HES’s donation of 7,000 volumes led to the opening of the first Brownsville public library in 1905, which was heavily utilized by the local population from the start (Brownsville Library website). As the purpose of the institution was to Americanize members of Brooklyn’s Jewish community, in the beginning HES emphasized instruction in English and citizenship, with all activities geared towards “teaching valuable lessons in thrift, manners, and citizenship.” Soyer writes, “Despite the condescending intentions behind many of the programs, Brownsville participants responded favorably” (42). Hebrew Educational Society, established 1899.Ĭontinual efforts made by elite New York and Brooklyn Jews to Americanize their poorer counterparts led to the founding of the Hebrew Educational Society (HES) in 1899, the result of efforts by prominent New York Jews associated with the Baron de Hirsch Fund. Brownsville’s small circle of middle class Americanized Jews remained anxious at the turn of the century, first that the influx of poorer eastern Europeans would undermine their own hard-won respectability, and second because they continually compared themselves to their Manhattan counterpart, a much larger and wealthier Jewish community (Soyer).Īnnual Report of the Brooklyn League, 1905, V1973.6.440 Photography Collection, ARC.202 Brooklyn Historical Society. Historian Daniel Soyer writes that Brooklyn’s inhabitants also represented “the strained relationship between so-called Uptown Jews (wealthy, Americanized Jews mainly of central European origins) and Downtown Jews (poor eastern European immigrants)” (Soyer, 40).

Alfred Kazin, who grew up in Brownsville and wrote about his memories, described the neighborhood in the early twentieth century as “New York’s rawest, remotest, cheapest ghetto, enclosed on one side by the Canarsie flats and on the other by the hallowed middle class districts that showed the way to New York” (Kazin, 18). Living in America – The Jewish Experienceĭespite its lively atmosphere, Brownsville remained a troubled neighborhood and its Jewish residents were among the poorest of the city.All About Brownsville – Table of Contents

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