The_Rise_And_Fall_Of_Davis_Levinsky

The Rise And Fall Of Davis Levinsky The Rise and Fall of David Levinsky In this critical analysis of The Rise of David Levinsky, by Abraham Cahan, I will argue that as a Jewish immigrant David Levinsky found that the only way to gain an American identity was to shed any evidence of his true identity, the center of which was his religion. The effect of this assimilation was that he spent his lifetime trying to reconcile what he had left behind with what he had gained. The story of The Rise of David Levinsky is the quintessential story of an Eastern European Jewish immigrant. David goes from a Talmud student in a Russian shtetl, to a tradesman in a New York ghetto, to a successful American businessman in the garment district. To begin, David lives in a Shtetl somewhere in rural Russia. David lived with his mother in extreme poverty, and yet they found comfort in each other. He was also a successful Talmud student-a fact that his mother was very proud of. David found great pleasure in pleasing his mother with his Talmud academic abilities. These were the very things that defined David’s character. When David’s mother is murdered, he no david, american, jewish, levinsky, identity, meant, america, very, things, talmud, rise, new, mother, found, first, being, success, religion, loss, felt, cahan, become, traditional, tolerate, time, synagogue, successful, story, society, shtetl, rejecting, really, realized