Disciplines

Jewish Studies

Abstract

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

Gloria Fleischer Cohen, b. 1934, was raised by foreign born parents on Thieriot Avenue. Her family had moved there when she was very young after their apartment was robbed; the area around Thieriot Avenue, conversely, was safer. Fleischer Cohen describes the neighborhood as primarily Jewish, with others like Italians and Irish, with apartment houses like her own and private houses. As a child she would play in the street, games like jump rope, punch ball, and roller skating. In the summers, she went to Castle Hill Pool and Orchard Beach. She attended PS 102 and later Hunter College High School, which was all girls.

Fleischer Cohen explains how they got food from delivery and peddlers before the first supermarket, and how they would eat kosher meals at home. She attended Hebrew school for three years, where she was warned against sitting to close to the rabbi, and her parents both spoke Yiddish. During WWII, Fleischer Cohen remembers listening to Yiddish radio and participating in air raid drills, and she expresses how difficult it was when they stopped hearing from family members back in Europe. She explains her view on family heritage is looking forwards, not backwards.

After her father passed away when she was 15, Fleischer Cohen’s stepmother returned to work and Fleischer Cohen got an after school job as well to help support her two siblings. She then attended Hunter College Uptown for free, taking a reduced program because she had to continue to work. She married at 19 as a senior in college, later also earning multiple master’s degrees. Fleischer Cohen credits the low or free cost of college with her ability to achieve her degrees, something kids today do not have access to.

Her husband, who she met at a wedding in Brooklyn, wanted to live there, which they did until coming to New Jersey for better schools in 1954. Fleischer Cohen took her children back to her old neighborhood, to fight against the negative stereotypes and show they “were normal people.” When she thinks back on her time in the Bronx, she thinks of family, neighbors, and friends with the feeling of belonging, support, and comfort.

Keywords: Thieriot Avenue, Parkchester, safety, siblings, apartment, Hunter College High School, Hunter College, street games, groceries, food, kosher, religious school, Yiddish, World War Two, WEVD, air raid drills, the Holocaust, education, siblings, work, Columbia University, college, tuition, Teachers Strikes 1967-68, Castle Hill, Orchard Beach, Cross Bronx Expressway, library

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