Ted Merwin, “Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli” (NYU Press, 2015)

In Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli (New York University Press, 2015), Ted Merwin, Associate Professor of Religion and Judaic Studies at Dickinson College, serves up the first full-length history of the New York Jewish deli. A social space and symbol, the deli demonstrated American Jews’ connection to their heritage and to their new surroundings. Merwin addresses the rise and fall of the Jewish delicatessen in America, how we remember it, and its contemporary resurgence.