When I think of how New York is the most cosmopolitan city in the world, I recall that “cosmopolitan” in some circles is a code word for “Jewish,” which in turn reminds me that the reason I feel at home here is that New York is a Jewish city.
As is often remarked, New York has more Jews than any metropolitan area other than Tel Aviv. (And when you restrict the comparison to city limits, New York easily wins out.) Not-withstanding the demographics, I doubt that Tel Aviv, where I have never been, would fit my definition of what makes a city Jewish, because for me it is necessary that Jews be a minority of the population despite setting the tone of the place.
In the international capitals of the past that earn my classification—among them Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw, Alexandria, and Salonika—the Jews constituted a dominant segment, intellectually and financially, though they were outnumbered. As a result, they felt threatened even when ascendant. That is crucial. The fear of tempting the evil eye, the need to say things are going badly when by any objective standard they are proceeding quite well, the consolation of black humor: all of that comes from knowing that you belong to a group that is both envied and demonized. The memory of past atrocities engenders an anticipation of disaster.
I was born in New York and, except for university years, I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve sometimes imagined moving elsewhere. But whenever I spent time in another place, I felt out of place. People are too cheerful and too nice. I don’t believe they are actually happier or kinder, but that is the affect they choose to project, the mood they are set on setting. I find it unconvincing and therefore uncongenial.
It is also true that New York is a cosmopolitan city in the traditional meaning of the term. People from all over live in New York. I can take a subway near my apartment in the West Village and within an hour be among Indians in Jackson Heights, or in twenty minutes among Asians in Chinatown, shopping in markets where I buy the vegetables and spices to make dishes that, best I can tell, are not so different from what I have eaten in Bombay or Shanghai. Being in communication with other parts of the world makes me feel more connected and, in consequence, more grounded.
Not all Jews feel at home among people from different cultures, of course. Ultra-Orthodox Jews form exclusive communities that could hardly be less cosmopolitan. When I say that New York is a Jewish city, I mean that it has an attitude instilled by and in people like me: judgmental yet tolerant, bookish but practical, ambitious without illusions, worldly and still curious.
The antisemitic slur of “rootless cosmopolitan” was venomously propagated in the Soviet Union under Stalinism, directed against intellectuals (mainly Jews) who, it was said, had no ties to the motherland. Living in Moscow and Leningrad, they were regarded as outsiders in their own country. We hear echoes of such vituperation here today.
As a native New Yorker, I am a rarity. New York is a magnet, not a glue trap, and it is more effective at attracting people than at keeping them. To stay here, you must decide that what the city offers is worth the cost in comfort. Indeed, one reason to continue living in New York is that you find the idea of growing too comfortable to be disquieting.
Arthur Lubow is the author of the biographies Diane Arbus and Man Ray. He writes regularly about the arts for the New York Times.