29.344/644 Topics in Jewish History:
	American Jewish Women's History


Required texts:

1. American Jewish History vol 83. no. 2 (June 1995).  Special issue on American 
Jewish 	Women.
2. Rose Cohen.  Out of the Shadow:  A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side.
3. Sara Evans, Born for Liberty
4. Paula E. Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History:  The Roles and 
	Representation of Women.
5. Susan A. Glenn.  Daughters of the Shtetl:  Life and Labor in the Immigrant 
	Generation.
6. Sylvia Barack Fishman.  A Breath of Life:  Feminism in the American Jewish 
Community
7. Ruth Markowitz, My Daughter, the Teacher

Undergraduate Student responsibilities:

1. Class attendance and participation. 10% of final grade. More than three absences may 
be 	grounds for failure.
2. One mid-term examination.  Tentatively scheduled for October 16.  25% of the final 
grade.
3. One paper,  30% of the final grade, due December 11.
4. Final examination, 35% of the final grade, December 18, 2:10 - 4:50.

Graduate Student responsibilities:
	The above plus critiques of the readings and additional class meetings.

General Sources:

American Jewish History, Vol. 70, September 1980 (special issue on American Jewish 
women's history)

C. Baum, Paula Hyman, & Sonya Michel, The Jewish Woman in America
Rudolf Glanz, The Jewish Woman in America:  Two Female Immigrant Generations, 
1820-1919, 2 vols.

The Jewish People in America, 5 volumes published by the American Jewish Historical 
Society and John Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Linda Gordon Kuzmack, Woman's Cause:  The Jewish Woman's Movement in England 
and the United States, 1881-1933

Dianne Licthenstein, Writing their Nations:  The Traditions of Nineteenth-Century 
American Jewish Women Writers

Lilith:  The Jewish Women's Magazine

Jacob Marcus, ed. The American Jewish Woman:  A Documentary History

June Sochen, Consecrate Every Day:  The Public Lives of Jewish American Women, 
1880-1980

	SYLLABUS

9-4	Introduction
		Jewish Women in Colonial America and The Early Republic 
		Sara Evans, Born for Liberty, 21-66

9-11	"German" Jewish Women Experience America

	1.	Migration and Settlement
		Evans, Born for Liberty, 67-118; Paula Hyman, Gender and 		
		Assimilation in Modern Jewish History, 3-49
		
	2.	"Mothers in Israel":	Jewish Domesticity
		Evans, Born for Liberty, 119-44.

9-18	3.	Religion
		a.	The Mitzvah of good deeds
			Dianne Ashton, "Crossing Boundaries: The career of 
			Mary M. Cohen, "American Jewish History 83 (June 1995): 153-76

9-25		b.	Changing role of women in the American Reform synagogue
		c.	National Council of Jewish Women
			Seth Lorelitz, "'A Magnificent Piece of Work'" The Americanization 
			Work of the National Council of Jewish Women," American Jewish 
			History 83 (June 1995): 176-203

	East European Immigrant Women and their Daughters

10-2	1.	In the world that is no more
		Hyman, Gender and Assimilation, 50-93; Susan Glenn, Daughters of the 	
		Shtet1, 8-49

10-9	2.	Migration and settlement
		Glenn, Daughters of the Shtet1, 50-89; Rose Cohen.  Out of the Shadow, 	
		ix-65

10-16	MIDTERM

10-23	3.	Family life: negotiating the adaptation to abundance 
		Cohen, Out of the Shadow, 69-313, Hyman, Gender and Assimilation, 
		93-133.

10-30	4.	Work and the Unions
		Glenn, Daughters of the Shtet1, 90-242

11-6	5.	Making a New and Better World
		a.	Neighborhood politics
		b.	Suffrage
		c.	The Left
		Ruth Markowitz, My Daughter, The Teacher, all

11-13	6.	Religious Life
		Shuly Rubin Schwartz, "'We Married What We Wanted to Be:'
		The Rebbetzin in Twentieth-Century America; "Norma Baumel Joseph, 	
		"Jewish Education for Women:  Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's Map of America, 	
		"American Jewish History 83 (June 1995):  205-46.

	At Home in America

11-20	1.	Middle-Class Domesticity and the Sexual Politics of Jewish Identity
		Hyman, Gender and Assimilation, 134-49; Evans, Born for Liberty, 
		243-86

11-27	2.	Feminism
		a.	Impact upon the Jewish Community
			Sylvia Barack Fishman, A Breath of Life, 1-120;
			Susanne Klingenstein, "'But My Daughters Can Read the Torah':	
			Careers of Jewish Women in Literary Academe,"American Jewish 	
			History 83 (June 1995): 247-86.

12-4		b.	Jewish Feminism and Feminist Judaism
			Fishman, A Breath of Life, 121-29

12-11	Catch-up day

12-18	FINAL EXAMINATION  

								Prof. Pamela Nadell
								American University
								Spring 1998