I live in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania's capital city. It lies along the Susquehanna River, and
residents here are accustomed to referring to the East Shore and the
West Shore. The city and its surrounding suburbs are on the east shore.
The oldest money that built the town once lived in elegant mansions
along the river front. Their children spent the early part of the
twentieth century establishing homes just beyond the tenements that
came to be known as "the Hill," still the city but less congested. I
grew up in what was called "uptown," a middle class neighborhood of
double houses and solid but not spectacular single family homes. Now I
live in a township that hugs the northern rim of the city on ground
that was until the 1970s a working farm.
The west shore comprises many small boroughs and townships and has long
been regarded as the tonier side of the river. Although not everyone
who lives on the west shore is rich, there are many grand old houses in
well-kept park-like neighborhoods. West of the older boroughs are the
vast farmlands that are now being developed into communities of
"McMansions" with names like
The
Ridings and
The Woods at
Bent Creek.
As greater Harrisburg developed, certain ethnic populations established
themselves in and became identified with particular areas. The
descendants of the white Anglican and German Reformed founders of the
city are the largest percentage of the population. The eastern Europen
Catholic immigrants whose names have lots of consonants and accent
marks took root south of the city, primarily in Steelton, once the site
of a huge Bethlehem Steel plant. The small Jewish population centered
itself in the northern part of the city. The four congregations
established in the nineteenth century are within a few blocks of each
other, and the number of Jews in my township is so significant that our
public school is closed on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
Today's newspaper carries
an
essay written by a resident of Hampden
township, a west shore area that now has more isolated gated
communities of brand new "estate homes" than traditional neighborhoods.
The woman identifies herself as a non-religious Jew married to a
non-religious non-Jewish man. And she finds herself angered by the
"blatant bias" of shops (she names Wal-Mart and a Rite-Aid drug store)
that stock only a meager selection of Hanukkah items. She claims that
she cannot find even a simple Star of David to put on her door's
Christmas wreath "to show that we are a multicultural family." She says
that she is from the "great melting pot of New York" and is frustrated
to the point of wanting to shout because all the displays she sees
feature Christmas items only. She has had to send her "wonderful
husband" all the way over to the Linglestown Road area (my
neighborhood — we're talking five miles here) because she's heard
that's where the Jewish population in the capital city lives.
It's that sentence that raised my disgruntlement level. She sounds like
someone who moved here only to follow a spouse's career and she's
feeling displaced among us unsophisticated central Pennsylvania
bumpkins. (I've heard this attitude from mobile executives' wives
in my own neighborhood.)
I've written a letter to the editor of the newspaper suggesting that
this woman
accept the fact that she is not on Staten
Island anymore and has chosen to live in Hampden township. While the
west shore is not the traditional center of Jewish life and culture in
the capital city, there is a Jewish congregation in Mechanicsburg, (a
borough bordering Hampden) and one in Carlisle, about ten miles away.
Perhaps she could make the acquaintance of one of her Jewish neighbors
who might help her find the items she seeks. I also invite her to go
over the river and through the woods to visit the east shore herself. We're friendly here, Jews and Gentiles alike, and you don't
need shots and a passport to get here. I could
introduce her to some of my Jewish friends who could
help her find the Freckled Frog, a gift shop a mile from my house that
offers many items of Judaica. There is also a gift shop operated by a
Jewish congregation that I have patronized from time to time whose
personnel have always been happy to advise me on selection and supplier
when it comes time to choose bar or bat mitzvah gifts that would be
appropriate for a Gentile to send.
What I didn't say (in so many words) is that she should stop whining in
her comfort zone and get out and do some living.
