I did not have to travel far from home to research my subjects. In fact, it took just five minutes by automobile to pull onto the snow covered streets of Northfield Green. A small retirement community off Allen Avenue in Boston, MA, Northfield Green provides government subsidized housing, with a minimum age requirement for the occupant being 62 years of age. Although the majority of the senior citizens that the 200 apartment community houses are of American decent, a small sub-community of eastern European Jews call it home. The four immigrants studied differ in their nationalities and are unique in their own ways, but share many common beliefs and rituals.
Although different in many ways, the obvious being the age gap, the subjects and I are bound by language, creed, and religious faith, which in turn allowed me to understand them on a more personal level. In 1989 at six years of age, I immigrated to the United States from Ukraine under "political asylum," or at least that is what is said on my visa. …
