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Jews in Middletown?

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Jews in Middletown? Dan Rottenberg, ed.. Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish Community. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997. xxxiv + 142 pp. $19.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-253-33243-1. Reviewed by Ava F. Kahn Published on H-Oralhist (October, 1998) When sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd their lives in a town where, as the book's editor studied Muncie, Indiana, for their groundbreak‐ concludes in his preface, Jews were visible ing anthropological studies of Muncie, Middle‐ enough to provoke anti-Semitism but too small to town and Middletown in Transition, there was support a permanent rabbi. Schwartz commis‐ one segment of the population that was scarcely sioned Ball State University professors C. Warren discussed. The Jews of Muncie, numbering ap‐ Vander Hill and Dwight W. Hoover to interview proximately two hundred, did not play an impor‐ nineteen Jewish residents who lived in the Lynds' tant role in the Lynds' story. In fact, the Lynds dis‐ Middletown. The interviewees were surprisingly missed them with the comment that the Jewish diverse. Although most of the interviewees were community was "so small as to be numerically practicing Jews, some reform and others Ortho‐ negligible" (p. vii). This was not just happen‐ dox, a few interviewees had left Judaism, and one stance, for the Lynds, interested in homogeneity, interviewee was the Christian wife of a deceased were looking for a town whose population was Muncie Jew. While some of the interviewees had primarily American-born and Protestant, with left Muncie by the time of the interviews, all lived few minorities or foreign-born (p. xvi). They were in the city during the 1920s and 1930s, the years also seeking to study an industrial society, and the of the Lynds' research. Complete transcripts of the Jews, engaged mostly in small businesses, did not interviews are available at the Center for Middle‐ fit the studies criteria. town Studies in the Bracken Library at Ball State In 1979, Martin Schwartz, a native-born Jew‐ University. ish resident of Muncie, observed that the Jewish Middletown Jews, based on the Center for community was changing as the small business‐ Middletown Studies collection, is a person-by-per‐ men were retiring and many of the next genera‐ son history of the former community which at‐ tion were seeking opportunities elsewhere. He tempts to place the Jews of Muncie back in the sought to record the existence of the Jews of Mid‐ history of the now mythical Middletown. The dletown as well as to discover how Jews managed transcripts have been "edited for clarity, readabil‐ H-Net Reviews ity, and avoidance or redundancy," and the edi‐ lived in a state that had a Jewish population of tor's comments are easily accessible to the reader only 21,000, or four-tenths of one percent of the in brackets or footnotes (p. xiii). Excerpts of the state's population, (p. ix), as well as a large Ku nineteen interviews, placed in individual chap‐ Klux Klan. Therefore, the community was isolat‐ ters, form the main body of the book. The inter‐ ed, usually struggling for cohesion and survival. view chapters are preceded by a thoughtful pref‐ Several themes were common to most inter‐ ace by Dan Rottenberg and an introduction by views, including the struggle for economic securi‐ one of the interviewers, Dwight W. Hoover. Rot‐ ty, the survival of the community, Jewish-Gentile tenberg sets the interviews in historical context, relations, and the tensions between Orthodox, Re‐ while Hoover's introduction, a discussion of the form and secular members of the community. community's history, is a reprint of his 1985 arti‐ Overlaying these issues is the central question of cle for the Indiana Magazine of History, "To Be a how the community managed to co-exist in a Jew in Middletown: A Muncie Oral History town where Ku Klux Klan members were also Project." town leaders. The most insightful sections of the To add structure to the book, Rottenberg char‐ interviews are those devoted to Jewish-non-Jew‐ acterizes the interviews or the interviewees by ish relations and anti-Semitism. The Lynds be‐ placing them in chapters with titles including "An lieved that most of Muncie felt that "individual Instinct for Survival," "Muncie Will Always be Jews may be all right but that as a race one Home to Me," and "The Gentile Wife." Each chap‐ doesn't care to mix too much with them" (p. x). ter is arranged in basically the same order with Some of the interviews bear out the fact of an asterisk separating different, yet unlabeled, their social ostracism, document active discrimi‐ topics: personal history, family history, the Jewish nation against them, and give insight into the dif‐ community, religion at home, social