American Jewish History

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