A Double Thread: Growing Up English and Jewish in London
A Double Thread: Growing Up English and Jewish in London by John Gross is a first edition published by Ivan R. Dee on March 6, 2002. This 208-page book presents an evocative picture of a lost London and a vanished culture through the eyes of a bookish boy navigating his dual heritage. John Gross, the son of a Jewish doctor in the East End, reflects on his upbringing amidst the rich tapestry of Eastern European customs and the distinctly English world surrounding him.
Readers will find a blend of humor and insight as Gross traces his childhood experiences, highlighting the interplay between his family’s religious life and the vibrant street culture of London. The narrative explores themes of Jewish identity, social life, and the complexities of growing up in a time marked by both cultural richness and the shadows of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. This edition invites readers to engage with the nuances of Jewish life in Britain, offering a personal perspective on the social conditions and customs of the era.
Official synopsis Publisher
This evocative picture of a lost London and a vanished culture is also the story of a bookish boy discovering his own path. John Gross is the son of a Jewish doctor who practiced in the East End of London from the 1920s to World War II and beyond. His parents were the children of immigrants, steeped in Eastern European customs, yet outside the home he grew up in a very English world of comics and corner shops, sandbags and bomb sites, battered school desks and addictive, dusty cinemas. Mr. Gross looks back on his childhood with humor and insight, tracing this double inheritance. Religion underpins family life: the richness of the Yiddish language, stories, jokes and music-hall humor, the rituals and mysteries of the synagogue, are set against the life of the streets, where boxers and gangsters are heroes and patients turn up on the doorstep at all hours. And in the background, behind the wit and the color, lie the shadows of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
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