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Brooklyn We Back on the Map

Comment of the Week

by
Marc Tracy
September 02, 2011
(Ravi Joshi/Tablet Magazine)
(Ravi Joshi/Tablet Magazine)

Winner gets a free Nextbook Press book appropriate to his or her comment (provided he or she emails me at [email protected] with his or her mailing address).

I could rebut most of the commenters’ objections to my David Brooks-inspired list of what is haimish and what is not. (Oh, and for the record, it was inspired not only by Lenny Bruce’s routine but also by Norman Mailer’s essay on hip.) However, “artcohn” has my number, writing, “Neither the Upper West Side, nor the Upper East Side of Manhattan are haimish. Bensonhurst and Flatbush in Brooklyn, and Kew Gardens Hills and Rego Park in Queens are haimish.”

He is completely right. This was horribly myopic of me. I apologize. (Seriously.) “artcohn” gets a copy of Sherwin B. Nuland’s Maimonides biography, because he is wise; and I get one, too, that it may teach me wisdom and humility.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.