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Early in the twentieth century it was quite common for young Jewish men, especially those whose parents had come from Poland and Russia, to change their names. In an effort to make it easier to succeed in America, the "goldineh medina," that is, the golden land, and in the hope that one's identity as an American would be maximized, Isadore Baline became Irving Berlin and Hyman Altuck became Harold Arlen. Nathanael West, born Nathan Weinstein in New York City on 17 October 1903, changed his name and his identity for the same reasons, but his desire to shed the past and be assimilated into American ways coexisted with a desperate wish to hold himself above that new life. In Sholem Asch's novels, for example, the conflict in Jewish immigrants and their children between their respect for European culture and their dearly held passion for assimilation into American society are central concerns.
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