I had been on the road for months by now, and had met a bewildering array of Jews—crawfish eaters and politicians, yuppies and welfare cases—all the way from the Succah in the Sky to the lesbian Havdalah hot tub. They had only one thing in common—they seemed like Jewish Americans. Now I wanted to meet American Jews, the hard core who still cling to the old Eastern European attitudes and traditions. Feierstein, who grew up on the Lower East Side, suggested I start in his neighborhood. When I found him in his office at the Metropolitan Council on Poverty, his desk was stacked high with official-looking papers, and a walkie-talkie crackled from a shelf. Feierstein gestured at the receiver. “I’m a member of Hatzollah,” he said proudly. “And we’re always on duty.” If you have the misfortune to need an ambulance in New York City, it could take as much as forty-five minutes for one to reach you. But if you are Jewish and live on the Lower East Side or in certain neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx, you can do a lot better than that.
What do You think about Members Of The Tribe (2011)?
