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Title: Not Quite White: The Emergence of Jewish Ethnoburbs in Los Angeles 19202010

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2016

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Abstract: When scholars speak of situating Jews within the American racial landscape, typically, they are speaking metaphorically. How have Jews seen themselves? How have they been perceived others?1 I offer here an alternative, more literal approach to understanding the nexus of Jews, race, and place: How have Jews situated themselves in relationship to whites with respect to where they choose to live? Even though Jewish residential choices have been to some extent constrained both by their economic resources and restrictive covenants that excluded them, every major Jewish community has seen a succession of neighborhoods where Jews have been concentrated. Even if some neighborhoods might have been closed to Jews over the course of the twentieth century, Jews have made choices among neighborhoods to which they did have access. How have Jews chosen where to live? This is not a simple question to answer because Jews do not appear to behave like white ethnics, even though sociological theory has assumed that they ought to. Indeed, when the assumption of Jewish whiteness is lifted, Jewish residential patterns, especially in their Sunbelt variety, appear most similar to those of nonwhite ethnics generally, and to the Asian-American ethnoburb in particular.

Url: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_jewish_history/v100/100.1.phillips.html

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Authors: Phillips, Bruce A

Periodical (Full): American Jewish History

Issue: 1

Volume: 100

Pages: 73-103

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Housing and Segregation, Other, Race and Ethnicity

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