Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish Community [Hardcover]

Dan Rottenberg (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1997

What did it mean to be a Jew in Muncie? Was there discrimination, and what was it like? What sort of people settled in a small Midwestern town? How did they fare? This book addresses these questions through a series of oral narratives. The Jewish experience in Middletown reflects what many similar communities experienced in hundreds of Middletowns across the Midwest.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

The pioneering 1929 and 1937 sociological studies of ``Middletown''--the small city of Muncie, Indiana--said almost nothing about the community's 200 Jews. This work, while not altogether satisfying, goes a significant way toward describing Jewish life there during the first three-quarters of this century. Reading these interviews with Muncie Jews whose roots in the community go back to the 1920s, one is struck by how professionally homogeneous they were : Almost all the heads of households were merchants. Almost as notable is their lack of religious and cultural resources: There was and is one Reform temple (serviced by a visiting student rabbi) and a chapter of the fraternal organization B'nai B'rith. This has resulted in much intermarriage- -apparently, a critical mass of Jews is needed for a community to endure--and some syncretistic religious practices by those who have remained Jewish; one woman recalls how her family lit Sabbath candles each Friday night but also had a Christmas tree. The word ``tenuous'' in the book's subtitle is well chosen. Revealingly, not a single interviewee recalls the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 or mentions visiting there. Finally, the interviews reveal the extent of anti-Semitism in Muncie. In his useful introduction, Hoover (History/Ball State Univ.) estimates that fully ten percent of the town's citizens were members of the Ku Klux Klan during the '20s, and that restrictive covenants in housing persisted until the mid-'50s. This book could have benefited had Rottenberg, a Philadelphia-based journalist, and Hoover noted the broader political, socioeconomic, and cultural context in Muncie and provided some hard data on such questions as: What exactly was the intermarriage rate at various periods, or, how did the Jews' educational and income levels compare with those of their fellow Muncie-ites? Yet if this history is somewhat ``soft,'' it still is a welcome addition to the small but growing number of monographs covering local aspects of American Jewish history. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"Middletown Jews ... takes us, through nineteen fascinating interviews done in 1979, into the lives led by mainly first generation American Jews in a small mid-western city." - San Diego Jewish Times "... this brief work speaks volumes about the uncertain future of small-town American Jewry." - Choice "The book offers a touching portrait that admirably fills gaps, not just in Middletown itself but in histories in general." - Indianapolis Star "... a welcome addition to the small but growing number of monographs covering local aspects of American Jewish history." - Kirkus Reviews --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 142 pages
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253332435
• ISBN-13: 978-0253332431
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,796,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Oral histories, November 8, 2010

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Janice P. Liehr "Jan L." (Locust Grove, GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish Community (Paperback)

Oral histories were very interesting. I grew up in Muncie knowing many of these people, or their children. Was interesting to read their comments about the Klan and its activities/members in the 20's & 30's.

4.0 out of 5 stars A very valuable contribution, July 10, 2008

By 

NA Miles "VDH" (West Rising Sun, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish Community (Paperback)

As historical books go, very solid, honest, no revisionism, and thus, a pleasure to read.

It did go on a tad too long, but I realize that was the intent of the study, so it was hard to avoid.

I hope more Jewish leaders, especially those who forget (or don't know of) our pre 20th century history and triumphs in the midwest, will read this. It's eye-opening and important as we celebrate not just the lawyers and doctors of our heritage, but the working class who symbolize a proud portion of American Jewry as well.

Mazel Tov!

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit of Jewish History from the Hoosier heartland, November 26, 2003

By 

Trent D. Pendley "President, Indiana Jewish H... (Furnessville, Chesterton, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish Community (Paperback)

At the 31st annual meeting of the Indiana Jewish Historical Society author and rabbi Lance Sussman stated that if Judaism can thrive in the heartland, in Indiana, it can and will survive anywhere in this great country of ours. Hence, any serious student of American Jewish history or Indiana should require of himself or herself to read "Middletown Jews."

This is a portrait of a microcosm of American Jewry in the middle of the country, a testing ground, far from urbane centers of American Jewish life and yet a reflection of those larger communities too. Dan Rottenberg's composite of nineteen interviews is a period piece, recalling the formation of a community long before the passing and enforcement of the Federal Fair Housing Laws and before the Jewish Renaissance blossomed with the emergence of the third such commonwealth in the land of Israel.

This is a portrayal of how ordinary Jewish folks in Muncie survived as a minority community in a much larger host community. Their neighbors were predominately a bigoted white society that often masqueraded as Klan members, not because of ideology but because it was the `in thing' to do at the time for White Protestants. The Klan leadership of the 1920s targeted their hate crimes more towards blacks and Catholics in Indiana than the small numbers of Jews (unlike the much more dangerous and anti-Semitic Klan cells of today which has compounds in places like Osceola). Muncie Jews made a niche for themselves in businesses and in an environment that wouldn't even allow their children newspaper carrier positions, let alone trendy neighborhoods and clubs.

Finding a niche in their religious and cultural life was another challenge for Muncie's Jewry, a community with as many independent facets as there were individuals is quite telling in Rottenberg's interviews. This time capsule look at a community divided by established citizens and recent immigrants, a division often juxtaposed between the heirs of German immigrants and Eastern European greenhorns, portrays varying degrees of lifestyle and home-life from Kashrut (Kosher only foods) to Christmas Trees; from Harvard educations to immigrants struggling to learn the English vernacular; from Temple membership to non congregational members; from all Jewish households to those with mixed marriages and multiple religious holiday symbols, hence Muncie's twentieth century Jews reflect the entire perspective of the American Jewish Experience.

This historical document succinctly rids the neat pigeonhole so many like to place or define as the American Jewish experience or American Jew; alas, for such simple minds, Rottenberg's interviews portray a kaleidoscope of a community too diffuse to define. "Middletown Jews" is a good read.