UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Tales from the American Shtetl

Alan Lupo

Snapshots of the disappearing world of ordinary Jews

In The Messiah Comes Tomorrow, veteran journalist Alan Lupo recounts the stories of working-class Jews, both those he grew up with in Boston and those he interviewed elsewhere over four decades. "For too long now," he writes, "the perception of Jews in America is that of an upper-middle-class people engaged mainly in ‘the professions’ and rarely doing the dirty work. Thanks to the clichés of modern literature and film, the Jew is seen as a kvetch, a whining, self-pitying, mother-resenting character. Lost, somehow, are the others—the working stiffs, the small-time business owners, the amateur scholars, the bookies and street sluggers. . . . Such characters, very few of them famous, are part of the rich American landscape."

In this selection of columns and profiles, Lupo vividly evokes the poetry, passion, and daily struggles of common men and women. We meet the aging burlesque comedian, the bookie who swore he would not rat on his Mob associates, the dealer in secondhand clothing, the aunt and uncle who would never move up to a better apartment. Lupo captures the humor as well as the pathos of people in transition from insularity to assimilation, delineating their lamentations and wisecracks, their fatalistic humor and street smarts. The book is both a portrait of and a tribute to a culture gradually disappearing from the American scene.

"Lupo's work has flashes of beauty and wonderful humor (I found myself laughing out loud a number of times), but what most recommends it is his honesty. . . . His is precisely the type of voice that needs to be heard in the college classroom these days. The Messiah Comes Tomorrow is a monument to a very particular past, and a very impressive and finely carved one."

Roland Merullo, author of Revere Beach Boulevard
"There is no book that I know of that talks about the lives of ordinary Jews with the mixture of history, humor, and poignancy that Lupo brings. . . . He writes with sharpness and humor. . . . The pieces zip along, yet each makes a point and leaves the reader with a haunting image."

Jonathan Kaufman, author of Broken Alliance: The
Turbulent Times between Blacks and Jews in America

Alan Lupo is a columnist and reporter for The Boston Globe. He is coauthor of Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and the U.S. City, author of Liberty's Chosen Home: The Politics of Violence in Boston, and coauthor with his wife, Caryl Rivers, of For Better, For Worse.

Jewish Studies / Urban Studies / American Studies
128 pp.
$25.00s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-283-6
2000

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