To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.a

by Deborah Dash Moore

Book Overview

After World War II, thousands of Jews responded to the siren call of warmth and opportunity in the South and West. In an epic saga, Moore interweaves individual voices, dreams, and accomplishments, while tracing the evolution of a new consensus on the boundaries of Jewish life and the essence of being Jewish.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674893050
• ISBN13: 9780674893054
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

a subtle mix of interesting and boring

Parts of this book were interesting- I especially liked the first couple of chapters, where Moore shows how explosively the Jewish community in Miami and Los Angeles grew, and why these cities were so attractive to American Jews. She also tries to explain why Jewish-black cooperation was so common; in Miami Beach, both were fighting against similar types of housing discrimination, and Jews had no convincing reason to oppose fair housing for blacks while opposing it for themselves. (Although it is not clear why Los Angeles Jews adopted similar political views when they seem to have had far less discrimination to contend with). But much of the middle of the book settles into the rut of blow-by-blow community history, with an unexciting listing of which rabbi did what in which neighborhood. She generalizes about differences between Sun Belt and Frost Belt Jews without backing up her generalizations, she barely mentions Orthodox Jews, and she barely mentions the evolution of Sunbelt Jewish communities over the past few decades. On balance I am glad I looked at this book, but am not sure if I really needed to read every page and every chapter.