National Book Award Non Fiction Winner
World of Our Fathers
by Irving Howe
Summary
A sweeping social history of the East European Jewish migration to the United States and the working-class culture that flourished in New York's Lower East Side. Howe weaves labor struggle, theater, journalism, and family life into a portrait of a vanishing world, drawing on Yiddish sources rarely translated for English readers. The book became an unexpected bestseller and helped revive popular interest in secular Jewish identity.
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Historical Context & Significance
Howe spent years interviewing aging immigrants; the book is credited with sparking a massive 1970s revival of interest in Yiddish culture and secular Jewish identity.