Jewish Studies Commons^™

'James', Reyna Lee Stovall

Bronx Jewish History Project

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

‘James,’ born 1951, grew up on Narragansett Avenue in the Bronx. He remembers the neighborhood as heavily Italian, with a sprinkling of Jews, Irish, and others. It was primarily small, private homes, many attached like their own. Their own neighbor expressed a dislike of living next door to Jews, directly to his parents’ faces. Yet, James grew up to become friends with the non-Jewish neighbors. He describes their own practice of Judaism as less prosperous and traditional than other parts of the Bronx.

James attend PS 108 with many of the Jewish kids in the neighborhood, as …

Levine, Louis, Reyna Lee Stovall

Bronx Jewish History Project

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

Louis Levine was born in 1940 on the Grand Concourse to immigrant parents. His mother came to the United States from Poland at three years old, in 1906, and his father came from Vilna at 28 years old, in 1931. Both worked in manufacturing, making and selling women’s garments and gloves, respectively, before his father opened a small glove making factory of his own. Levine grew up on 168^th Street and Walton Avenue. He attended Yeshiva Salanter from the time he was five years old and then Bronx High School of Science, which was also predominantly …

Brecker, Andrea, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Andrea Brecker’s maternal grandmother came to the United States from Russia in the late 1800s, marrying on the Lower East Side. The family had been kosher butchers in the old world, and continued the tradition on the Lower East Side and when they moved to the Bronx. Her paternal family also escaped the Tsar and came to the United States in the early 1900s, moving to the East Bronx. Her grandfather was an ironworker, who helped in the construction of Temple Emanu-El. Brecker’s father was a house painter, and supported the family on a modest income on Davidson Avenue between …

Entre La Exclusión Y La Empatía: Conocimientos Y Sentimientos De La Juventud Judía De Buenos Aires Sobre La Memoria Colectiva De “La Comunidad Judía” En La Última Dictadura Argentina (1976-1983) / Between Exclusion And Empathy: Knowledge And Sentiments Of Jewish Youth In Buenos Aires About The Collective Memory Of The “The Jewish Community” During The Argentine Dictatorship (1976-1983), Rachel Colson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La última dictadura cívico-militar en Argentina es tanto parte del pasado como del futuro. El “Proceso de Reorganización Nacional” instalado por las Fuerzas Armadas trajo opresión política y violencia extrema hacia la gente en contra del régimen. Desde su fin, la sociedad ha enfrentado el problema de cómo recordar esta época. La memoria forma parte importante de la identidad social argentina, pero es complicada debido a la experiencia de determinados grupos durante la dictadura. En estos años, los judíos sufrieron una victimización especial dentro de los campos clandestinos de detención—los sitios de tortura y desaparición—de las Fuerzas Armadas. Mientras algunos …

Jacobs, Jack, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Jack Jacobs’ parents, both born and raised in Poland, moved to the Bronx after surviving WWII and spending time in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. Jacobs was born in the 1950s in the Bronx, and grew up in the West Bronx, first on Creston Avenue near Burnside Avenue and then on Harrison Avenue near Tremont Avenue. He remembers living in the same building as other members of his extended family and the neighborhood being majority Jewish, particularly with many Holocaust survivors. This meant an intensely strong Jewish environment in terms of stores, education, and synagogues.

Following his mother’s socialist, …

Klein, Hilde, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Hilde Klein, born 1945, lived on Monroe Avenue, near Claremont Park, before it became part of the Cross Bronx Expressway and her family would move to Mount Eden Avenue. Klein remembers playing games in the street, roller skating and picnicking in the park. In addition to being an avid reader, she was a singer throughout school and in the synagogue choir and was recruited to be a part of the Ed Sullivan Show, but her parents said no.

