Ponderable Quote From "Blood of my Blood" by Richard Gambino

Christopher Columbus in Central Park
by Jeronimo Suñol (1839-1902)
Photo by New York Scugnizzo 

"As has often been noted, New York City sports a large collection of statues of famous Italians—Columbus, Verdi, Garibaldi, Dante, etc., erected mostly at the instigation of the immigrants from Northern Italy. On the other hand there are few, if any, statues of famous Jews in New York. This lack has not hurt the progress of American Jews at all, for they have been successful in attuning their culture to the life of America. And conversely, all the many statues of famous Italians have not helped Italian Americans. For reasons to be further investigated, their attunement of the old culture to meet the demands of success in a new society has been considerably less successful. And such adjustment need not mean assimilation, for American Jews have retained their ethnicity at least as much as have Italian Americans."

(Reprinted from Blood of my Blood by Richard Gambino, p. 109, Guernica, 2000)