A Revolution in Rising Expectations: Congressman Leonard Farbstein and Jewish-Puerto Rican Relations on the Lower East Side, 1956–64

 “A Revolution in Rising Expectations”: Congressman Leonard Farbstein and Jewish-Puerto Rican Relations on the Lower East Side, 1956-1964

This paper analyzes the development of Jewish-Puerto Rican relations on New York’s Lower East Side in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It specifically examines this development within the neighborhood’s 19^th Congressional District, focusing in particular on the policies and electoral strategies of Congressman Leonard Farbstein. A first generation Jewish immigrant and a nationally-recognized Democratic Representative from 1956 to 1970, Farbstein encountered increasingly visible Puerto Rican efforts, through an experimental anti-delinquency agency called Mobilization for Youth (MFY), to attain power within local public schools and at the voting booth during his tenure. These efforts challenged Farbstein’s notions of social reform, as well as his political ties to the district’s substantial older Jewish electorate. Utilizing the Congressman’s large, yet entirely unexamined, archival collection, the paper examines how Farbstein helped craft a brand of ethnic identity politics centered on particular understandings of Jewish immigrant history, advancement, and “survival.” This resilient political culture persisted in the 19^th District even as it experienced an influx of Puerto Rican residents and foreshadowed future Jewish skepticism of New York’s “community control” movement. In this respect, the paper adds nuance to scholarly depictions of an abrupt white ethnic “backlash” against race-based reform in the late 1960s and, by focusing on the Lower East Side as an understudied site for Jewish interracial politics, complicates the Black-White dichotomy often used to explore post-1945 Jewish race relations.