A Fire in Their Hearts

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In a compelling history of the Jewish community in New York during four decades of mass immigration, the author examines the defining role of the Yiddish socialist movement in the American Jewish experience. Founded in the 1880s and dominated by Russian-speaking intellectuals such as Abraham Cahan, Mikhail Zametkin, and Chaim Zhitlovsky, the movement recognized the importance of Yiddish in communicating with the immigrant community. They cultivated a vibrant public culture through lectures, social events, workers' education societies, Yiddish schools, and a press exemplified by the mass-circulation newspaper Forverts. Challenging the notion that socialism and Yiddish culture were merely Old World remnants, the author argues they emerged in New York as responses to local conditions, thriving due to Americanization rather than in spite of it. The movement's influence extended beyond the Lower East Side, fostering a transnational culture where individuals, ideas, and institutions crossed the Atlantic. Initially, New York Jews exported Yiddish socialism to Russia, not the reverse. This movement shaped Jewish communities across the U.S. into the twentieth century and left a significant political legacy that contributed to the rise of neoconservatism. The narrative captures both the hopeful successes and bitter disappointments of this formative period for American Jews and the American left.