Book Report: Bridging Three Worlds

Bridging Three Worlds; 

Hungarian-Jewish Americans, 

1848 – 1914

By Robert Pearlman

The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1991

Contents

In Hungary

          A Very Short History of Hungary

          Jews and Magyars

          The Quid pro Quo Arrangement

          Religion, Languages, and Folklore

          Two Jewries

Migrating and Settling

          The ‘48ers

          Three Families

          The Big Migration

          Urban Colonies

          Small Town Diaspora

Three Worlds

          The Magyar Connection

          The Jewish Bond

          The American Door

          Flickers and Reflections

When I began researching my Jewish roots I knew there was a lot I did not know. My Jewish grandfather died before I was born so I had no exposure the culture or religion. When Robert Friedman started doing the research for me traced my Gartner family back to Hungary I knew nothing about that country either.

I sent off an email to Robert, asking him to recommend something I could read so I could learn what life was like for the Gartners. One of the books he suggested was Bridging Three Worlds.

First the book gave me a short history of Hungary, where my great grandfather, Leopold Gartner and his family lived beginning about 1864. Then it painted a picture of the immigration process as it would have been about 1874 when Leopold came to New York City. The book taught me about Jewish settlements in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and the major occupations of those Hungarian-Jewish neighborhoods. Not having any family stories about this part of my family this book helped flesh out the details. I’m very glad to have this book.