Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Vozick Hans, Alexandra, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Alexandra Vozick Hans was born to Canadian parents, who, upon moving to New York, lived in the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative, where she grew up. She remained in the Bronx until she graduated college in 1966. After college, she moved to Boston and became a social worker.

Hans and her family were socialists, and Hans recalls tensions between the socialists and the communists in the Amalgamated. She also recalls tensions over the issue of integration in the building: the Amalgamated was not integrated, and residents complained about the lack of integration. Overall, however, Hans looks back with great fondness on the …

Rosen, Michael, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Michael Rosen was born in the Bronx in Parkchester in 1943 to immigrant parents who came to New York in the early 20th century. He remembers the freedom of his childhood and going all over the city with his friends, visiting the New York Stock Exchange, sports games, and even once interviewing the artist Salvador Dalí.

Rosen had a fast-tracked education, skipping both kindergarten and one year of middle school, eventually graduating at the age of sixteen. Rosen went to PS 106 for elementary school and fondly remembers his teachers from the time. For middle school he attended Junior High …

Silverstein, Helen "Lyn", Reyna Lee Stovall

Bronx Jewish History Project

Helen "Lyn" Silverstein was born in 1944 and grew up in the Melrose area. Her family was not observant growing up but she remembers certain dietary rules her family followed that were kosher-style. Her family was not close-knit and as a result, she knew very little about her extend family. Her mother and aunt would speak Yiddish together when they didn’t want Silverstein to know what they were saying. As a result, Silverstein knows certain words and phrases in Yiddish but cannot speak or understand it fluently.

Silverstein went to PS 35 for elementary school, Jordan L. Mott, Junior High …

Several, Ruth, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Ruth Several was born in 1951 and grew up living on the Grand Concourse, where her parents were living at the time. Her father worked at the Concourse Center of Israel, an orthodox synagogue on the Grand Concourse. They lived in a large apartment in an art deco style building. She remembers 95% of the building as Jewish, not including the non-Jewish superintendent. The neighborhood had many mom and pop stores, no chain stores, and many synagogues. Several attend a Jewish Day School in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so her mother was a bookkeeper nearby who would take …