Her family kept kosher, and on weekends would go to a dairy restaurant or delicatessen. Klein describes many experiences spent with her …

Braunstein, Beth, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Beth Anshen Braunstein was born in the Bronx 1954. Both sets of her grandparents immigrated from Russia, with one grandmother stopping in Alexandria, Egypt along the journey and learning Italian, which she used to communicate with Italian families in the Bronx. Her mother’s family lived and had a children’s clothing store on Bathgate Avenue. His father had a store next door and, after they were married, her parents had a health food store off of Pelham Parkway. Braunstein first lived on Bathgate before the family moved to Thieriot Avenue, near Parkchester. In her teenage years she became more religious, attending …

Konig, Irene, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Irene Konig’s mother was born in Ukraine, coming to the United States at 2 years old, while her father was born on the Lower East Side. Konig grew up with her parents and brother in a one bedroom apartment on Morris Avenue across from Taft High School. At 15 years old, they moved to East 180 St near Tremont Avenue because their apartment building was sinking and condemned by the city, before moving to the Highbridge neighborhood, later. She recalls the Bronx deteriorating, with burning buildings and trash on the streets, as she got older.

On Morris Avenue, the neighborhood …

Chavez, Robert, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Robert Chavez, born 1945, lived on Undercliff Avenue in the Bronx after his family settled there from Eastern Europe. His maternal grandparents immigrated from Russia, where his grandmother was adopted into the Tsar’s court. They bought a farm in Rockland County, where Chavez’s uncle was hidden for fear of getting drafted into WWII. His father, a traveling salesman, came from Brooklyn and joined the close knit family. Chavez remembers his building being a filled with first and second generation Jewish families, and became friendly with Puerto Rican peers in school. Being a middle child, he remembers playing with his brother …

Brock, Joan, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Joan Brock, born 1943, grew up on Bryant Avenue between 173 and 174 Streets in the Bronx. The East Bronx was considered poorer than the West Bronx, split by the Grand Concourse. Both of her parents were born and raised in New York, and they met while they were both working in a tea factory. Her father would get into the business of selling vending machines until Brock was 13 and he bought a hardware store. Her mother never worked after marrying except to help her husband with the store.

Brock describes the neighborhood as predominantly Jewish and Italian, though …

Gruder, Vivian, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Vivian Gruder, born 1937, grew up on Fulton Avenue, across the street from Crotona Park. She fondly remembers the park and how, when her older siblings were young, people would take chairs and sit in the park to escape the heat. The area is described as a “Jewish Village,” though the schools were more mixed with Irish teachers and Italian and some classmates of color, though her friends were mostly Jewish. She remembers a baseball game of the Jewish boys versus the Italian boys. Gruder describes kosher butchers and shops along Bathgate Avenue. Her mother stayed at home, and her …

Katz, Gloria, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Gloria Katz’s family immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe, moving up from the Lower East Side to the Bronx on Park Avenue. She describes her many relatives coming to New York and making lives for themselves, including her parents meeting on a singles cruise around Manhattan for young immigrants and getting married. Her older brother was born in 1934, and was a rebellious and hyperactive child, getting kicked out of yeshiva and sent to public school. Katz was born in September 1944. She explains that because her father did not have stable employment in the fur industry during …

Diversity, Equity, & Exclusion: Examining Jewish Identity & Antisemitism As Missing Pieces Of Dei And Ethnic Studies Education, Katie Meitchik

Pitzer Senior Theses

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a theory and practice that focuses on systemic structures, inequities, and social change by examining concepts such as race, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and religion. Incorporating DEI initiatives into learning spaces can lead to a deeper sense of self, stronger coalition building, increased civic engagement, and a sense of healing, resistance, and belonging. Although a nationwide criteria for using DEI practices in education has not yet been implemented as a key component to public school teaching, there are programs emerging with the intent to utilize the theory. This has led to a movement …

Fogelman, Charles, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Charles Fogelman’s parents came to New York City as children in the beginning of the 20th century. They were married in 1932, and his father became a doctor, fighting antisemitic quotas to go to medical school, and completing his residency at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx. His father had a practice in the East Bronx, on Elder Avenue, when Fogelman was born in 1946 and he grew up in a semi-detached house nearby on Ward Avenue. He describes it as a lower-middle class, predominantly Jewish neighborhood, with Irish and Italian neighbors, and with many synagogues, so it felt very …

Jakubovitz, Bruce, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Bruce Jakubovitz, born 1956, was the son of Bronx born parents and grandson of immigrants from Hungary, Lithuania, and Poland. He lived in a three bedroom apartment with his three siblings and parents across from St. James Park. The area was predominantly Jewish, Italian, and Irish, and the kids would play in the street and hang out along the stoops on 191st Street. Growing up in a kosher, Orthodox home, Jakubovitz would go to synagogue every Saturday morning and he could not go out to play with his friends on Shabbat. Yet, all the different ethnic and religious groups got …

