Syllabi

American Jewish History

William Toll

Fall 2005

University of Oregon

Introduction to Course Content:

This course will examine how American Jews, though originating largely in Central and Eastern Europe, have created Jewish ways of living that differ dramatically from any that have previously existed. America’s unique political culture and sociology have required Jews from the 1740s on to respond to a civil status as equals and to a uniquely fluid social structure. We will pay particular attention to ideologies that have facilitated Jewish reinvention, especially 19th century Reform, early 20th century Conservative Judaism, and Socialism as they were revised by different groups of Jews to claim a stake as equals in America. We will also examine the strange fate of Zionism as it has been reinterpreted by American Jewish leaders.

The course will proceed chronologically, beginning with the European context in the 17th & 18th centuries. Jews, though living in a variety of settings from Holland to Poland and Russia with different rights and obligations in different places, were uniformly stigmatized and subject to the whims of the ruling class. We will then explain how Jews in very small numbers entered the Atlantic Trading World. We will focus on the American Revolution and the Constitution’s 1st Amendment, which for the first time disallowed the federal government from oppressing religious communities.

In the 19th century, America’s expanding economy drew millions of Central Europeans, including hundreds of thousands of Jews, to the United States. Special attention will be placed on the settlement of Jews in the towns and cities of the American West, where the capacity to redefine “self” and create community was greatest. From this new freedom came a philosophy of Reform that turned Judaism into a “religion” that could rationalize Jewish survival in a secular culture. In America Jews also encountered a familiar set of demeaning stereotypes, which in the late 19th century came to be labeled “anti-Semitism.” We will examine how in America’s expanding economy and multi-racial society, the familiar anti-Semitic stereotypes had very different consequences than in most parts of Europe.

The middle portion of the course will analyze the migration of about two million Jews from Eastern Europe, including the Ottoman Empire, to the United States between 1880 and World War I. We will examine how large groups of Jews, in conjunction with other east and south European immigrants, settled into dense industrial neighborhoods to create a Jewish proletariat. We will examine how Socialism and ILGWU trade unionism shaped the world view of working class Jew in the 1910s. It defined what they expected from government and had a profound effect on how their children–as American citizens—pressed the New Deal in the 1930s to provide social welfare for all Americans. We conclude this portion of the course by comparing the upsurge of xenophobia in the early 1920s with the extraordinary Jewish social mobility toward the end of the decade.

The third portion of the course will examine how American Jewry from the 1940s through the 1980s faced the crises of the Holocaust and the founding of a Jewish state (Israel) in the Middle East. Israel’s survival has helped determine the political agenda of Jewish organizations, while having a limited impact on the daily lives of American Jews. We will compare the continuing effects of Jewish Socialism on political culture in New York City in the 1950s, with the emergence of the Jewish community in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s as the second largest in the world. Los Angeles Jewry has become the center of a new set of large Jewish communities in the southwest. This set of communities, including Phoenix and Las Vegas, will provide a concrete focus for the study of issues related to assimilation, mobility, and the shift in influence among Jews from New York City to the western Sunbelt.

Readings:

Harriet Lane Levy, 920 O’Farrell Street

David Von Drehle, Triangle, The Fire That Changed America

Chaim Potok, The Chosen

“Packet for History 358: American Jewish History”

Writing Assignments:

The four essays will require students to use lectures and shorter assigned readings to write critically on the basic themes of (1) migration and the reinvention of Jewish identity, (2) America’s political freedom and the new context for anti-Semitism, (3) mass immigration to industrial cities and the creation of a Jewish working class, and (4) the tension between American citizenship and Jewish peoplehood. The four essays are expected to be about five to eight pages in length and to be documented with references to the assigned readings. Memos that provide the specific questions on which your essays must focus will be provided about ten days before each paper is due.

a) The first assignment will be based on class lectures, assigned essays, and Levy, 920 O’Farrell Street. It will require you to examine the various ways young women came to understand themselves as Americans and Jews in the late 19th century Pacific West.

b) The second assignment will examine the meaning of anti-Semitism in the American context in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It will be based on the assigned readings on the subject and on class lectures.

c) The third assignment will be based on class lectures, on Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, and on other assigned readings. The assignment is intended to explore the complex social and political context of the emigration of millions of East European Jews to America.

d) The fourth assignment will use Chaim Potok’s novel, The Chosen, as well as lectures and various assigned readings to explore the reaction of different kinds of Jews to the opportunities of American culture, when they tried to find meaning in the Holocaust and in the founding of Israel as a “Jewish state.” It will also ask you to estimate how well the rabbis who are the focus of the novel prepared their sons for leadership in the American Jewish world of the 1960s and 1970s.

Content for Packet of Required Readings:

1. Martin A. Cohen, “Framing American Jewish History, “American Jewish Historical Quarterly, LVII (Dec. 1967) 137-50.

2. Jonathan Sarna, “The Revolution in the American Synagogue,” in Creating American Jews, Historical Conversations About Identity (National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, 1998),10-23.

