The Upper East Side is one of New York City’s most famous and affluent neighborhoods. Resting between the city’s world renowned central park and east side river that overlooks Brooklyn and Queens, the neighborhood is the ideal place for one to raise a family in the chaos of Manhattan. At first glance, the Upper East Side appears to be like any other affluent Manhattan neighborhood with popular food chains on every street and modern apartment buildings with neatly dressed doormen. It possesses a culture of wealth and family values. When looking closer into the signs and buildings, one can see there is another common culture shared by many in the neighborhood. Signs in Hebrew, posters advertising Jewish themed events, and modern kosher restaurants are common things to see around the neighborhood. Unlike other Jewish NYC neighborhoods that usually have a common sect or sub-culture such as ethnicity, the Upper East Side has a wide array of Jewish lifestyles including secular Israeli families, practicing reformed, and modern orthodox. The co-existence of these lifestyles mixed with the NYC culture of the Upper East Side ends up creating a subtle cultural scene that is easy to miss if one isn’t looking closely.
Like many other NYC neighborhoods, the Upper East Side has a historic Jewish presence and continues to do. It’s long history can be traced back to the 19th century, when a sudden influx of German-Jewish migrants began to move up to the upper east side, creating a subtle subtle German culture still seen today (Figure 3). The German speaking Jews often had separate communal existence from other Jewish groups and often had their own synagogues (Figure 2) (Morris, 2018). Jewish neighborhoods tend to come into existence because the need for synagogues in walking distance during sabbath and easier accessibility to kosher foods. That is not to say these neighborhoods are meant to be bubbles where only that culture prevails. German Jews especially strived to integrate into American values and culture while retaining their faith. For a lot of them, this meant giving up Jewish values that were incompatible with American society such as how they dressed, ate, and performed that sabbath (Rubinstein, 2019). This led the neighborhood to having its majority reformed- secular appeal to Jewish immigrants who sought to integrate into American society, while living in the comfort of a familiar community. To this day their legacy, such as Solomon Guggenheim (Figure 1), remains an integral part of the Upper East Side.
Jewish neighborhoods are not uncommon in NYC and surrounding neighborhoods. In fact, New York’s Jewish population is the second largest in the world only after Israel (Johnston, 2012). One main part of making a community a Jewish community is the synagogue or in the case of the Upper East Side, the many synagogues. Synagogues generally offer care to members of the community by making them familiar with other members of the community (Jacobs). Many of them are also not very subtle with how they fit in with their surrounding environment. A lot of them actually have large Hebrew phrases from the Torah written on the front of the buildings. For example, the conservitive synagogue known as “Park Avenue Synagogue” has a massive Jewish phrase carved in stone similar to something one would see in Jerusalem. This is a representation of conservitive Judaism in that it seeks to retain ancient Jewish tradition, but also attempts to apply them to the ever changing modern world (Gupta, 2019). For this specific example, it can be how the synagogue is attempting to retain its Jewish heritage in the ever changing landscape of Manhattan. It also reflects the Jewish culture of the Upper East Side in general.
As previously stated, the Jewish presence still does exist in everyday stores and restaurants, but it is subtle and easy to miss if one isn’t familiar with the culture. The restaurants are a great example and offer a wide array of modern NYC food establishments and restaurants targeted mainly towards the Jewish community. Sabas pizza (Figure 6) is a popular pizza place in the 80’s area of the Upper East Side. Famous pizza reviewer, Dave Portnoy, even visited the restaurant for one of his pizza review videos and gave the place an 8.4 out of 10 (Barstool Sports, 2017)! The sign gives the impression that it is like the one of countless pizza shops in NYC, but if someone were to walk in there and not see any pepperoni pizza, that is because Sabas Pizza is a Glatt kosher eating establishment meant to cater to the neighborhood’s large Jewish community. Tomers Gourmet Market (Figure 7) is also similar in its approach. Not anywhere on the sign is there any mention of Israeli products or kosher. The sign looks just like one you would find on any other small market in the more wealthy areas of NYC. It is not uncommon to see a local running their errands walk in there, but end up leaving confused because they may have not understood any of the labels in the store.
