The Changelings

by Jo Sinclair

Book Overview

First published in 1955 and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, this novel revolves around a pair of stubborn adolescent girls who refuse to accept the racism and anti-Semitism of their respective communities. Their courage allows them to question and to cross over into the no-man s land of segregated urban neighborhoods, claimed most recently by Jews, but now, in the early fifties, increasingly by African-Americans. "The New York Times" praised the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0935312404
• ISBN13: 9780935312409
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

East European Jews clash with American blacks, Schwartze

I enjoyed this book, written originally in 1955 about a town in Ohio, on the brink of integration and civil rights. The Schwartze (the blacks) are about to start renting all over a formerly Jewish neighborhood. Many of these Jews got out of Europe in the knick of time to avoid the Holocaust, leaving their relatives to perish. They're a paranoid, anxious bunch, to say the least, and find all "goyim" (nonJews, gentiles) something to be wary of. Blacks they cannot abide, knowing full well what will happen to their property values. One by one, each family in the novel discusses whether they should do their "white flight" to the Crown Heights area, the new hip Jewish area, or stick out life in the old neighborhood as it integrates. Most decide to leave, or better yet, do the classic thing - set the house on fire and collect the insurance to put a down payment on the next house. What discussions these people have in Yiddish and English! Their fears override any joy in life, while their children, becoming Americanized, decry their parents' paranoia. One daughter, tomboy tough and pants-wearing, age 13, Judy Vincent, makes friends with a black girl, Clara. This is a forbidden friendship on both sides of the color line, but curiosity pulls them together in a middle area, a no-man's land of sand, a gully between two areas. Meanwhile, another boy, 17, has heart trouble, is bedridden all day, and is doted on by his mother, Mrs. Golden, all day long. He will eventually die, but what he can see from his porch bed of the street activity, with blacks walking up and down ringing bells, asking if they can see the vacant apartments: this all enrages him, for the blacks are turned away. He cries out against being Jewish if it boils down to such fear and prejudice. Other characters in the novel fear that their businesses will decline, and that the synagogue will be sold. Sure enough, these fears are realized. Jewish white flight in 1955 Ohio is illustrated well in this book, from the internal Jewish point of view, almost from the children's confused and angry reactions. One can tell that the author truly must have overheard and witnessed such events herself, probably while young. Now that it is 50 years later in San Francisco, some of the book sounds outdated, as there is less fear of blacks than then. On the other hand, fear of loss of property values will never stop. It was just in the local Chronicle this morning that a newly-opened pot shop (selling medicinal marijuana at $300-500/oz) has scandalized Pacific Heights, the rich part of town. They fear above all the drop in property values, they claimed. Not just that acrid odor! And what about the scum customers??? I think that these Jews, struggling to get into and stay in the middle class in post WWII America, were right to fear that their neighborhood would deteriorate. It's great to think that all people are equal, can get along, and wouldn't that be nice. But it doesn't work.