Syllabi
American Jewish History
Prof. Pamela Nadell
American University
Spring 2007
In 1654 twenty-three impoverished Jewish refugees fleeing the long arm of the Inquisition made their way from Brazil to New Amsterdam, later known as New York. Today, more than 350 years later, the American Jewish community, which they launched, is likely the largest Jewish community in the world (unless the State of Israel has already surpassed it) and, arguably, the most influential.
The five and half million men, women, and children of the contemporary American Jewish community—and demographers debate that number—constitute a "mixed multitude." They include Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, Oriental Jews, yordim, Zionists, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews, Reform Jews, Reconstructionists, Havurahniks, feminist Jews, secularists, atheists, converts, bagels-and-lox Jews, and those who are "just Jewish." Although comprising less than three percent of the U.S. population, these Jews’ educational, social, and economic patterns give Jews as individuals and the community as a whole heightened visibility.
In this course we trace the historical trajectory of the creation and evolution of the American Jewish community. In particular, we will focus on successive waves of immigration, the social and economic patterns that define the community, the ways in which American Jews construct their identities, and the reactions of others to Jews’ entrance into American life.
Required texts:
1. Jonathan D. Sarna, ed., The American Jewish Experience. 2nd edition.
2. Pamela S. Nadell, ed., American Jewish Women’s History: A Reader
3. Kate Simon, Bronx Primitive.
4. Jacob Rader Marcus, ed., The Jew in the American World.
SYLLABUS
Introduction: Periodization and Overview
Jonathan D. Sarna, "Introduction," The American Jewish Experience, xiii-xix.
Jacob Rader Marcus, “The Periodization of American Jewish History,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society(1893-1961) 47:3 (March 1958): 125-133; You can access this through the American Digital Archive of the Jewish Experience, available at http://ajhs.org/reference/adaje.cfm (Click on the link; when you get to the basic search window, type in Marcus, and for the date select 1958; scroll down to the title of the article and click on the link).
Jonathan D. Sarna, “Critical Dates in the History of American Judaism,” in Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History, on Blackboard (this is for reference; do not memorize!)
Jonathan D. Sarna, “Appendix: American Jewish Populations Estimates, 1660-2000,” in Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History, on Blackboard (this is for reference; do not memorize!)
America’s Jews, 1654-1820
A. Colonial Settlement and Scculturation
Jacob Marcus, "The American Colonial Jew," in The American Jewish Experience (AJE), 6-19
Jacob Rader Marcus, ed., The Jew in the American World, documents on pages 29-33, 42-43, 47-48, 55-56, 63
Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History, pp. 1-20 on Blackboard
“A Sense of Place” and Ellen Smith, “Portraits of a Community” in American Jewish Women’s History: A Reader (AJWH), 9-25
B. The Revolution and Its Impact
Jonathan Sarna, "The Impact of the American Revolution on American Jews," in AJE, 20-30
Jew in the American World, 95-98, 101-02, 105-09
C. The Early National Era
Malcolm H. Stern, "The 1820s," in AJE, 31-37
Jew in the American World, 136-38, 140-43, 171-76, 177-83
Central European Migration, Settlement, and Emerging Leadership
A. Migration and Settlement in Christian America
Stefan Rohrbacher, "From Württemberg to America," in AJE, 44-59;
B. Economic Life
Barry E. Supple, "A Business Elite," in AJE, 99-112
Jew in the American World, 219-27
C. The Civil War
Naomi W. Cohen, "The Christian Agenda," in AJE, 84-98
Jew in the American World, 192-93, 196-202
D. Reforming Judaism
Michael Meyer, "America," in AJE, 60-83
Jew in the American World, 240-44
Karla Goldman, Beyond the Synagogue Gallery, pp. 121-50 on Blackboard
Dianne Ashton, “The Lessons of the Hebrew Sunday School,” in AJWH, 26-42
E. New Roles for Women
Jonathan D. Sarna, “A Great Awakening” in AJWH, 43-63
Faith Rogow, “Gone to Another Meeting,” in AJWH, 64-74
The Great Migration: East European Jews in America
A. The Great Migration
Deborah Dwork, "Immigrant Jews on the Lower East Side of New York” in AJE, 120-37.
