The Death of an American Jewish Community

In 1967, leaders of the Boston establishment decided to open the city's neighbourhoods by making mortgage funds available to blacks who wanted to build or buy houses there. But this goal was to be achieved by the private understanding that these mortgages would be available only in Boston's established Jewish neighbourhoods, such as Mattapan. This policy quickly wiped out the tightly knit Jewish areas in Dorchester and nearby Roxbury, once home to 90,000 Jews. Tragically, few of the new black residents of the area acquired adequate housing, security or education for their families, and the Jewish community was betrayed by its nominal leaders, at the cost of the destruction of historical neighbourhoods. In this book, the authors aim to provide insight into the reasons why this incident took place.