"The Rest of Us"

The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews

By: Stephen Birmingham

Narrated by: Mel Foster

Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times - bestselling history of the Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland who altered the American landscape from New York to Hollywood.

The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined, and in no time they were moving up from the ghetto tenements of New York's Lower East Side to make their marks and their fortunes across the country in a variety of fields, from media and popular music to fashion, motion pictures, and even organized crime.

Among the unforgettable personages author Stephen Birmingham profiles are radio pioneer David Sarnoff, makeup mogul Helena Rubinstein, Hollywood tycoons Samuel Goldwyn and Harry Cohn, Broadway composer Irving Berlin, and mobster Meyer Lansky. From the author of "Our Crowd", comes this treasure trove of fascinating tales and unforgettable "rags-to-riches" success stories that celebrates the indomitable spirit of a unique community.

©1984 Stephen Birmingham (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. From “The East European Immigrant Jew in America (1881–1981): Isaac Don Levine, Letters of an Immigrant,” American Jewish Archives, April 1981, Volume XXXIII, Number 1. By permission of American Jewish Archives. From The New York Times, September 1, 1967. © 1967 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. From BRONFMAN DYNASTY by Peter C. Newman. © 1978 by Peter C. Newman. Reprinted by permission of the author and the Canadian publishers, McClelland and Stewart Limited, Toronto.

Book 3 of 3

This has been a very enlightening and educational series about the social history of Jewish immigration to the United States. This book highlights the wave of Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe in the very early 20th century. It uses some very famous people as exemplars, most interesting to me was the story of David Sarnoff.

The most interesting of the 3 groups of Jews

Tho perhaps the least heralded of Birmingham's trilogy, but I found this the most entertaining & informative.

Excellent history of the American jews

I love to listen to stories on ling drives. This was a great explanation of the immigration of eastern European jews and their contributions to the US.