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For certain Jewish intellectuals, the crucial aspect of their relation to the East Side ghetto of their childhood was the shock of emancipation from it. And it is not fair to read their later writing without some sense of participation in the world that opened up when the doors of the cheder were shut and the restrictions of “Baba” (Ornitz's transliteration) eluded. It must have been a stirring experience to grow up in the warm orbit of the fervent and uncomplicated Marxism of the early part of this century; and it must have been a fillip to self-esteem to feel oneself an active part of the Enlightenment.

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