And I Will Dwell in Their Midst: Orthodox Jews in Suburbia (review)

In his book, And I Will Dwell in Their Midst, Etan Diamond demonstrates that traditionalist Judaism thrived in the post-World War II North American suburbs. After the war Modern Orthodox Jews created a new "sacred suburban space" that combined adherence to tradition with suburban mobility (p. 22). In suburbia they joined the seemingly contradictory cultures of a "choice-limiting" and "community-promoting" traditionalist religion, with a "choice-enhancing" and "community-limiting" secular society (p. 7). This negotiation succeeded because both cultures shared certain values, including a focus on family and children and an emphasis on material culture. Diamond's study reveals that these common characteristics meant that suburbanization did not necessarily imply dispersal and abandonment of Orthodox practice, but rather that Orthodox Judaism proved sufficiently structurally flexible and culturally adaptable to overcome tensions and clashes with suburbia. Using Toronto as a case study, Diamond sees this religious flexibility and adaptability evident in suburban synagogue-building, youth education and socialization, and what he calls "religious consumerism" (p. 23).

The historiography of suburbanization has tended to focus on the push and pull factors for relocation and on the new consumerism made possible by mass media, shopping centers, and supermarkets in the 1950s. But few historical works have investigated religious identity in suburbia. While sociological studies by Albert Gordon and Marshall Sklare examined Jewish life in the postwar suburbs, they did not pay particular attention to the Orthodox experience.¹

After sketching the basic framework of Orthodox Judaism and the development of Toronto's Orthodox community, Diamond shows how its pattern of synagogue building reflects the flexibility and adaptability that allowed Orthodoxy to flourish in suburbia. In the 1950s Jewish Torontonians moved away from lower-class, urban, immigrant models of the Orthodox synagogue. In new suburban areas (initially lacking paved roads or phone service), congregations established modern bureaucratic administrations, "middle-class styles of decorous worship," and architecturally contemporary sanctuaries (p. 66). By the early 1980s Orthodox Jewish Torontonians adapted again to suburbia by building Spring Farm, a planned community that included not only a synagogue but also a mini-mall offering a Jewish bookstore, three kosher restaurants, and a grocery with a large kosher bakery and meat department. This trajectory of synagogue development illustrates one area in which "religious-suburban contacts were mediated and expressed" (p. 86).

A second arena of suburban acculturation within traditionalist observance was child-rearing. Diamond argues, for example, that Hebrew day schools "pushed the boundaries of Jewish education in new directions by bringing together religious and secular styles in a single educational institution" (p. 95). By the 1960s the day schools had expanded into secondary schools, and the yarmulke had become another item of fashion worn by a minority group, like African robes or Indian saris. These institutions reinforced for Orthodox youth the notion that one could flourish in the suburban middle class without losing one's religious lifestyle.

Diamond asserts further that postwar secular consumer styles influenced the development of a religious consumerism that dominated postwar suburban Orthodox Jewry. This consumerism included new kosher foods and wines; Jewish ritual objects for display and use; Jewish rock music, sermons, and classes on tape; and kosher TV dinners and instant cake mixes. These allowed Orthodox Jews to "participate in the same consumerist and social trends as their nonkosher-consuming neighbors without abandoning their religious obligations" (p. 118). Thus, Diamond argues Orthodox Judaism was no longer relegated either to the margins of the Jewish community or even of secular society.

The author makes excellent use of varied sources--interviews, archival documents, local and national newspapers, maps, property assessment lists, and census information. These last two are particularly interesting for American Jewish historians, since property assessments in Canada list the religion of owners and tenants, and the Canadian census includes religious affiliation, enabling Diamond to make a more accurate assessment of...