Disciplines

Jewish Studies

Abstract

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

Hazel Rudich was born to American-born parents in 1947. Her grandparents came from Ukraine and Hungary, and she grew up with a consciousness of the fear of having been born outside of the safety of the Bronx, like the refugee and Holocaust survivor friends of her parents. While her neighborhoods on Shakespeare Avenue and later the Grand Concourse were primarily Jewish, in junior high school she was exposed to a greater diversity of people. Rudich describes the beauty of the Art Deco buildings and the extensive park space and nature, with all the independence that city living lent itself to, even at a young age.

Despite being in a more middle-class environment on the Grand Concourse, Rudich explains they were told they needed to go to college to get out of working-class status. Her father worked for the post office but invested in the stock market which enabled them to go to college and travel when they were older. The family attended synagogue on the holidays and Rudich went to Sunday school, sharing she did not experience any antisemitism until she went away for college despite knowing the trauma of survivors around her.

Rudich studied at the University of Pittsburg, working in Health Information Management in New York and later Florida. When she was growing up, she explains, women who went to college were expected to become teachers. On visiting the Bronx in recent years, Rudich sees it as revitalized, cleaner and more beautiful than when her parents moved out in the 1970s after their apartment was burglarized. Florida, she explains, is like a suburb of the tri state area, never really conflicting with her strong sense of New Yorker identity.

Keywords: race, diversity, Shakespeare Avenue, Grand Concourse, the Holocaust, World War Two, safety, Art Deco, parks, public transportation, independence, college, education, class, stock market, Highbridge, religion, fear, healthcare, Florida, gender, crime, marriage, Israel

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