Malasky, Michael, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Michael Melasky, born 1957, grew up in the Marble Hill public housing project that was created for veterans of World War Two and their families, until his family moved to Co-op City in 1969. His grandparents immigrated from Poland and started their families on the Lower East Side then the South Bronx, but most of their family was killed in the Holocaust. Quoting Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” Melasky describes growing up in a cramped and diverse environment in the turbulent 1960s. There were always other kids around to play with, …

Becker, Ann Joy, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Ann Joy Becker, born 1959, grew up outside of Parkchester on Thieriot Avenue in the Archer Stratton Co-op. Her grandparents, immigrants from Eastern Europe, were peddlers on Pelham Parkway. She attended PS 102 and Columbus High School, because her mother did not want her to go to James Monroe High School because it was considered a bad school and dangerous for a white girl. The co-op and surrounding area was mostly Jewish and Italian, with minorities on the other side of the highway. Becker explains there were more issues with other white ethnic groups than with minorities at that time. …

Newman, Ellen, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Ellen Newman was born in 1953 in Bronx Hospital. Both sets of grandparents had immigrated to New York City as young children and her parents were both raised in the Bronx. She attended PS 114, by Yankee Stadium, Macombs Junior High School, Taft High School, and Lehman College for both her bachelor’s and master’s. Her family would go to upstate New York in the summers, and her father was an accountant and her mother was a bookkeeper. Newman lived in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx until her family moved to Scott Towers, a Mitchell Lama Co-op. The Highbridge neighborhood …

Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations And Multi-Game Approaches, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

This chapter explores what the authors discovered about analog games and game design during the many iterative processes that have led to the Lost & Found series, and how they found certain constraints and affordances (that which an artifact assists, promotes or allows) provided by the boardgame genre. Some findings were counter-intuitive. What choices would allow for the modeling of complex systems, such as legal and economic systems? What choices would allow for gameplay within the time of a class-period? What mechanics could promote discussions of tradeoff decisions? If players are expending too much cognition on arithmetic strategizing, could that …

Lost & Found: New Harvest, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, a great crossroads of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens …

From Political Hebraism And Jewish Law To The Comparative Paradigm, Amos Israel-Vleeschhouwer

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Finding Edith: Surviving The Holocaust In Plain Sight, Edith Mayer Cord

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Finding Edith: Surviving the Holocaust in Plain Sight is the coming-of-age story of a young Jewish girl chased in Europe during World War II. Like a great adventure story, the book describes the childhood and adolescence of a Viennese girl growing up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the religious persecution of Jews throughout Europe. Edith was hunted in Western Europe and Vichy France, where she was hidden in plain sight, constantly afraid of discovery and denunciation. Forced to keep every thought to herself, Edith developed an intense inner life. After …

Re-Playing Maimonides’ Codes: Designing Games To Teach Religious Legal Systems, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Lost & Found is a game series, created at the Initiative for

Religion, Culture, and Policy at the Rochester Institute of

Technology MAGIC Center.1 The series teaches medieval

religious legal systems. This article uses the first two games

of the series as a case study to explore a particular set of

processes to conceive, design, and develop games for learning.

It includes the background leading to the author's work

in games and teaching religion, and the specific context for

the Lost & Found series. It discusses the rationale behind

working to teach religious legal systems more broadly, then

discuss the …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

Nurturing Play-Makers & Active Investigative Agents: Schwartz Tag, Good Video Games And Futures Of Jewish Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

How can an experiential approach to education, in combination with a games-based orientation, help us reach often-elusive educational goals? In many ways the study of games and game design bring us back to tenets of education that we have long known, including the benefits of self-directed learning and project-based work. Games-based design and learning may provide a way to shift the discussion from “What should an educated Jew know?” to “How does a learner develop a taste for Jewish learning and living?”

Education For Success Or Happiness, Lawrence Frizzell

Department of Religion Publications

Cycle B liturgical readings for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 11, 2009: Wis 7:7-11; Ps 90:12-16; Heb 4:12-13; Mk 10:17-30. This article was previously published in The Catholic Advocate.