Download or read book Pastrami on Rye written by Ted Merwin and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of the twentieth century, the New York Jewish deli rivaled-- and in some ways surpassed-- the synagogue as the primary gathering place for the Jewish community. The deli, argues Merwin, reached its full flowering not in the immigrant period but in the interwar era, when the children of Jewish immigrants celebrated the first flush of their success in America by downing sandwiches and cheesecake in theater district delis. But it was the kosher deli that followed Jews to the outer boroughs of the city, and became the most tangible symbol of their continuing desire to maintain a connection to their heritage.