Disciplines
Jewish Studies
Abstract
Summarizer: Sophia Maier
Jeff Gilbert, born 1951, grew up on Walton Avenue nearby Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Both of his parents were born in New York, with his great-grandparents and grandparents immigrating from Hungary, Austria, and Poland. Gilbert describes the neighborhood at the time as 99% Jewish, and he lived next door to the Congregation Hope of Israel, despite being educated at and attending Tremont Temple. Among the amenities in the “self-contained neighborhood for shopping” were bakeries, movie theaters, grocery stores, and butchers. Gilbert remembers most Val’s Luncheonette for the delicious food, famous athletes, and the money he made as a delivery boy.
With his friends Gilbert would bike around the Bronx and play sports. He loved Yankee Stadium, working there from the time he was 14 years old. His father, who served in World War Two after high school, worked as a forklift operator, and his mother, who had a nursing degree, was a stay at home mother for most of Gilbert’s childhood. Gilbert himself attended PS 31, JHS 22, and Taft High School, where he has many fond memories and made lifelong friends. He says he got a good education in the Bronx, especially continuing to Lehman College and Einstein Medical School.
Gilbert’s family moved to Yonkers in 1969 because of safety concerns. Yet, Gilbert himself returned to the Bronx for medical school in 1972 and stayed there until 1986. Even after he moved out of the Bronx, Gilbert continued to work as a doctor serving the Bronx community until 2013, when he retired. During that time, he witnessed how the AIDS crisis “decimated” the Bronx. He says that despite new construction, the city government neglects the Bronx as a place for new arrivals and the very poor. Gilbert himself returns for Yankee games and even befriended a homeless artist outside the stadium who he helped through the COVID pandemic. The people of the Bronx, Gilbert explains, shaped him into who he has become.
Keywords: Holocaust, Walton Avenue, Yankee Stadium, Grand Concourse, Congregation Hope of Israel, Tremont Temple, Val’s Luncheonette, sports, New York Yankees, PS 31, integration, teachers, JHS 22, Taft High School, education, library, Lehman College, Einstein Medical School, polio, Lake Mohegan, antisemitism, Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Montefiore Hospital, AIDS, homelessness
Recommended Citation
Maier Garcia, Sophia, "Gilbert, Jeff" (2024). Bronx Jewish History Project. 89.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/bjhp/89