activities, ferent ways Muncie's Jews had of facing preju‐ Jewish and non-Jewish relations, the Klan and dices. While some interviewees openly discuss the anti-Semitism, the congregation, and fnally, town's anti-Semitism or Klan activities, most di‐ hopes for the future of the community. minish their experience of personal slights. Many Most of Muncie's Jewish community immi‐ of the interviewees state that they faced little dis‐ grated from Germany, eastern Europe, or the larg‐ crimination but then follow that statement with er cities of the eastern United States. They were an example of ostracism. One interviewee claims attracted to the city because of its economic op‐ that she "felt very well accepted by [her] acquain‐ portunities, becoming the merchants of Walnut tances ... and never felt ... excluded from anything Street, the central shopping district. Although because of [her] religion" (p. 76). However, she rarely able to support a permanent rabbi, also recalls, "I don't remember ever being asked Muncie's Jews did build a synagogue, form com‐ to join any of the clubs or sororities in high munal organizations, and sustain a religious school" (p. 76). Another interviewee frst stated school for their children's education. In this re‐ that the anti-Semitism he felt was just "a social spect, they were not all that different from other thing--I wasn't invited to parties that I would ex‐ small Jewish communities throughout the Mid‐ pect to be invited to. That's really about it" (p. 3). west and West. However, Muncie's Jews did face He continued, however, "when it came to housing, some unusual circumstances that made the com‐ Westwood was always closed to our people, and munity's survival questionable enough to justify Kenmore was at one time. Those were the two Rottenberg's subtitle, "The Tenuous Survival of an best residential neighborhoods" (p. 3). Reading American Jewish Community." For Muncie's Jews these accounts of the coping mechanisms 2 H-Net Reviews Muncie's Jews developed is far more powerful supplying photographs of the community which than reading a secondary account of anti- help the reader put a face on most of the individu‐ Semitism in the city. als, showing them in their work places or during While many significant questions and much Jewish community events such as confirmations valuable information is contained in the inter‐ or at a Bar Mitzvah. views, the book's format does not make their dis‐ The methodology of book editing is different cussion easily accessible. No matter the impor‐ from the methodology of oral history collection, tance of the content, it is through organization and as is the case in most books based on oral his‐ and presentation that books using interview tran‐ tory a review of the book cannot be complete scripts demonstrate their strength. Sometimes, if without a thank-you to the oral historians for cre‐ the individual stories are dramatic, as in Ruth ating the project that researched, collected, tran‐ Wolman's Crossing Over, interviews with refugees scribed, and placed in an archive a significant who fed Nazi Europe, a person-by-person history part of American Jewish history. These transcripts can work; however, in the case of Middletown will be an important building block for historians Jews this method leads to problems with repeti‐ who seek to create a complete version of Ameri‐ tion both of information previously stated in the can Jewish history, not one that is centered only in introduction and of material almost identical to the major urban centers. The editor should also other interviews. Since the excerpts were divided be thanked for bring these interviews out into the by topic, the book might have had a greater im‐ open rather than leaving them to gather pact for the reader if it had labeled sections with metaphorical dust in the archive. titles such as "Anti-Semitism," "The Ku Klux Klan," "The community may very well vanish from and "Jewish-Gentile Relations." In this way re‐ Muncie in the next generation, just as countless sponses could have placed side-by-side for com‐ small Jewish communities across American have parison, as was the format in From the Old Coun‐ vanished in the second half of the twentieth cen‐ try by Bruce Stave and John Sutherland, or sepa‐ tury," concludes Dan Rottenberg, "but the Jews of rated by reoccurring topics as in Witnesses to the Muncie have indeed contributed something im‐ Holocaust by Rhoda Lewin. An additional prob‐ portant to American Jewish life: a demonstration lem for the reader is the lack of information about that Jewish individuals armed with the slenderest how the interviews were conducted and struc‐ human and fnancial resources can create and tured. Because the interviewers questions were sustain a viable Jewish community as they feel removed from the transcripts, it is impossible to the need to do so" (p.
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