Our Parents' Lives: Jewish Assimilation in Everyday Life

In a marvelous mixture of oral history and subtle theory, the Cowans explain -- illustrated by the stories of first-generation American Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe, or whose parents emigrated from the east -- how and why many of them "made it" in America. The Cowans (Ruth is a distinguished history professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the author of More Work for Mother and A Social History of American Technology; Neil is a public relations consultant) argue that Eastern European Jews in American shtetle answered the question "What is a Jew?" their own way, avoiding the twin pitfalls of total assimilation or clinging to the old ways.After you've read Our Parents' Lives, go out and rent Barry Levinson's screen gem, Avalon, to see the embodiment of the Cowans' theories, and maybe shed a tear of two.