POTW: A sidewalk in Bensonhurst

Alice

black and white photo of two girls playing on sidewalk in front of laundromat with washing machines in the window. Both girls have shoulder-length hair and have their hands sticking out straight from their sides. The girl facing the camera is wearing a black coat and smiling and the girl facing away from the camera is wearing a white coat.
A Syrian Jewish family. Two girls playing in the streets of Bensonhurst., 1951, BJHP_0027; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.

This week's Photo of the Week takes us to a sidewalk in Bensonhurst where Sally and her friend play in front of a laundromat in 1951. From the Biographical Note in the catalog record: 

The family of Isaac and his younger sister Sally is from Aleppo, Syria. Their father, Jacob, arrived in the United States in 1914, and first lived in the Bronx. He married Mollie and moved to the Lower East Side. They eventually settled in Bensonhurst in a small Syrian Jewish Community from Aleppo... The neighborhood was a mix of Italian and Jewish... Isaac says: They became more American than Syrian. Nevetheless, the family preserved their Syrian heritage and traditions through religious practices and food... 

This photo was donated for capture by Sally and digitized as a part of the Brooklyn Jewish History Project, a community scanning and oral history repository, to document the history, lives and experiences of Jewish people in Brooklyn. To see more images, ephemera and objects from this project, visit the Brooklyn Jewish History Project collection on our digital collections portal. This project was funded by the David Berg Foundation.

Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We welcome appointments to research our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.

 

This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.

 

Sandra Bernstein

Wikipedia gives some really important context about this community, which struggled to escape Syria after a 1947 pogram in Aleppo that killed 75, injured hundreds, and destroyed more than 200 Jewish homes, shops and synagogues. Getting out was often difficult as their passports were confiscated and sale of their property forbidden. Brooklyn is now home to world's largest Syrian-Jewish community. Meanwhile the Jewish population in Syria has declined from 15,000 in 1947 to 3 in 2024. For more detail see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Syria.
Wed, Dec 18 2024 6:07 pm Permalink

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