B. Life in the Immigrant Jewish Quarter
Andrew Heinze, “Adapting to Abundance,” in AJE, 166-84
Jew in the American World, 375-80
Daniel Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939, 1-9 on Blackboard
C. Work and the Labor Movement
Lucy S. Dawidowicz, “The Jewishness of the Jewish Labor Movement,” in AJE, 183-96
Linda Mack Schloff, “’We Dug More Rocks’,” in AJWH, 91-99
Alice Kessler-Harris, “Organizing the Unorganizable,” in AJWH, 100-115
Jew in the American World, 326-29
D. Communal Life and Politics
“Worlds of Difference” and Shelly Tenenbaum, “Borrowers or Lenders Be,” in AJWH, 75-90
Paula E. Hyman, “Immigrant Women and Consumer Protest,” in AJWH, 91-128
Jew in the American World, 334-36, 346-47, 356-62, 367-68
Tony Michels, A Fire in Their Hearts, 1-25 on Blackboard
From World War I Through World War II: At Home in America
A. The Midpassage of American Jewry
Lloyd Gartner, "The Midpassage of American Jewry," in AJE, 222-36
“A Wider World,” in AJWH, 151-52
B. Coming of Age in these Years
Kate Simon, Bronx Primitive, all
C. Rising Antisemitism
Leo P. Ribuffo, “Henry Ford and The International Jew,” in AJE, 201-19
D. Zionism and America’s Jews
Guest Lecturer Melvin Urofsky, Professor of History, Virginia Commonwealth University
Melvin Urofsky, "Zionism," in AJE, 245-57
Joyce Antler, “Zion in Our Hearts,” in AJWH, 129-50
Louis D. Brandeis, “Zionism is Consistent with American Patriotism (June 1915),” in The Jew in the Modern World, eds. Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, pp. 496-97, on Blackboard
E. American Judaism
Jeffrey Gurock, "The Emergence of the American Synagogue," in AJE, 219-35
Jenna Weissman Joselit, “The Jewish Home Beautiful,” in `AJE, 236-44
Jenna Weissman Joselit, “The Jewish Priestess and Ritual”; in AJWH, 153-174
Abraham J. Karp, “A Century of Conservative Judaism in the United States,” American Jewish Year Book 86 (1986), 3-61, on Blackboard
Mordecai M. Kaplan, in Jew in the American World, 445-46
F. American Jewry, World War II, and the Holocaust
Deborah Dash Moore, GI Jews, 49-85, on Blackboard
Henry Feingold, "Who Shall Bear Guilt for the Holocaust?" in AJE, 274-93
Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, 19-59, on Blackboard
A Certain People
A. Postwar Realities
Arthur Goren, "A 'Golden Decade' for American Jews, in AJE, 294-313
B. Exodus to the Suburbs and the Golden Cities
Deborah Dash Moore, "Jewish Migration in Postwar America," in AJE, 314-29
C. Religious Trends
Jonathan D. Sarna, American Judaism: A History, 274-306, on Blackboard
Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch, 1-32, on Blackboard
Jew in the American World, 546-52
E. American Jewish Culture: Food
Marcie Cohen Ferris, “From the Recipe File of Luba Cohen,” in AJWH, 219-80
F. American Jewish Culture: Film
G. American Jewish Culture: Literature
Guest Lecturer: Prof. Marc Lee Raphael, Gumenick Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair, Department of Religion, College of William and Mary
Readings on Blackboard: Phillip Roth, “The Conversion of the Jews”; Bernard Malamud, “Man in a Drawer”; both stories are in The Penguin Book of Jewish Short Stories, edited by Emanuel Litvinoff
E. Jews and Race
Eric Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness, 209-39, on Blackboard
Cheryl Greenberg, Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century, 114-49, on Blackboard
Debra L. Schultz, Going South,” in AJHW, 281-96
F. Jewish Feminism
Pamela S. Nadell, “The Women Who Would be Rabbis,” in AJWH, 175-84
Paula Hyman, “Jewish Feminism Faces the American Women’s Movement,” in AJWH, 281-312
G. The Future of America’s Jews
Guest Lecturer: Prof. Calvin Goldscheider, Professor Emeritus, Brown University and Polinger Scholar-in Residence in Israel Studies, American University
Calvin Goldscheider, Studying the Jewish Future, 13-45, on Blackboard
H. Intermarriage
Sylvia Barack Fishman, Double or Nothing?: Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage, 1-13, 39-47, 57-76, on Blackboard