Customer Reviews

Inventing Great Neck: Jewish Identity and the American Dream

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished reading Inventing Great Neck, and I loved it. This was all completely new to me. I thought that Great Neck was just another suburb - I didn't realize that it had grown into a predominantly Jewish suburb.
It was fascinating reading on so many levels.

The book's magic lies in the thumbnail sketches of the people who lived in Great Neck. Eddie Cantor's was riveting, as was Louise Eldridge's, who was part of the old guard. I loved that old Russell Eldridge could turn Saddle Rock, his estate, into a village to avoid interference. Those were the days. As for Cantor, what a miracle he was. His mother died in childbirth, his father two years later, and he was raised by a sixty-two year old grandmother. The fortune he made, how proud he was of his incredible home, how SAFE he felt in the hands of Nathan S. Jonas, his friend who built a series of immigrant banks into Manufacturer's Trust, and how it all crashed with the Depression. Sic transit Gloria.

The 40's and 50's were Great Neck's glory years. Like all suburbs, Great Neck grew richer as the cities grew poorer. The American dream was in the suburbs: ownership of a single family home, a church or temple in which to worship, money to shop, men who earned enough money for their wives not to work. Women had more time on their hands and could become deeply involved in community organizations - schools, churches, temples, hospitals. It was in 1953 that North Shore Hospital was built. The creation of this hospital makes for fascinating reading. It is one of the great stories of the book. What a crew: Jock Whitney, his wife Betsey (who was a Cushing) and his sister Joan Payson, and Tex and Jinx McCrary joined forces with Jack Hausman and Willie Cohen to build one of the great hospitals. In an odd historical twist, it was Whitney's friendship with David O. Selznick and his interest in Hollywood that made Whitney one of the few WASPS that were not anti Semitic.

By the end of the 50's and the beginning of the 60's, the Jewish majority finally materialized. And the changes of the 60's infiltrated the golden suburb of Great Neck, as they did the nation: the anti war movement, the woman's movement, the influx of conservative Jews which changed the profile of religious Jews, divorce, conspicuous consumption, excessive development.

I loved the book. I am barely doing it justice. There was so much rich detail, so much thoughtful honesty in reportage, so many wonderful stories as the Jews of Great Neck realized (perhaps more than any other immigrant group) the American dream.

I am a city person with an innate prejudice against suburbia, but if there MUST be a suburb, let it be Great Neck between 1920 and 1960.

This could have been my biography. Moved to GN in 1929. Lived at 24 5th street. Later became Bond Street. Went to Kensington School and Mrs. Pingree was my 6th grade teacher(The Best). Was one of the few Jews in a very gentile neighborhood. Saw the strike at GNHS in 1939. There was one Jewish Teacher in GNHS, Mr. Milton Meyers. Everybody wanted to be in his class (History). Grew up graduated HS, Navy, College. Saw Saddle Rock, Harbor Hills and Strathmore built. Saw the problems that the gentiles had withv Jews. Was in business aftr the war in Great Neck and saw it develop. My daughter was one of the first babies born at North Shore Hospital. Beulah Brandt (1st marriage in Temple Beth-el) was my first cousin and I was there. Rabbi Rudin married my wife Muriel Spear and me. I could go on and on, however one thing the moving force behind the NS Hospital was named Danny Udell not Udall.
I retired in 2002 and moved to Virginia, however I still belong to Temple Beth El. and maintain my relationships. I loved the book and couln't put it down. It was a socialogical masterpiece.

Having been connected to GN directly (1933-1973) and indirectly (1973-2006) for nearly three-quarters of a century, I thought I knew pretty much all about its modern history. Wrong! Judith Goldstein has done scholarly, profound research and written a highly readable, thoroughly detailed and documented account of the growth and development of GN through its most critical 40-plus years. I literally couldn't put it down and in the reading I learned a huge amount, even about events and trends in which I actually took part. The highlight for me is the chapter on domestic servants and the fact that our family's "Ruthie" Helen Palmer is one of those featured. It was a privilege to actually witness Ms Goldstein's live-action research as she interviewed my late mother, Beti, for well over two hours - and that is obviously just a tiny fraction of what went into this work. I cannot praise this excellent book nearly enough, so I recommend that readers of this review read it themselves to appreciate the interesting, frequently glamorous history of this wonderful town.

Reading Judith Goldstein's excellent book, Inventing Great Neck, reminded me irresistibly of Philip Roth's seminal story of identity and assimilation, "Eli The Fanatic." Roth described the accommodations of Jewishness to the American way of suburbia and the various challenges to (and pains of) such accommodations. In her sweeping history of twentieth century Great Neck, Goldstein shows that the adjustments of each ethnic group are inevitably difficult and never completely secure.
Her book does more. It sketches the transformation of Great Neck from a Christian-dominated community in the twenties to a Jewish community by ca. 1960. In the process it pictures the rich and aristocratic being replaced by middle-class business- and education-minded Jews. Less tangible but equally important is the author's attention to a certain change of tone in middle-class life -- not only in Great Neck, or in suburbia, but in America as a whole.
A solid book!
Manfred Wolf

This book is poignant, fascinating and thoughtful. I grew up hearing about my family's history in Great Neck, yet I had no sense of the depth and richness that characterizes the community as a whole. However, a close connection isn't necessary for Inventing Great Neck to be of value and interest -- it is a case study on life in America, and helps us think about who we are and how we've come to be.

This beautifully and lovingly written book provides an in depth view of the development of one of the most famous and affluent New York suburbs. The community's legendary commitment to education and the building of civic institutions, in particular, not one, but two major hospitals, are examined in detail, providing a rich tapestry of individual and ethnic contributions. The inclusion of information on those who were not community leaders or celebrities, but who made a crucial contribution by caring for the children of the affluent, is especially poignant and important. Great Neck came to symbolize the best and the most excessive aspects of the midcentury American dream, and there is much to learn about both in this probing and balanced account. The current tension between secular and fundamental religious values in Great Neck described in the epilogue, continue to make it a fascinating place to study the evolution of suburban American culture

Great Neck emerges as a personality, an American Original, in Judy Goldstein's fascinating tale of a place that might look like just another bland pocket of sprawl. But Great Neck has a rich, star-studded history set against a variegated panorama of social and ethnographic elements, from mogul to maid, from the American South to the Middle East to Eastern Europe. Who knew that behind the split-level facades, complex sagas of life on earth were taking place? It gained part of its mythology from Fitzgerald and his use of it as the locale of The Great Gatsby. Then came Eddie Cantor and Jock Whitney and the Iranian Jews. This book details these stories and others and everything else you might want to know about Great Neck in scholarly, eloquent, accessible prose. The more you read, the more you do want to know about what happened there. One of America's multi-faceted habitats, disguised as a suburb, comes to life in these pages.