To Newark with Love

To Newark with Love is a celebration of New Jersey's largest city, seen through the eyes of a proud third-generation Newarker. In a series of essays, Helen Lippman tells revealing stories--some as lighthearted as a trip to the planetarium, others as fraught as the racist practices that led to the city's famed 1967 rebellion. The book spans 120 years, beginning and ending with stories about both the city and Lippman's family. It starts when her paternal grandparents joined tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews who settled in Newark and ends in the present, with a nod to the city's burgeoning revitalization. Throughout the work, Lippman boldly addresses societal upheavals she experienced in Newark: the anti-Semitic taunts from children down the street, the fear associated with her family's ties to the Communist Party in the midst of the Red Scare, and the growing taint of racism as Newark's population rapidly flipped from primarily white to majority black. In this exploration of the city's effect on her life and its evolution in a changing world, Lippman's affection for her hometown shines through on every page.