I look just like my great grandmother Wasserman. She wore floor length black muslin dresses and cooked chicken soup every day of her life. My mother’s family came from Eastern Europe to New York through Ellis Island. They settled on the Lower East Side and sold fruits and vegetables from a pushcart. Eventually they made enough money to open a store and lived in the apartment above it. The Wasserman’s felt that they had made it in the new world when they were able to move out to Brooklyn and away from the Lower East Side.

My father’s family came from Eastern Europe to New York through Ellis Island. They settled on the Lower East Side where they sold fruits and vegetables wholesale. The Shapiro’s became wealthy and felt that they had made it in the new world when they were able to move to the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, the new Champs-Élysées of New York City, and far away from the Lower East Side.

I moved to New York City in 1983 and settled in this historic neighborhood with junkies gathering around trash can fires. Nearly a quarter century later rich hipsters block the sidewalks on Sunday morning waiting to spend twenty dollars on eggs. My building turned condo and I got an unbelievably great deal on a home in the very neighborhood that my ancestors worked so hard to move away from.  

I have lived most of my adult life on Clinton Street next door to Congregation Chasom Sopher, a 150 year-old synagogue. In the summer when everyone has their windows open I can hear their songs of prayer loud and clear. The synagogue itself has upgraded with the real estate boom . I heard that they wrote a new Torah scroll. They now have a flower filled private event outdoor area. On every Jewish holiday there is a NYPD officer stationed out front to protect and serve.

Until a seven-story luxury building went up across the street from me I had a view of the Angel Orensanz Synagogue on Norfolk Street. I could see the rose stained glass window. It is odd to have this in a Jewish place of worship. Odd, yet permitted as long as it was an abstract design with no graven image displayed. This synagogue was the first in this country to permit women to come down from the balcony and join the men in the congregation to worship together. Unlike Congregation Chasom Sopher next door to me, The Angel Orensanz Synagogue now has a reformed congregation and this spectacular building is used for film shoots, lectures, parties, and as a performance space.

When asked my religion in elementary school I parroted that I was an Atheist and religion was something used to control the masses. What happened inside a Temple was unfamiliar to me. I was culturally Jewish, but not in practice. As an adult I participate in my religion by celebrating Passover and Chanukah with friends. I have perfected the Wasserman family recipe for eggplant salad that I learned at my mother’s apron strings. This garlicky oily dish is a big hit with my friends. There never has been a written copy of the recipe.

A block from my home is one of those really cheap dollar stores. A decade ago when looking for a place for a performance I was led to the back of this store, up a few flights of stairs, and out into the open expanse of what was one of the great old Jewish theaters of the Lower East Side. Unfortunately the place was too decomposed to use.

I am a performance and visual artist who presents work at events in warehouses, nightclubs, and in public outdoor venues. I contributed to the ongoing history of Jewish theater by participating in theatrical extravaganzas at the Sol Goldman 14th Street YMHA by, about and for Jews. There were comedians, poets, klezmer bands, dancers, and me. We touched on many themes but the one most influential to me was the concept of Tikkun Olan.

Translated from the Hebrew Tikkun Olan means repairing the world. The more mitzvahs, acts of human kindness, are performed the closer the world will be towards it’s perfection. This concept is the root of the prominent Jewish involvement in causes of social justice.  Although my parents were devout Atheists, they often spoke of the importance of standing up for equal rights for all. You can take the Jew out of the Lower East Side, but you can’t take the desire to fix the wrongs of the world out of the Jew.

As gentrification takes its natural course I look at my neighborhood and see what was once a haven for artists and misfits buried beneath the playground of the rich. Those who have more than made it in the new world stand in the street outside my home and scream drunkenly into their cell phones in the middle of the night sounding no different than the junkies of a quarter century ago.

How many acts of human kindness will it take to repair the Lower East Side?  Can mitzvahs bring back lost affordable apartments? Is there a way for my neighborhood to evolve not into the consumerist Disneyland of Times Square, but into our own destiny that retains and reflects the people who came before?

I examine every old photograph I see of the Lower East Side scanning the street full of pushcarts looking closely at the faces any one of which could be my great grandmother. I want to make a connection to my past. It creates a sense of comfort and peace. If we, the constituency of the Lower East Side, hold sacred those old theaters, photographs, writings, paintings, music and other creative expressions. If we are careful not to destroy the past, but rather to celebrate it, then can we fix what has been hurt by gentrification? Is this a first step, or too little too late?