Two Jews from Astoria

By Susan Gluck Rothenberg and Jean Kelly

The lively, entwined lives of two neighborhood girls from Astoria, Queens NYC who come to embrace Jewish life from two very different directions -- one from a non-observant Jewish family, the other from an Irish Catholic upbringing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: XOXOXpress
• Release date: Apr 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088103289

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Two Jews

from Astoria

Susan Rothenberg

& Jean Kelly

Copyright © 2023, Susan Gluck Rothenberg

All rights reserved.

Dedicated to Teddy and Olga Gluck,

who raised Susan with Jewish culture and values

and whose lives opened up for Jean

an undying interest and love of Jewish life.

Astoria

On April 12th, 1839, the New York State Legislature passed a bill entitled An act to incorporate the Village of Astoria. The boundary line was to be 25th Avenue on the north, 31st Street, 30th Avenue and Crescent Street on the east, Broadway on the south, and the East River on the west. ¹ The area was originally called Hallet’s Cove, after its first landowner, William Hallet, who settled there in 1659. It was renamed after John Jacob Astor, then the wealthiest man in America, to persuade him to invest just $2,000 in the neighborhood. He only invested $500.²

Astoria was first settled by Dutch Germans in the 17th century, followed in 19th and 20th centuries by Irish, Italians, Jews, Greeks, Cypriots, Maltese, and Arab populations.³

The area is predominantly residential. Some 32% of the land is used for living quarters. Some heavy industries are found throughout the area but, except for the public utility plant, the chief concentration of industrial businesses is in the section from Broadway to 40th and 41st Avenues, where 18% of the acreage is industrial.

Astoria Park, which goes along the East River from Ditmars Boulevard to Hoyt Avenue South, is approximately 58 acres. The Triboro Bridge (renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in 2008) connects the Bronx and upper Manhattan with Queens, and enters Astoria at the southern end of Astoria Park. ⁴

By 1940 Astoria was one of the most populated sections of Queens, with a population of 163,117. By the time of the 1957 census the population was 176,448. The 1950 census shows that Astoria was predominately native-born European Americans (73.7%) with foreign-born European American another 25.5% ­— totaling 173,292 persons. The 1957 census showed 97.3% of the population was European American, followed by 2.4% African Americans. Persons of Italian birth led the foreign-born Europeans, with German, Irish, Eastern European, Greek, British and Canadians in decending order of population precentage.⁵ There are now some African American, Native American, and Hispanic people in Astoria, giving it even more of a multicultural community.

The memories we will share in this book clearly show how mixed cultures and ways of living can have profound effects upon the individual people living within them.

Susan’s Memories

Though I knew my family was Hungarian Jewish, I grew up in a very non-religious Jewish home. My father would have liked to be at least a bit more observant, but other than knowing she was a Hungarian Jew, my mother grew up not learning anything about what being Jewish meant. If she were asked her ethnic background she would have said, I’m Hungarian. If she were asked about her religion, she probably would have shrugged her shoulders and remained quiet.

Being Jewish had no meaning for her. My mother knew nothing about being Jewish because when she was quite young, her father, Alexander Deutsch, while living in Austro-Hungary, discarded the old ways for a new and