3. Vincent P Carosso, “A Financial Elite: New York’s German-Jewish Investment Bankers, “American Jewish Historical Quarterly (September, 1976), 67-88.

4. William Toll, “Pioneering: Jewish Men and Women of the American West,” in Creating American Jews, 24-37.

5. Gustav A Danziger, “The Jew in San Francisco, the Last Half Century,” Overland Monthly (April, 1895), 381-410.

6. “Conference Paper of Dr. K Kohler,” in Proceedings of the Pittsburgh Rabbinical Conference [1885].

7. Jonathan Sarna, “The ‘Mythical Jew’ & the ‘Jew Next Door’ in Nineteenth Century America,” in Anti-Semitism in American History, ed David Gerber (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1986), 57-78.

8. John Higham, “Social Discrimination Against Jews,” in Send These to Me, Jews and Other Immigrants in Urban America (Atheneum, NY, 1975), 138-73.

9. Theodore Bingham, “Foreign. Criminals in New York” North American Review (September, 1908), 383-94.

10. Ernest Poole, “Abraham Cahan, Socialist, Journalist, Friend of the Ghetto,” The Outlook (Oct 28, 1911), 467-478.

11. Abraham Cahan, “The Late Rabbi Joseph, Hebrew Patriarch of New York,” American Review of Reviews, XXVI (September, 1902), 311-14.

12. Henry Ford, “Jewish Supremacy in Motion Picture World,” Dearborn Independent, (Feb 19, 1921); Henry Ford’s Apology to Jews,” The Outlook (July 20, 1927), 372-74.

13. Suzanne Wasserman, “Our Alien Neighbors: Coping with the Depression on the Lower East Side,” AJH (June, 2000), 209-232.

14. “Jews in America,” Fortune (February, 1936), 79—

15. William Zuckerman, “The Jews—A Nation Trapped,” The Nation (August 20, 1930), 200-01; Johan J Smertenko, “Hitlerism Comes to America,” Harper’s Magazine (November, 1933), 660-70; Angoff, “Nazi Jew-Baiting in America”, The Nation (May 1, 1935), 501-03.

16. Louis Brandeis, The Jewish Problem, and How to Solve It (pamphlet, 1915).

17. The Jewish Elan,” Fortune (February, 1960).

18. Farrell Broslawsky, “Lives Without Passion,” The San Fernando Valley, Past & Present (Pacific Rim Research, Los Angeles, 1982), 191-97.

Class Schedule & Assigned Readings

Wk	Lecture Topics	Assigned Readings
1	From “Memory” to History	M. Cohen, “Structuring American Jewish History”
	Kehillot of Europe Migration & Privileges	P Johnson, “Ghetto” 233-60, 275-87 (RBR-recommended)
2	Jews in Colonial Americas	H. Snyder, “Queens of Household”(RBR); Sarna, “Revolution in Amer Synagogue”
	American Revolution	H. Levy, 920 O’Farrell Street;
3	Emigration from German Lands, 1840s-1870s	V. Carosso, “Financial Elite”; Toll, “Pioneering: Jewish Men & Women”;
	Jews of the American West	G. Danziger, “Jews in San Francisco”
4	1st essay due on 10/17 Reform Judaism in America	"”Dr Kohler’s Paper”; K Goldman, “Public Religious Lives of Women.” (RBR)
	Anti-Semitism & 19th C United States context	J. Sarna, “Mythic Jew & Jew Next Door”; J. Higham, “Social Discrimination …
5	Russian Jewish Emigration	”Poole, “A. Cahan”; A. Cahan, “Rabbi Joseph”
	Lower East Side 2nd essay due on 10/28	Bingham, “Foreign Criminals”; Von Drehle, Triangle, 1-115
6	Socialism , Unions & Jewish politics in NY	Von Drehle, Triangle, 116-258
	Ford, Anti-Semitism, & Xenophobia: 1920s	Henry Ford (2 items);
7	At Home in America: 1920s
	American Jews & Depression	Wasserman, “Our Alien Neighbors”; ”Jews in America,” Fortune;
	Anti-Semitism in USA: 1930s	Zuckerman, Smertenko, Angoff articles
8	American Jews & Holocaust	C. Potok, The Chosen
	Israel & American Jews	Brandeis, “Jewish Problem—How to Solve”
9	Israel & American Jews	S. Cohen, “Land, State & Diaspora”( RBR)
	Delta Jews
10	Post WW II NY	Glazer, “Nat’l Influence of Jew NY (RBR); S. Wells, “Jewish Elan,” Fortune
	Jews of New West: L.A., Phoenix, Las Vegas	Broslawsky, “Lives Without Passion”; Marks, “Changing the Context” (RBR)

NB: RBR refers to the Knight Library’s Reserve Book Room, where several items are on reserve for this class under History 358.