Tales of and about Jewish Youth during the Fin-de-siécle Era

This is the story of Jewish youth in upstate New York during the fin-de-siécledecade of the nineteenth century. Ginsburg details periods of transition for these youths, such as exploring life at various Jewish orphanages, where children were sheltered, educated, and taught trade skills to support themselves thereafter. He profiles The Jewish Tidings, a weekly journal that ran from 1887 to 1897, which heralded itself as "A Fearless Exponent of Progressive Judaism!" and polarized Eastern European Jewish immigrants from the predominantly German-Jewish brethren. Ginsburg rounds out his examination of Jewish life during the fin-de-siécle era by profiling figures such as a rabbi and a Jewish match peddler in Syracuse, as well as the Young Men's Hebrew Association and the Jewish Chautauqua Association. Ginsburg, a native of Syracuse, New York, delves into the history of Jewish youths during this era with interest and enthusiasm.

Lawrence M. Ginsburg is a retired lawyer who has written, among non-legal publications, Israelites in Blue and Gray: Unchronicled Tales from Two Cities (University Press of America, 2001); the essay "'Happyville' Deconstructed: An Over-caricatured Landmark in Southern Jewish History" (The South Carolina Review, 2006). Other endeavors include more then two dozen psychoanalytically-oriented papers authored or co-authored by him, which have appeared in journals published in North America, Europe and Israel. Several have been translated into French, German and Hebrew. His wife, Sybil A. Ginsburg, M.D., who is affiliated with the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute shares an interest in such scholarly pursuits.