How is this "a journalist's memoir"?
What are the qualities of the writing? Can we identify conventions from the discipline/profession (journalism) or genre (memoir)? What is your affective response to it? (glossary terms) (what do we need to chronicle today) How is it different from Suberman's memoir so far? Quotes from groups: "We were postwar adolescents who learned to doubt the idea that making money was the poetry of life-- uncertain because our parents gave us the luxury of uncertainty."(pg. 31) "...no different in the Jewish South, for every immigrant wanted his son to live a better life than he had lived. In the North, however, Jewish tailors sweated over the steam press to get their sons out; in the south, the small store owners worked to build a place to keep their sons home." (pg. 29) "We were the only large store that would cash a Negro's paycheck...even if he didn't buy anything; the first store in town to carry black bride dolls; the first to do away with 'white' and 'colored' signs on the water fountains..." (pg. 27-28) "My parents were one generation away from the immigrant experience but the values of the immigrant experience were forged deep within them" (pg. 29) "yet the story of Jews in the south is the story of fathers who built businesses to give to their sons who didn't want them..." "He had received overwhelming support from the black precincts, and ads began to appear in the paper asking, "Who will choose your city servants? The Political Bosses, the Negro Bloc?or...You!" and "What has Evans promised the Negro Bloc?" (pg. 7) "Ironically, Buck Duke, who once drove the Jews away from Durham, built a university that brought them back--this time as doctors and interns at Duke Hospital and as professors and graduate students on campus." (pg. 19)
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Group 1
A How did being Jewish shape Jews acceptance of slaveholding? B Jews were more accepted in the South than in the North because they were open to Southern ideals and customs. Group 3 A Do you think the contested subject of secession caused rifts in the Jewish communities as some Jews supported and some Jews did not support the cause? B What were the different reasons that Jewish populations supported secession and how do you think that relates to their experiences as minorities in the South? Group 4 1. How did Jews participate in the Reconstruction of the South? 2. What were Jewish motivations for participating in the Confederacy? Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4 A Did blacks ever house Jewish peddlers when they traveled and sold goods B How were the peddlers able to compete with the merchants who were already established in the United States? Passing, visibility of Jews, Eric Goldstein's " Southern Jews, Whiteness and Jim Crow" and Clive Webb's "Black-Jewish Relations"2/2/2017 Group 1
A Do you think the racism of white Jews in the early 1900s would have been different if they were aware of the future implications of anti-semitism in the Holocaust just a few decades later? Looking not to be a minority or to group selves with majority. For survival. Did not want to be oppressed like african americans. Post holocaust Blacks and Jews found a way to connect, shared experiences or parallel, Hard to answer. Every family or community ws so different and so differently affected. Difference in group experiences B How did the white Jews who openly discriminated against African Americans justify their actions when they often were at the hand of discrimination themselves? Perspective of survival. Preserve identity and Jewish selfhood even if it wasn’t the right thing to do. Group 2 A How did the fact that Jews held slaves influence their views on the civil rights movement? Jews held slaves, thereby grouped into White category. B What are some examples of southern jews speaking out against segregation and racism? Rabbis (see Goldstein). Northern Jewish activists -- and they were easy targets for white supremacists terror. Visibility American Jewish Committee spoke out. Other Jewish Federations in the South denounced the northern orgs because they feared for their safety. Group 3 A How did race relations changed between Jews and Blacks after Blacks were given rights in the south? (post civil rights movement?) B How has the relationship changed between the two minority groups in the South? Group 4 A Where do you draw the line between self preservation of the Jewish identity and attempting to relate to other minorities in the South? Hard to understand how Jews had slaves when they had a history of being enslaved. Difference between northern and southern Jews and how much effort they were going to put into ending discrimination. Northerners less fearful, more prominent. B were the African Americans and Jews in the south at the time fully aware of the persecution that occurred to both groups separately and how did this affect their treatment of one another? Things we learned: Jews were given all civic priv of whiteness but excluded from social events where their status might effect white racial integrity and purity How do the mother's and father's attitude towards moving reflect different experiences that Jews had in the South?
Do you think this story is reflective of most Jewish mindsets in the South during this time? How do you think the children felt living in Tennessee in a town without any other Jews? How does this family assimilate versus integrate in Tennessee? Regarding the scene where the aunts visit from the Bronx, and one turns down the marriage proposal by the southerner: comment on the conflict between the northern family members and the southern ones. There seemed like a wide difference between the Jewish Kentucky family and the Bronx and Tennessee ones. The struggles within the Jewish community and within Jewish families, not just struggles between Jews and non Jews in the community. Do you think a Jewish mother living in an entirely non-Jewish town today would act in the same way Reba did in regards to her strong insistence that her children marry Jews? Did "Jew stores" fully replace peddlars in the towns that had them? Growing up in the south versus New York: how were the children's lives changed by that? Discussing the amount of racism towards Blacks by Jews. Jews were not respected, so how is that understood? How Mr Bronson treats Seth In the historiography we are told about discrimination. But in the memoir we are shown it. E.g. boy thinks all Jews have horns. Miss Brookie's relationship with the Bronsons. She was able to share her lack of anti Semitism and respect for anyone who was different. How T was able to make best friends with Joey and date Miriam. memoir is focused on experience or set of experiences, not necessarily the whole life vs autobiography is the whole life of the author memoir includes a circle of people Night by Elie Weisel. Memoirs are more emotional than autobiographies. Authors share how they felt rather than strict historical accounts. (When we read Eli Evans we will return to this.) Readers get more context. E.g. dialogue. More specific to a certain experience. Readers can get more into it. What is your affective response to the book? Easy read. You want to hear more about the family's journey. Told by Stella who was not alive during the beginning of the narrative. Intriguing. You hear it from her standpoint. You want to meet her as a character because you hear it from her viewpoint. (She got stories from her family). I was rooting for Mr Bronson the whole time! |
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April 2017
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