Saul David Alinsky was born on January 30, 1909, to Orthodox Russian-Jewish immigrant parents: Benjamin Alinsky, a tailor, and Sarah Tanenbaum Alinsky. At the time of Alinsky’s birth the family lived behind Benjamin’s tailor shop on Maxwell Street, in a predominantly Jewish, low-income area of Chicago. When Alinsky (an only child) was six years old the family moved to the middle-class, mostly Jewish neighborhood of Douglas Park on the west side of the city.
Alinsky’s parents divorced when Alinsky was thirteen years old, after which Alinsky’s father moved to Los Angeles, California. Although Alinsky lived with his father for periods of time during high school, contact between the two was eventually lost. Alinsky’s relationship with his mother, in contrast, strengthened with time. Sara Tanenbaum was a contentious woman—disagreeable to most people but overly protective toward her son.
After graduating from high school, Alinsky enrolled in the University of Chicago. Alinsky majored in archeology and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1930. He then entered a graduate program in criminology (the study of crime and criminals), with a concentration on social welfare issues.
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