Assimilation (Sociology)

Louise Flarsheim discusses local Jewish organizations, individuals, and neighborhoods. Topics include the Jewish Hospital, the Byck family, Adath Israel congregation, the Young Men's Hebrew Association, recollections of World Wars I and II, the Standard Club, the Council of Jewish Women, antisemitism, Jewish assimilation, and the Jewish Debutante's Ball.

Renee Gambrel was born in France. She came to the United States after World War I with her American husband. Unable to adjust to life in Bell County, Kentucky, she and her husband returned to France where they lived for nineteen years.

The narrator discusses her family history; second-hand recollections of Jewish immigrants to Louisville during the 1840s; the Sabel, Selligman, Dembitz, Brandeis, and Flexner families; Jewish assimilation into the Christian community; Jewish neighborhoods; Louisville politics; Alfred Selligman; the League of Women Voters; Charles Morris; I.W. Bernheim; the Standard Club; relationships between German and east European Jews; Jewish businesses; and Jewish teachers.

Switow discusses his father, a Russian immigrant who owned movie theaters in Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia; his father's work in Louisville's Adath Jeshurun congregation; his childhood and education in Louisville at Cochran Elementary School, the Louisville Hebrew School, and Louisville Male High School; service in the United States Navy during World War I; engineering education at the University of Kentucky; Louisville during the 1937 flood; work with World War II bond drives; and views on the creation of Israel following the war. Switow concludes by discussing Jewish assimilation and changes in the local Jewish community.