Author Talk: Nathaniel Deutsch – A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg

For more than a century, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has been home to one of the largest Jewish communities in New York City. Since World War II, it has also become the most intensely Hasidic neighborhood in the United States. How did Hasidim carve out an enclave in one of New York’s poorest and most crime-impacted areas during the 1960s and 1970s? How did they respond when, more recently, Williamsburg became a global symbol for gentrification?

Presented by Nathaniel Deutsch, a professor of Jewish history at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the author of numerous books, including The Maiden of Ludmir: A Jewish Holy Woman and Her World.