In City out-of-town: the Jewish Kew Gardens Hills

• In Event: Jews of North America: a Social Sciences Perspective

Abstract

In ”Sliding to the right” (2006) Samuel Heilman compared four New York neighborhoods with dense Orthodox Jewish population: Williamsburg, Boro Park, Crown Heights and Kew Gardens Hills. While Williamsburg (Kranzler 1961, 1995; Deutsch & Casper, 2021) and Boro Park (Mayer, 1979) were subjects of individual research, the orthodox community of Kew Gardens Hills hadn’t been studied separately.

Therefore this paper introducing an European style orthodox Kehillah in American shores. It describes the physical environment and the history of the buildings that define and characterize the neighborhood, its educational, social and communal institutions, and the individuals who shaped them. It also attempts to analyze the current demographic changes and predict their future consequences

Author

• Gabor Kerekes, Touro University