Syllabi
AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY
Professor Kirsten Fermaglich (pronounced Fur-may-glish)
Michigan State University
Fall 2006
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will trace the development of the American Jewish community from its origins in 1654, when 23 Jewish refugees fled Brazil and landed by mistake in the city that would become New York, to the present, when American Jews have become such a large, successful, and well-integrated ethnic and religious community that one of its members, Joseph Lieberman, could be nominated vice presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in 2000. Composed of many different groups, including Ashkenazic and Sephardic, Reform, Orthodox and Conservative, Reconstructionist, feminist, atheist, and secular, the American Jewish community is not easily typed, and we will devote some of the class to examining battles over what it means to be an American Jew. Focusing on successive waves of immigration, we will also explore the changing ways in which Jews adapted to American life, constructed American Jewish identities, and helped to participate in the construction of a new American nation.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Rose Cohen, Out of the Shadow
Rachel Calof, Rachel Calof’s Story
Edward Cohen, The Peddler's Grandson
Anne Roiphe, Lovingkindness
History 317 Document Packet
RECOMMENDED TEXTS
Hasia Diner, The Jews of the United States
REQUIRED FILMS
Hester Street (1975), dir. Joan Micklin Silver
Gentleman's Agreement (1947), dir. Elia Kazan
ANGEL
This class makes extensive use of ANGEL (www.angel.msu.edu) for posting assignments and class lectures.
CLASS SCHEDULE
Week 1:
Introduction to Class
Background of Jewish History
Week 2:
American Jews and the Atlantic World
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Document 3, Ellen Smith, "The Image and Experience of Early American Jews"
Week 3:
Revolutionary America
The Challenges of Being Jewish in the Early Republic
Document 7: Gemma Romain, "Ethnicity, Identity and 'Race': The Port Jews of Nineteenth Century Charleston
Document 8: Gary Zola, "The Reformation of Judaism"
Week 4:
The Challenges of Being Jewish in the Early Republic
A Second Wave of Jewish Immigration, 1820-1880
Week 5:
Jewish Immigrants and Religion: Reforming Judaism
A Third Wave of Immigration, 1880-1920
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Cohen, Out of the Shadow, 9-145
Week 6:
Jewish Immigrants and Work
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Cohen, Out of the Shadow, 149-313
Week 7:
Jewish Immigration
Jewish Life in Rural America
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Calof, Rachel Calof’s Story, 1-103
Hester Street will be screened
Week 8:
Jewish Immigrants and the Dilemmas of Assimilation
In-class reading: Document 9, "A Bintel Brief"
Tying up: Gender, Class and Ethnicity in Immigration
Week 9:
The Rise of Conservative Judaism and Zionism in the Second Generation
Uneasy Years: Jews as Middle Class Americas
In-class viewing: The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
Gentleman's Agreement will be screened
Week 10:
Uneasy Years: Antisemitism in America
In-class reading: Document 10, "Jewish Jazz"
American Jews and the Holocaust, part I: Our Brothers' Keepers?
Watch Gentleman's Agreement
Week 11:
American Jews and the Holocaust, part II: responses to the Holocaust, 1945-1967
The Decline of Antisemitism (?): Jews "Become White"
Cohen, The Peddler's Grandson, ix-83
Week 12:
The Decline of Antisemitism(?): Jews Become Suburban
Jews and the Civil Rights Movement
Cohen, The Peddler's Grandson, 85-192
Week 13:
Israel and American Jewish Identity After 1967
Week 14:
Feminism and Judaism
Ba'al T'shuva
Roiphe, Lovingkindness, 1-146
Week 15:
4th Wave of Jewish Immigration
Tying up
Roiphe, Lovingkindness, 147-264