphany in Mom's Kitchen (1982)
34. The Dream of Four Yarmulkes (1982-83)
35. Back to Flatbush, or Meet the Parents (1984)
36. The 15 Minutes of Fame of a Failed White Savior (1984-85)
37. My Son on Donahue! (1985)
38. The Rosh Hashanah Videotape (1986)
39. The Rebbe Gives Me Such A Look (1988)
40. The Living Past, The New Kid on the Block (1988)
41. The Louis Armstrong Dream (1989)
42. Jake's Bris, Mara's Brooklyn (1989-90)
43. Gentrification and Brooklyn's Lost Worlds (1991)
44. The Diaspora of The Dinersteins (1992)
Epilogue
45. Father and Son at the Forest Diner (1994)
46. Gertie Leaves New York at the Millennium (1999-2000)
47. Old Brooklyn Is Just Under the Radar (2018)
The Dinersteins, 2026
