[livius]

I’m Catholic, but I grew up on the Upper West Side and literally all my friends were Jewish. We used to go to Village when we were teenagers and then sometimes we’d stop at the Automat on 14th Street (this was in the early 1960s) and some of these ancient guys from the early 20th century immigration were still alive and would be sitting in the mezzanine reading their Yiddish newspapers and advocating for the Socialist revolution. I think this is something most people don’t understand about the situation that produced such heavy Jewish adherence to the Democratic (i.e., Socialist) Party.

[onyx]

You paint with words. It helps that I had been to NYC in ‘58, but I can visualize the automat, (I loved them) the old Jewish men, day in and day out, sitting in the same spots, reading their Yiddish newspapers and speaking about a revolution that would have to be left to a much younger generation. Perhaps they were old Bolsheviks?

What a rich young life you led.

[mrsmel]

Not to mention, many of the activists involved in the Russian revolution were Jewish.