Arab and Jewish Women in Kentucky: Stories of Accommodation and Audacity

Nora Rose Moosnick

Jun 2012 · University Press of Kentucky

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Outwardly it would appear that Arab and Jewish immigrants comprise two distinct groups with differing cultural backgrounds and an adversarial relationship. Yet, as immigrants who have settled in communities at a distance from metropolitan areas, both must negotiate complex identities. Growing up in Kentucky as the granddaughter of Jewish immigrants, Nora Rose Moosnick observed this traditionally mismatched pairing firsthand, finding that Arab and Jewish immigrants have been brought together by their shared otherness and shared fears. Even more intriguing to Moosnick was the key role played by immigrant women of both cultures in family businesses—a similarity which brings the two groups close together as they try to balance the demands of integration into American society.

In Arab and Jewish Women in Kentucky: Stories of Accomodation and Audacity, Moosnick reveals how Jewish and Arab women have navigated the intersection of tradition, assimilation, and Kentucky's cultural landscape. The stories of ten women's experiences as immigrants or the children of immigrants join around common themes of public service to their communities, intergenerational relationships, running small businesses, and the difficulties of juggling family and work. Together, their compelling narratives give greater voice to Arabs and Jews in America's rural areas.

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Nora Rose Moosnick is an adjunct professor in the department of sociology at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of Adopting Maternity: White Women Who Adopt Transracially or Transnationally.