Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America

by Ruth Gay

Ruth Gay's intimate, unforgettable account of the richly textured lives of a resilient people. Nearly three million Jews came to America from Eastern Europe between 1880 and the outbreak of the First World War. Mostly young, single, and uneducated, they possessed hope for a new life in a new land. Culturally, they skated on thin icemolded by a daily existence vastly different from what they found in America. For many, New York City provided a refuge, for in its densely populated, Yiddish-speaking enclaves, it was possible to cling to customs from life in the old country. Here Ruth Gay colorfully shades in details of the immigrant story rarely the tenacious resistance to assimilation by many Jews from the shtetl. We see housewives to whom nothing but a perfectly cleaned floor would do; we discover that a bed was a prized possession for people who stood on their feet all day; and we learn how food, especially, was a means of preserving the noodles, kosher meats, fresh cheeses, and the breads and the "plezl-crisp." Through hard work, laughter, and storytelling, the Eastern European Jews in New York maintained a sense of community longer than most immigrant groups until a new generation, born in America, matured, married, and moved out of the neighborhoods. A lively account of a generation that rejected melting-pot America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Jewish

310 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1996

About the author

Ruth Gay (born Ruth Slotkin) in New York in 1922, was a Jewish writer who wrote about Jewish life and won the 1997 National Jewish Book Award for nonfiction for Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America.

Ruth Gay attended Queens College in 1943 and received a master’s in library science from Columbia University in 1969. From 1948 to 1950 she was the editor of the JDC Review of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

She died in 2006.

Reviews

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Both of my parents hail from NY, and they are 2nd generation American born Jews.

The descriptions of street, school, and community life for this immigrant class really opened my eyes to the world my parents lived in. Ruth grew up in the Bronx same as my father, but about 15 years before. Her analysis and characterizations ring very true to what my Dad has passed on and yet she has added much, much more in terms of background and history.

She wrote this in her 80's but her style is quite contemporary and the books pace is very quick.

After reading this, I feel like I know my parents and their generation more intimately and to a degree, myself as well.

[Nancy Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative book about the lives of immigrant Jews in the Bronx (and Brooklyn and the Lower East Side) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I hadn't realized how many of them were young--unaccompanied teenagers, and even children. Although the writing style was uneven and at times too rambling for its own good, there's a lot of information and insight here.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine book if you want to know the real life experiences of the jewish immigrants in New York.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unique first-hand testimony of Jewish life in the early twentieth century, and how it adapted to the culture shock of young people leaving their traditional and insular lives in Eastern Europe early on for the modernity and economic opportunity of New York City. Has a lot to say about intergenerational trauma, cultural transmission, and transcultural borderlands. At times the book feels a little disparaging toward the Eastern European immigrant generation, ceding too much ground to the judgmental attitudes of the contemporary Jews Gay was writing for.

[Victor N · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sort of biography rather than a well organized history book. I generally prefer the more academic history style of book but this is still very good and compelling, and so very familiar to me.

[Libraryscat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It had a nice balance between factual information and entertaining details.

[Martin Goldberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Grandparents immigrated to the Lower Eastside and then to the Bronx. My mother and uncle were raised there. So this shed insight into what their upbringing and experience was like. Fascinating. The author uses a strange writing style, however, that sort of rambles, which I think detracts from the overall experience. Overall, though, anyone whose ancestors immigrated to New York would very much enjoy this.

[Aubrey Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful for research. For me, new information. e.g I didn't realize how many children immigrated between 1880 and World War 1 (a huge percentage of the almost three million that came), that many immigrants were not well-grounded in Jewish tradition, that a huge majority of Rabbis stayed behind in Europe.

[Avi Aharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes a very pleasant read about our distant cousins - distant in both time and place - and yet so similar to my grandparents, that could actually hear and feel the story.
Ruth Gay tells a wonderful story and I will certainly read more from her books.
I have arrived to this book through searching for Anne Fields narrations. I am glad I did.