THE REST OF US is the third panel of Stephen Birmingham's Jewish triptych (OUR CROWD and THE GRANDEES)--the story of Eastern European Jews who, between 1882 and 1915, thronged into New York to escape the pogroms of czarist Russia.
From Ellis Island, these immigrants poured into the Lower East Side. To established German Jews, this horde was an embarassment and a burden. But the Russians had a passion to succeed and soon they stood on their own.
They made it in an astonishingly short time--from the pushcarts of Hester Street to the Grand Concourse and on to the manicured lawns of Scarsdale and Beverly Hills, "from Poland to polo in one generation."
