Disciplines

Jewish Studies

Abstract

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

Phil Schneider was born to American-born parents of Ashkenazi descent in 1948. After World War Two, his parents moved to Parkchester, where Schneider lived until he married. He describes Parkchester as racially segregated, with Irish and Jewish communities who were generally “friendly,” except when he was chased on Sunday mornings after Hebrew school. Despite ethnic divisions among the children, his parents identified as American first. Schneider grew up more closely identified with his Jewish cultural identity than his religious one, while his grandparents, from Eastern Europe, spoke Yiddish and were religiously observant. Shneider, who was an anti-religious teenager, attended a kosher Boy Scout camp and had his bar mitzvah.

Later, while attending the Bronx High School of Science, Schneider began working at a Jewish camp for poor children from the Lower East Side, where he met his wife. She was more religious than him, and as a result their children were given Hebrew names and attended religious school. Through the religious school, Schneider and his wife got involved with Civil Rights activist Rabbi Avi Weiss in Riverdale, eventually moving there. Given the increased cost of living, he decided to open a community speech therapy practice instead of solely focusing on academia. Schneider was so moved by Rabbi Weiss and the accepting community he created that he filmed a movie about him called “Righteous Rebel: Rabbi Avi Weiss.” His sons both grew up more religious and moved to Israel as adults. While the Jewishness of Riverdale was familiar to him, the relative affluence was much greater than his upbringing.

While attending City College, Schneider wanted to be an architect, but his final required class on speech therapy influenced him to alter his career path. An impactful experience helping a young girl, Gladys, led him to a doctorate degree in the speech therapy field. Schneider recently retired from his work, applying his own struggles with Parkison’s Disease to helping others. He associates his upbringing in the Bronx with well-dressed older people on a hot summer’s day on the Grand Concourse and the welcomes received in Pelham Parkway and Riverdale.

Keywords: World War Two, Grand Concourse, Parkchester, ethnicity, race, Irish, religion, Zionism, Israel, Boy Scout Camp, Abraham Greenstone, Bronx High School of Science, camp, City College, Riverdale, Rabbi Avi Weiss, Parkinson’s Disease, speech therapy, economic difference, Columbia University, academia, filmmaking

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