Talk:Brighton Beach

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The paragraph below inserted into the article is true. You can come to Brighton Beach and talk to old timers, who will thell you this. Just because something is not reported in the media, does not mean it did not happen. In 1940-1943, the media did not report on people being in concetration camps, either. Does it mean it did not happen?

"In late 1970's to mid 1980's Brighton Beach was beginning to become a bad neighborhood due to crime wave sweeping across much of America's cities. However, having just arrived and having nowhere else to go, new Russian immigrants fought bloody battles on the streets of Brighton Beach and succesfully pushed out most of the the criminal element in the neighborhood." --71.247.66.125 00:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Misleading Russian Description

As New York contains some of the highest amount of Jews in the world, Brighton Beach is a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Jews in Russia are not 'Russkii' which identifies nationality. Jews in Russia are a separate nationality. It is therefore improper and inappropriate to call this area Russian. --204.102.211.115 23:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure this user is long gone, but I will attempt to explain the catch-22 of using the term Russian. The word "Russian" implies nationality. The word "Jewish" implies ethnicity and religion if the person or group is religious. The sad legacy of the Soviet Union was they mingling and wiping out of lines blurring distinctions between nationality and ethnicity and religion. You were either 100% Russian or 100% Jewish with no respect towards the absurdity of that kind of distinction and sadly no choice. So now that this neighborhood is outside of the Soviet Union, there really is no reason for someone to be harshly divided as Jewsih and not Russian or Russian and not Jewish. In fact, most people who embrace thier new lives in America are happy to indentify as Russians and as Jews—if they indeed are Jews.

Now, here's the fun/confusing part of it all. Brighton Beach has historically been a Jewish community. Russians moved into the neighborhood. The largest group came in seeking asylum from the Soviet Union for persecution against their ethnicity. Now they are in the U.S. Now they are free to be Jewish without fear. But in their minds they still have those ridiculous ethnicity/religion/nationality divisions that simply have no use here. So some of them proclaim they are Jewish and renounce their Russian past. Others are simply Russian and secular Jews. And so on and so on.

For all intents and purposes Brighton Beach is a Russian community in America. And the impact of Russian culture is much more strongly felt in the neighborhood to any American outsider than the Jewish aspect.

Conversely, neighborhoods like Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park are definitely Jewish centered communities. And in those communities religion trumps all. Even ethnicity. Hope this clears things up. I look forward to helping this page grow and thrive in the coming months. --BaseballDetective 00:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Population 350, 000

I corrected the population numbers as that is the numbers stated in the Russian language version of this article, and as I assume that version was written by actual Russian-speaking people living in Brighton-beach or other wise more familiar with it, I trust their numbers better.