On the other hand, other kosher restaurants in the neighborhood take a different approach in the ways they present themselves. For example, the storefront of Nargila Grill (Figure 8) is unlike any of the other restaurants mentioned. The English letters spelling out “Nargila Grill” are in a font made to resemble Arabic and it says in clear text that it is “Glatt kosher” and a “middle eastern restaurant”. Aside from the sign, the front window is decorated in middle eastern art patterns and what looks like to be an Israeli village. How this restaurant presents itself reflects the presence of middle eastern Jews in the neighborhood. Restaurants like these that serve mostly simple meat dishes are called “etzels” in Israel and are very similar in appearance as they are decorated more traditionally. TLV-Rothschild (Figure 9) also reflects the Israeli presence in the neighborhood. The sign looks like one of an up-scale restaurant (which it is). It is meant to attract those who keep kosher with its mention of Tel Aviv-Rothschild and everyone else with its bold golden sign.
A large part of Judaism is community. Various signs can be seen around the upper east side calling for community whether it is a fun hangout or it is to be a part of a movement. A poster outside the Park Avenue Synagogue advertises a Purim festival that encourages children to dress up in costume for the Jewish holiday and come to a gathering in Central Park. Another poster outside the Synagogue calls for a summer picnic for all ages to come and socialize with other Jews. These posters reflect the Jewish community’s emphasis on maintaining a strong connection to the Jewish identity by socializing with other members of the community. The sign saying “Tzadka” (Justice) on the wine store “Bottle and Soul” can reflect two things. While this is one of the many signs of solidarity with the BLM movement, it is also a message to the Jewish community of the upper east side. It calls for the Jewish community to look into their religions core values and show compassion to another group. Lately that poster has been replaced by other posters calling for social justice (Figure 12).
Whether the upper east side is truly a Jewish neighborhood is up to those who are observing it. At first glance, the neighborhood is like any other Manhattan neighborhood, with a Starbucks every other block and Chipotle appearing on every other avenue. On the other hand, its Jewish presence is as often subtle and it is out in open. Unlike Crown Heights or other obviously religious areas, the upper east side adapts with the ever changing city to create a hybrid that neighborhood of tradition on modernism.
References:
Barstool Sports. (2012, June 9).Barstool Pizza Review – Saba’s Pizza[Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IuAH3a-HKo
Garth Johnston in News on Jun 12, 2012 10:03 am. (2012). Jew York City: NYC Has More Chosen People Than Boston, Chicago, Philly, SF & DC Combined! Gothamist. https://web.archive.org/web/20151223145716/http://gothamist.com/2012/06/12/jew_york_city_nyc_has_more_jews_tha.php.
Gupta, S. (1998). Conservative Judaism. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Conservative-Judaism.
Jacobs, J. The Importance of the Community (Kehilla) in Judaism. myjewishlearning. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/community-focused/.
Morris, T. (2018, February 23). Tracing the History of Jewish Immigrants and Their Impact on New York City. Fordham Newsroom. https://news.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/faculty-reads/tracing-history-jewish-immigrants-impact-new-york-city/.
Rubinstein, D. (2019, August 19). Where You Live in New York May Say a Lot About Your Jewish Heritage. https://www.eldridgestreet.org/blog/where-you-live-in-new-york-may-say-a-lot-about-your-jewish-heritage/.
Though I’ve only been living in the upper east side for under a year, I have learned a lot about the demographics and culture of it. Historically, it has had a large modern-Jewish presence that continues to adapt to the changing landscape of Manhattan. Kosher restaurants are fairly common as well as Jewish owned businesses such as grocery stores, wine stores, tailors, and Judaica stores. As someone who grew up in a Jewish community in Long Island and eventually moved to Israel, I feel very at home in this area of Manhattan. This Jewish community is interesting because of how progressive it is compared to other Jewish communities in NYC. Though it is hard to find now, many businesses put posters up on their windows demanding justice during the George Floyd protests. These posters often included the phrase “tzedakah” which translates to justice. Below, I included pictures of Jewish businesses from east 86th street until east 82nd.