Gil Ribak

The very question of “what do Jews think about the goyim” has fascinated Jews and Gentiles, anti-Semites and philo-Semites alike. MThis critical look at the origins of Jewish liberalism in America provides a more complicated and nuanced picture of the Americanization process. Gentile New York examines these newcomers’ evolving feelings toward non-Jews through four critical decades in the American Jewish experience. Gil Ribak considers how they perceived Gentiles in general as well as such different groups as “Yankees” (a common term in many Yiddish sources), Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, and African Americans.