| Summary: | "The heart of this study is the social and cultural role of Yiddish in the community of the Eastern European immigrants to America in the last decades of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the twentieth centuries. These Jewish newcomers were poor working-class people who were strangely divided between religious piety and radical socialism. They became the sweat-shop toilers and ghetto dwellers. They lived in a colorful world of "landsman" fraternalism, Yiddish theater, literature and press. To illustrate his thesis that the Jews were integrated in a community of Yiddish institutional life, Dr. Doroshkin has selected two important institutions that were instrumental in helping the immigrants to bridge his "shtetl" culture to his new life and needs: the Yiddish press, and landsmanshaft and fraternal organization. The American Jewish labor movement is woven into the background of the study as a fundamental strand in the total fiber of the Yiddish culture. This work closely examines and defines the various forms of Jewish fraternalism. The fascinating study of the Yiddish press presents a striking illustration of the sociology of the American Jews during the era of 1880 to 1924. The author's conclusions support Robert Ezra Park's famous view that: 'No other foreign language press has succeeded in reflecting so much of the intimate life of the people which it represents, or reacted so powerfully upon the opinion, thought, and aspirations of the public for which exists.' Thus it is seen that the Eastern European Jews in America used their mother tongue to create a world of Jewish values and attitudes. There was a true ethnic unity expressed through the medium of a national language and culture. In thus study Professor Doroshkin builds a foundation for his sociological analysis of the Yiddish community by offering a comparative historical overview of the earlier American Jewish communities, the Sephardic and the German. A scientific examination of the class structure of American Jews differentiates the contemporary community from the earlier Yiddish period. The apparent status disparity is offered as an explanation for common errors today in evaluating the earlier community structure. While Dr. Doroshkin refuses to prognosticate regarding the future of the Yiddish language, he ably demonstrates that it has made rich contributions that are well stamped upon the face of our contemporary culture. He believes that the destiny of Yiddish as cultural medium depends upon the social destiny of the people themselves, who always must shape their cultural institutions to serve their changing social needs."--Publisher's description.
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