At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York's Lower East Side, 1880-1920 (Arthur Kurzweil Books)
by Lawrence J Epstein
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lawrence J EpsteinEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-17
ISBN: 0787986224
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Book Reviews of At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York's Lower East Side, 1880-1920 (Arthur Kurzweil Books)
Book Review: Questing for a dream that required hope, determination, courage and luck
Summary: 4 Stars
At The Edge of A Dream is a very informative, entertaining, and easy-to-read book. Its formal 269 pages containing many b&w archival photos besides text, should educate and enlighten the reader, be they to any degree familiar with the subject matter or not. And the extensive Reference pages and Index which follow, should satisfy the curious and those with specific interests.
It is not this reviewer's purpose to echo what the Editorial Reviews as well as reviewer Gary E. Eddey have already written about this book. But I will "ditto" a point made by the author in his Introduction and Mr. Eddey makes in his review. That point being that this book transcends whether or not the reader might have familial roots with the subject matter.
Much of my personal enjoyment of this book stems from its anecdotal salt and pepperings throughout its pages. It acquainted me with insights about names that are familiar to me, such as how Meyer Kubelsky's father, having obtained a passport for his son to leave Lithuania for America, was thwarted by the authorities not allowing Meyer to leave, so his father, a tavern owner and wine shop proprietor, arranged for him to make his escape concealed under a cartload of empty bottles.
On Valentine's Day of 1894, Meyer and his wife, Emma Sachs, would welcome a son, Benjamin, into the world. Benjamin Kubelsky would gain fame as comedian Jack Benny.
A decade earlier, Sonia Kalish was born as her 17-year-old mother and two-year-old brother were enroute to their embarkation port. Sonia's mother, sensing that she was about to give birth, had the cart's driver stop and let her and her toddler son off, only to have the cartman leave her there by the side of the road. The desperate teenager found a house nearby and her baby was born. Thus did "Red Hot Mama" Sophie Tucker make her debut.
While, in Chapter 3, Page 46, the author does describe, by street boundaries, the areas of the Lower East Side that were predominantly inhabited by immigrants from a particular European country, this reader feels that it would have been helpful if a page containing a street map had been added showing those boundaries and providing a visual means of illustrating where the described neighborhoods were.
This reader is familiar with almost all of the books Epstein has had published in the past seven years and has been enjoyably entertained and enlightened by them.
But thus far, he hasn't read anything that rivals the theatrical potential of Springtime for Hitler.
Max Bialystock
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