"A work of truly extraordinary scope, driven by admirable intellectual ambition. It is exhilarating to come across a work of such imagination and originality."
Martin Gilbert
"... fascinating from first page to last." —Sir Martin Gilbert
J. Haus
Kobrin (Jewish history, Columbia) analyzes the Jewish migration experience from Bialystok in the 19th and 20th centuries. Adopting a transnational perspective, she seeks to place Jewish migration from eastern Europe to the US in a broader global context in which the US is not a land unto itself, but one of several locales in which migration and integration occurred. In doing so, Kobrin argues that Bialystok Jews constructed a transnational self-perception, melding together their eastern European Jewish heritage and their new homelands. They subsequently expressed this new sense of identity through cultural and philanthropic organizations focused on Bialystok emigrants and their descendants as a specific group with their own specific diaspora experience. This migration, she concludes, 'radically revised and reconfigured the ideological cornerstones of modern Jewish life.' Kobrin's study builds upon previous work by scholars like Nancy Green who utilize a divergent analysis of migration—not studying merely one destination, but comparing the experiences of immigrants in different cities or countries. Kobrin's well-written, well-researched book advances this approach, providing a valuable resource for scholars and students alike. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. — Choice
Universityof Toronto - Derek Penslar
An imaginative and original work. It offers an intriguing argument that in the first half of the 20th century, diaspora Jewish identities were defined through a constant, dynamic process of interaction between the place of origin and the several sites of immigration.
J. Haus]]>
Kobrin (Jewish history, Columbia) analyzes the Jewish migration experience from Bialystok in the 19th and 20th centuries. Adopting a transnational perspective, she seeks to place Jewish migration from eastern Europe to the US in a broader global context in which the US is not a land unto itself, but one of several locales in which migration and integration occurred. In doing so, Kobrin argues that Bialystok Jews constructed a transnational self-perception, melding together their eastern European Jewish heritage and their new homelands. They subsequently expressed this new sense of identity through cultural and philanthropic organizations focused on Bialystok emigrants and their descendants as a specific group with their own specific diaspora experience. This migration, she concludes, 'radically revised and reconfigured the ideological cornerstones of modern Jewish life.' Kobrin's study builds upon previous work by scholars like Nancy Green who utilize a divergent analysis of migration—not studying merely one destination, but comparing the experiences of immigrants in different cities or countries. Kobrin's well-written, well-researched book advances this approach, providing a valuable resource for scholars and students alike. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. — Choice
Jonathan Frankel]]>
A work of truly extraordinary scope, driven by admirable intellectual ambition. It is exhilarating to come across a work of such imagination and originality.
Jonathan Frankel
A work of truly extraordinary scope, driven by admirable intellectual ambition. It is exhilarating to come across a work of such imagination and originality.
Rutgers University - Jeffrey Shandler
Challenges and refines long-standing assumptions about Old World/New World dynamics generally and Jewish immigrants to America in particular. . . . Original and smartly conceived, grounded in careful, extensive research and thoughtful analysis.
