> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.readtangle.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # My People - URL: https://www.readtangle.com/otherposts/my-people/ - Published: 2026-09-13T03:24:54.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-13T03:24:54.000Z - Description: I had a sense of belonging with the Jewish women and families of New York City. - Author: Tangle Staff - Tags: reader-essay, #hide *By Karen Hill Anton* --- Years before I left New York City, I typed documents for a woman at the UN for a short time. I recall she once asked me, “Do you know where in West Africa your people are from?” At a time before it was commonplace to trace your ancestry, I could not have given even a wild guess about the geographic details of my African origins. Mona, an Egyptian Jewish woman of international sensibilities who’d lived and worked all over the world, told me, “I’m sure your lineage is in Senegal.” According to her, my thin, long-limbed body indicated where I might trace back my heritage. There is now in NYC a community of Senegalese immigrants living in an area that’s been called ”Little Senegal.” But it was not there when I was growing up. My uptown neighborhood of Washington Heights was primarily black, though not African. It was made up of people like my Mississippi-born father, who were part of the Great Migration of black Americans (or Negroes as they were called then) who’d moved north long before they’d be termed African Americans. The other prominent ethnic group in my neighborhood were Jews, and they played a significant part in my early upbringing. Before I lived in Japan, where I’ve made my home for the past 51 years, my cross-cultural sensibilities were awakened by Jewish life and culture. **“New York City has more Jews than Tel Aviv,” a 1950s advertising campaign proudly proclaimed. At the time, that was a fact.** “Sam’s” grocery store in the middle of my block was closed on the Jewish high holidays. My family wasn’t the only one with an informal financial arrangement (notes scribbled on a little pad kept at the cash register) at Sam’s for those lean times of the month when money was short. At the other end of the block was Mrs. Meyer’s penny candy store. I’d hear her speak Yiddish with other customers and switch to heavily accented English when speaking to me and my friends. She had a sister we called the “Cat Lady.” We’d skip after her while she pulled a cart of homemade cat food to feed stray cats. I marvel now to think that little old lady felt perfectly comfortable doing this, alone, at night. My father would greet her, saying how kind she was. Her response was always, “They have no one to take care of them, the poor things. They have to eat, too.” A child with a fever occasioned a house call from Dr. Katz, dressed in a suit, carrying his black medical bag up five flights of tenement stairs. If I were to describe him now, I’d say he looked like Sigmund Freud. When I walked my dog Snowflake on Broadway on Friday evenings, I’d see Jewish families coming from Shabbat prayers at a nearby synagogue. There were several synagogues in our neighborhood, and I got a part-time job at one, babysitting young children in a room in the back while their parents attended the service. I earned money through babysitting as a teenager, and another one of my jobs was in Reuben Fine’s Greenwich Village brownstone. I was told he was a renowned International Chess Grandmaster, although that didn’t mean anything to me at the time. I’d just graduated from high school the summer Joseph Heller, a neighbor on Fire Island, told me his book *Catch-22* would become a movie and asked if I would type up all the dialogue on index cards, which I did. (My father taught me to type when I was about ten — I was always ready to take on any typing job.) I remember talking and laughing with Joe, who came from a poor Jewish immigrant background, while he sat back in his beach chair. I didn’t know what a literary phenomenon he was when he gave me his telephone number and address in the city and told me to feel free to get in touch. Whenever I’d call, almost the first thing he’d ask me was: “What’re you reading?” I bought the paperback edition of *Catch-22* right after it came out. I can’t recall what he wrote in it after ‘to Karen’' — I, young and stupid, lent it to a friend and never saw it again. Like many New Yorkers, I absorbed a Yiddish vocabulary without thinking. But the term *Yente Telebende* was new to me when I learned it at my first post-high school job, in a pathology and diagnostic laboratory. The manager there affectionately called me that (meaning busybody) because I’d constantly ask her to explain the test reports I typed. Her nephew was the lab’s director, and when his son had his Bar Mitzvah, all employees were invited — that was when I experienced what it is to partake in a celebratory feast. The laboratory, established by his Jewish immigrant father, prominently displayed a photograph of him taken with Albert Einstein (they’d known one another in Germany) when he visited the lab. I’d get to further immerse myself in Jewish culture through its food when, at seventeen, after I begged my father for permission, I moved downtown. The following is an excerpt from my memoir [*The View From Breast Pocket Mountain*](https://www.karenhillanton.com/?ref=readtangle.com): > I shared my first apartment downtown with two high school friends, Tamar and Sheri. I recall visiting Sheri’s home where her mother, who only spoke Yiddish, would be cooking and serving up delicious Jewish dishes, like blintzes. Sheri’s lokshen kugel was good too. On the Lower East Side, I satisfied my fondness for Jewish food, frequenting delicatessens where I bought pickles from barrels, expertly sliced lox, and rye bread. In this once largely Jewish neighborhood, I’d eat kasha varnishkes at Ratner’s, matzoh ball soup at B&H, and gefilte fish at the 2nd Ave Deli. When I married Billy Anton, a friend from my teen years, I thought, “Oh yay, now I’ll have a Jewish mother-in-law to make these dishes for me.” It was not to be. My husband’s mother, a wonderful woman whom I loved, was not much of a cook. She preferred my matzoh ball soup to her own, and my kasha varnishkes too. When she visited us in Japan, I sensed she’d had enough of rice. She was happy when I made potato latkes for her. **Three women in the dedication of my memoir are Jewish. I describe them there as “mentors,” which they were. And they were much more than that.** These women were important figures in my life during my formative years. Their influence on me cannot be overstated. All three came from poor Jewish immigrant families. All three lived in book-lined homes that were a fantasy land for me, an avid reader whose home only had a set of encyclopedias. They guided my reading, often not just telling me about a book but giving it to me. I credit them with introducing me to a wide world of literature, art, jazz and classical music, theater, and dance. **Victoria Lawrence**: Her family fled the pogroms in Odessa for France, where she grew up. After immigrating to the United States, they settled in New York City. Warm and welcoming, her home was a haven during my teenage years when her daughter Joanna and I were close friends in high school. Memorably, Vickie gave me the *Autobiography of Frederick Douglass* for a high school paper, and she was overjoyed when I got an A+ on it. [**Rosetta Reitz**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta%5FReitz?ref=readtangle.com): Founder of a bookstore, historian of jazz and blues, record producer, and food columnist. She also wrote a pioneering book on menopause. I babysat her three daughters, and as a teenager, Rosetta talked to me about sex, telling me things she felt a girl without a mother ought to know — long before there was anything like sex education for young people in schools. [**Helen Yglesias**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen%5FYglesias?ref=readtangle.com): The mother of my best friend Tamar Cole. I spent many days at their home and table, which was always a feast with lox and bagels and animated conversation. Helen, formerly a literary editor, was an inspiration for me when her debut novel was published and received a prestigious award. She later invited me to stay with her at her home in Maine while I worked on my first novel. I will forever consider myself fortunate I had these women in my life. These American women who happen to be of Jewish ancestry shaped and influenced me as a woman and mother. Regardless of how they may be described, close to my heart, they are “my people.” My gratitude to them is evident in how I’ve chosen to live my life. They instilled in me a love of learning and exploration, and the confidence to know I could live anywhere, among any people, and they too could become “my people.” --- **Karen Hill Anton* is the author of the award-winning memoir* [The View From Breast Pocket Mountain](https://www.karenhillanton.com/?ref=readtangle.com) *and the novel*[ A Thousand Graces](https://www.karenhillanton.com/?ref=readtangle.com)*, she also writes* a[ Substack](http://karenhillanton.substack.com/?ref=readtangle.com)*.* *She’s made her home in rural Japan since 1975.*