The Myer and Rosaline Feinstein Center for American Jewish History
Newsletter Volume 1 Number 2 September 1995

Fitting American Jewish History into Modern Jewish History

by Jonathan D. Sarna
Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History,
Brandeis University


	Historians of modern Jewry have long looked upon the American
Jewish experience as something of an anomaly. Some set aside special
chapters on America, as if its story must be kept apart from that of all
other countries. Others introduce America only lat e in the 
nineteenth-century, paying no attention whatsoever to its history up to
that time. Nobody, to my knowledge, has successfully integrated America
into the overall narrative of Jewish history. The reason, as Profs. Jack
Wertheimer and Beth Wenger po inted out at a recent meeting of the
Association for Jewish Studies, is that the Òmeta-narrativeÓ of modern
Jewish history, with its emphasis on emancipation, enlightenment,
anti-Semitism, Holocaust, and redemption does not nicely square with
American Jew ish history as it has traditionally been recounted. 

	What might be done to further the contextualization of American
Jewish history within the study of modern Jewry? One suggestion is that
students of American Jewry focus upon themes that lend themselves to
comparative study, like immigration, assimilation , and anti-Semitism.
These themes, after all, can scarcely be understood without taking into
account the Jewish historical experience worldwide. By stressing such
themes, we can promote scholarly interchange with other Jewish historians
and successfully i ntroduce American dimensions into the study of modern
Jewish history as a whole. 

	While full of advantages, this strategy does have one glaring
fault:  it foists an external model on American Jewish history. Instead of
choosing themes on the basis of their importance for understanding
American Jewish history, the European Jewish exper ience becomes the
defining paradigm. The result is that American Jewish history fails to be
understood on its own terms, and themes uniquely critical to its history
are short-changed. 

	A second suggestion for contextualizing the American Jewish
history Ñ in effect, the reverse of the first Ñ is to use the American
Jewish experience to reshape our understanding of modern Jewish history. 
Professor Hasia Diner, for example, argues that in many respects the
ÒAmerican wayÓ came to be the model that other Jews adopted later on.  In
its redefinition of ÒJewishness,Ó in education, in its organization of
charity, and in many other respects, too, the American pattern played an
important role in influencing Jews around the world. American Jewish
history, according to her, can thus Òoffer sc holars the paradigm for
modern Jewish history.Ó

	This strategy, too, has much to recommend it.  Yet valuable as it
is, in the final analysis it suffers (in reverse) from the same problem as
the first suggestion. It foists an American paradigm on all of modern
Jewish history, to the obvious neglect of t hemes that do not easily fit
in. 

	My own suggestion for contextualizing American Jewish history is
somewhat different. It argues that we need to view American Jewish
history, almost from the beginning, as a challenge to modern Jewish
history.  American, after all, represented a New World society where
almost from the beginning the logic of mercantilism demanded that Jews be
given freedoms undreamed of in the Old World. Subsequently, liberty,
democracy, church-state separation, de facto pluralism, abundant
opportunity, and the fact that A merica housed a variety of other
out-groups, notably blacks and Catholics, shaped a society that made it
possible for Jews to achieve what they so rarely did in Europe:  the
chance to be treated as equals, to thrive economically and, at the same
time, to remain Jewish. 

	This, of course, constituted the dream of the goldene medinah
(ÒGolden LandÓ), and it represented an immensely powerful historical
challenge.  European Jews who looked upon emancipation as a failure,
considered anti-Semitism inevitable, and saw no soluti on to the ÒJewish
ProblemÓ except Zionism had regularly to contend with this daunting
challenge.  Even if Jews could not achieve their goals in the degenerate
Old World, optimists believed that the great goals of modern Jewry might
still be achieved in th e blessed New World.  Whether the dream of the
goldene medinah ever came true is not the issue here.  What is important
for our purposes is the fact that the dream enjoyed wide currency, and as
such has played an enormously important role in modern Jewish history. It
undergird ed the ÒOn To AmericaÓ movement that brought liberal-minded
Central European Jews to AmericaÕs shores in 1848, it influenced masses of
East European Jews to choose America over Palestine beginning in 1881, and
it explains why hundreds of thousands of Jews (including many Israelis)
have continued to immigrate to America since IsraelÕs establishment in
1948.  Indeed, a good case could be made that the dream of the ÒGolden
LandÓ has been no less potent a factor in modern Jewish history than the
dream of retu rning to the ÒPromised Land.Ó

	How does all of this affect the contextualization of American
Jewish history? It explains, I believe,why America must be taken seriously
by all students of modern Jewish history. It must, not just because many
themes central to modern Jewish history app ly to the New World (although
they surely do), and not just because American Jewry serves as the
paradigm for issues that many Jewish communities all over the world now
face (although that is true, too).  In the final analysis, America must be
taken serio usly by students of modern Jewish history because modern Jews
themselves took America seriously Ñ and still do.