Customer Reviews

Bridging Three Worlds: Hungarian-Jewish Americans, 1848-1914

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Having staked out a nearly virgin territory, Perlman possessed the academic credentials to compile one of those jargon-encrusted monographs so common in contemporary productions of the university presses. Instead, he immersed himself in the questions that a curious reader would ask of the subject. Then he considered the implications of the information that he gathered, unfolding the story through the experiences of individual people who are allowed to speak directly to us. He did not let go of his inquiries until he delivered a full-blown picture of a vanished world and its human agents who won their ways into the world of the present.

If you have any Hungarian blood, you should definitely read this book.
It explains a lot of things about Hungarian Jews that I never understood
before. There are many insights into Austro-Hungarian and American history --that Pennsylvania coal mines and midwestern foundries went to
Austria Hungary in the 1880s looking for workers. There was a failure
of the potato crop in eastern europe in 1880 that resulted in many people
emigrating to the Americas. Why Hungarian Jews considered themselves
Hungarians first and Jews second. It is good background material
to the movie Sunshine.

On a tough subject, the author does an admirable job in exploring the diverse movement that was the Jewish Hungarian Immigration to America. Little else is available on the subject and, while occasionally repetitive and certainly more academic than "a pleasure read," I found the writing compelling and far better than average, especially considering how dry the subject could have been presented. If you are interested in the subject, this may be the best book for you.