Bubbe's Place: Stories

Choices

I was lucky. I was born and raised as a Jew in a large American city. When I was born, Jews in Philadelphia enjoyed more freedom than Jews of previous generations could ever envision. When I was born, there were Jewish neighborhoods, but there were no Jewish ghettos. Jews did not have to live in Jewish neighborhoods. They could not live everywhere. Some places were restricted to white Protestants. Some places they chose to avoid because of old superstitions or prejudices. But as white people and as Jews they had many choices.

Even within Judaism there were many choices. You could call yourself a Jew and never belong to or visit a synagogue. You could grow up without a Jewish education and still identify yourself as a Jew. There was so much freedom. There were so few restrictions. I was very lucky to be born in Philadelphia. In Eastern Europe, where my parents were born, Jews could only practice one Jewish religion. If you strayed from that path, you were not accepted by the Jewish community or by the Christian community either.

In America in the thirties, I remember four major synagogue groups. To begin with there were the Orthodox Jews and there were the Ultra-orthodox Jews. The Ultra-orthodox Jews followed a particular rabbi. They dressed and prayed as if they were living in the eighteenth century in Eastern Europe. These Jews weren't dressed exactly like their impoverished ancestors. They dressed more like the rich people of the seventeen hundreds. They believed then as they do now, that they are the only true Jews. They followed very strict rules of prayer and behavior. They kept themselves separate from other Jews and from modern life.