Mourning a Foreskin

CULTURE S P R I N G 2 0 1 1 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 35 Levittown, diminishing if not entirely eliminating the stereotypical visions of the place as a conformist, unremarkable lower-middle-class suburban ghetto. Original comic strips by Bill Griffith and historical photographs of Levittown add an engaging visual component to the book. “Griffy” is a well-known underground comic strip artist who grew up in New York’s Levittown. His strips extend the tradition of comic strip cultural critique, especially in mentioning such anti-establishment icons as Jules Feiffer and Paul Krassner as well as The Realist and Mad magazine, publications that inspired the minority of young people who sought transcendence from 1950s social conformity. The photographs are mostly from the 1950s,butrangethroughtheearlytwentyfirstcentury .Theydepictswimmingpools, churches, schools, and external and interior shots of various model houses, allowing readers to actually see the subjectmatterofthisimportantbook. Doubtless, the key story in Levittown’s generally unremarkable history is the integration battle of summer 1957. This theme infuses the volume and is the specific subject of two of its chapters. One is a brief and moving reminiscence by Daisy Myers about the 1957 riots. She, her late husbandBill,andtheirthreechildrenwere the first African American family to move in. They were “greeted” by howling racist mobs and a systematic attempt to force them to leave, seeking to ensure that Levittown would remain an all-white bastion twenty miles from the nation’s founding at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Thomas Sugrue’s chapter, “Jim Crow’s Last Stand,” provides a scholarly account of the 1957 racist events. His opening comments underscore a point I have repeatedly made in my teaching and writing over the years: But Levittown deserves a place as prominent as thoseofMontgomery, Little Rock, Birmingham, or Selma because the history of modern suburbia,embodiedbyLevittown,is central to modern America. Levittown exemplified (then and now) patterns of entrenched segregation that knew no regional boundaries. Because of that, it became a battleground in the freedom struggle every bit as important as its better known southern counterparts. Sugrue’s chapter touches on all the salient details of that struggle—including the heroic resistance of the Myers family and sympathetic whites like my parents andothers—anddocumentsthepervasive hostility that all the participants and their children endured for months after the Myers moved into their Levittown home. Beyondthewindowbreakings,the“KKK” markings, the cross burnings, and economic retaliation, I recall being called “nigger lover” for months afterwards, often by adults who never knew me, my parents, the Myers, or any other participantsinthishistoricstruggle . Sugrue focuses on the admirable efforts of Quakers and other liberal ProtestantgroupsandprogressiveJewsin Levittown who resisted the massive racism in 1957. The fact that many white residents of Levittown voted for Barack Obama in 2008 does not negate the presence of a deeper racism that still pervades and despoils the national landscape. Its manifestations are sometimes overt, as in police racial profiling, and sometimes institutional, as in continuing discrimination in housing and employment. All people of goodwill—Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, spiritual progressives , and nonbelievers alike—can learn from the past in order to address the malaise and misconduct of the present. Second Suburbissurelyagoodplaceto begin.Especiallyforreaderscommittedtoa morecomprehensiveunderstandingofrace in America, this volume is indispensable. And for others who are more generally curious about the shaping and structure of America from the mid–twentieth century to the present, the book provides a compelling vision of how suburban life contributed to those developments. I Paul Von Blum is a senior lecturer in African American studies and communication studies atUCLAandauthorofanewmemoir,ALifeat the Margins: Keeping the Political Vision. MOURNINGAFORESKIN THEMEASUREOFHISGRIEF byLisaBraverMoss,CreateSpace,2010 Review by Patricia Karlin-Neumann “Justashehasenteredintothecovenant ofAbraham,somayhebeenteredinto thelifeofTorah,theblessingoffamily life,andthepracticeofgoodness.” I don’t believe that these words, spoken at a brit milah (the covenant of circumcision), are found in Lisa Braver Moss’s provocative novel, The Measure of HisGrief,buttheynonethelessprovide a paradoxical frame through which to view the search for wholeness of itsprotagonist,Dr.SandyWaldman. Sandyexperiencesaninexplicablepain in his penis during the shiva period of mourningforhisfatherAbraham;forhim, thebrit(covenant)islostinthemilah(circumcision ). Brit celebrates a relationship with the Divine and with community. Sandy’s physical pain leads...