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xxvii It is a pleasure to thank the many people who encouraged and assisted me in the writing of this book. At the outset of my academic career, some thirty-five years ago, I was intrigued with the question of Jewish neighborhood persistence and migration within the great metropolis of New York. As these interests were refined in examining Jewish movement into and out of Harlem, I became keenly aware that there was a concomitant internal communal life worthy of detailed exploration. How did Jews of different economic and social classes and varying political and religious orientations define and live their lives, many miles and subway rides removed from the hub of the Lower East Side? In the decades that followed, I moved away from my Harlem story but took what I learned there to other projects, articles, and books. Innovative institutional activities in Harlem helped me understand how different religious Jewish movements throughout the United States worked to cope with disaffection from faith traditions. In retrospect, development of these strategies may have been Harlem Jews’ greatest contributions to American Jewish life. I now have received the opportunity to revisit these essential elements in New York neighborhood history: movement within and without localities, life on the streets, and institutional contributions that transcend time and place that made up Jewish city life. Three years ago, after writing a book-length study of Orthodox Jews in the United States, I began to pick up the metropolis ’s Jewish story where I had left off in the 1920s and have followed its saga into the new millennium. I am very grateful to Jennifer Hammer, editor at New York University Press, and to my colleague Professor Deborah Dash Moore for inviting me to walk with New York Jews through my home city’s streets over the past ninety years as I joined the team of scholars who have worked assiduously on this multivolume history, City of Promises. Both Jennifer and Deborah challenged me in a firm but friendly way to broaden the scope of the book’s dimensions. I also feel privileged to have shared my work and learned from the labors of Diana Linden, Anne Polland, Howard Rock, and Daniel Soyer, who are illuminating earlier and other dimensions of New York Jewish history. Likewise, my thanks to the several readers of the manuscript for the A U T H O R ’ S A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S xxviii ■ Author’s Acknowledgments time and effort they devoted to refining and expanding my arguments. My friend Professor Benjamin R. Gampel of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America was, as always, of great help on technical, practical, and above all, scholarly issues. Dr. Jack Ukeles taught me much about the demographic resources available to quantify Jewish movements and persistence in New York over the past half century. As with all literary endeavors, all advice and criticisms were well taken, but any errors of fact or judgment that appear in this work are mine alone. In my search for sources and materials, I was assisted, as in the past, by the outstanding library staff at Yeshiva University, including John Moryl, Zvi Erenyi, Zalman Alpert, and the indefatigable Mary Ann Linahan. At my home institution, I am always heartened by the encouragement of its president, Richard M. Joel; chancellor, Dr. Norman Lamm; and provost, my “rabbi,” Dr. Morton Lowengrub. I am also grateful to the archivists at several distinguished New York institutions for their kind assistance, beginning with Yeshiva’s own Shulamith Z. Berger and Deena Schwimmer and including Laura Tosi at the Bronx County Historical Society and Joel Rudnick at the Division of Archives and Special Collections at the City College of New York. I am extraordinarily appreciative of the efforts of my research assistant, Zev Eleff, a budding historian in his own right, who fulfilled the arduous job of digging up many of these resources. I am likewise thankful for the work of Audrey Nasar, another outstanding student, who uncovered many important primary sources. At the technical end, Peter Robertson of Yeshiva University’s public affairs department was a great help in preparing photos for publication. All of my family members are—or should be— avid readers of my books. At least that is the demand that I have imposed on my children, Eli and Sheri, Rosie and Dan and Michael. Two of my granddaughters, Audrey Sofia and Mira Abigail, may prefer to read Harry Potter...

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