Disciplines

Jewish Studies

Abstract

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

“Anonymous 1” grew up in the Amalgamated Houses. Born in the 1940s, her grandparents had come over from Russia around 1910 and settled on the Lower East Side, and her parents grew up in the United States. Her father made ladies’ coats, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom until she became a bookkeeper. Anonymous 1 describes Amalgamated as almost entirely Jewish, with many Holocaust survivors, religious Jews, and Socialist Jews. Her father was among the anti-religious group, deciding to wash his car in casual clothing on the High Holidays. Anonymous 1 herself is still not religious but heavily interested in Yiddish culture.

Anonymous 1 attended PS 95 and the High School of Music and Art, eventually becoming a Yiddish folk singer after a few years at City College. She says she hated school, particularly having to get up early, despite being a good student. She also describes the difference between PS 95, walking to school in a complete Jewish environment, to Music and Art, taking a bus and a train to school in an integrated environment with people from around the city. Though “integrated,” Anonymous 1 shared that most people stuck with their “groups” in social settings. During elementary school, she attended Yiddish school at the Workmen’s Circle, and there she first became interested in Yiddish folk music. She also participated in free clubs and activities through the Amalgamated cooperative, including summer camp and concerts, and that is how she became a singer.

Anonymous 1 now lives on the Upper West Side and says it was the goal of everyone who grew up in the Bronx to move to Manhattan. She achieved that dream briefly after college and permanently starting in her 30s. While Amalgamated was a great place to grow up and she feels a lasting connection with people who lived there, Anonymous 1 witnessed the changes happening in other parts of the Bronx that eventually also came to the cooperative. She does not go back since her mother passed away in 2017 but remains connected with people through Facebook groups and small reunions, feeling like those are her relatives when she’s with them.

Keywords: Amalgamated Houses, cooperative, the Holocaust, Socialism, anti-religion, folk music, Yiddish folk music, Yiddish, PS 95, High School of Music and Art, City College, race, Workmen’s Circle, Grand Concourse, Co-op City, white flight, East Bronx, community

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