The Feinstein Center for American Jewish History
IN MAY 1990, Temple University created the Center for American Jewish History. Established to insure that American Jewish History continues as a subject of active research and documentation, the Center is an academic unit of the Department of History in Temple's College of Liberal Arts.
MISSION
The Myer and Rosaline Feinstein Center for American Jewish History was created in 1990 to promote the study of the Jewish experience in America. As an academic unit of Temple University’s Department of History, The Feinstein Center is dedicated to encouraging and nurturing a new generation of scholars to devote their talents and energies to research and teaching in this field.
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- To date, the Feinstein Center has awarded grants for more than twenty summer fellowships and two $5,000 prizes to university presses assisting in the publication of books stemming from awardees’ doctoral dissertations.
- Doctoral dissertation prize winners Beth Wenger and Karla Goldman had their books, New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise and Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism respectively, published to wide acclaim.
- Among the books published from Feinstein Center sponsored research are: Commentary in American Life; The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy; Women and American Judaism; Passover Revisited: Philadelphia’s Efforts to Aid Soviet Jews 1963-1998; A Second Exodus: The American Movement to Free Soviet Jews; and a special issue of American Jewish History devoted to examining the history of American Jewish political conservatism in this country.
- The Center’s oral history archive, housed within Temple University’s Urban Archives, contains 50 taped and transcribed interview memoirs of Jews who have been central to the growth and development of the Philadelphia Jewish community. The archival collection is described in our guide, Preserving the Voices.
- The Feinstein Center initiated an ongoing dialogue among a diverse group of religious and civic organizations in Washington D.C. The group created and published In Good Faith, a document discussing the legal and constitutional issues surrounding government funding of faith-based social services. The widely popular publication is available on the Feinstein Center’s web site and is included in Sacred Places, Civic Purposes: Should Government Help Faith-based Charity? (Brookings 2001).
- Papers delivered at a 1998 conference with American University’s Jewish Studies Program on studies of American Jewish political conservatism have been collected in a special issue of American Jewish History, the official publication of the American Jewish Historical Society (June/July, 1999), edited by Dr. Friedman.
- The Feinstein Center’s web site www.temple.edu/feinsteinctr offers visitors information about The Center’s publications and reports; an online directory of material in archives and collections of American Jewish history; links to other useful internet-based resources; and syllabi of American Jewish history courses.
THE FUTURE
The Feinstein Center has made a commitment to discover, study and teach American Jewish History in a manner relevant to the 21st century. As one of only a few such institutions in the nation, it is leading the way as a center point for the systematic exploration of the Jewish experience in America.
The Center has gained wide recognition as a special resource in the study of American and Philadelphia Jewish history. Encouraged by our past successes, we have made many plans for the future.
- Named for the founding director of the Feinstein Center, Temple University created the Murray Friedman Professorship in American Jewish History in 2005. The Friedman Professor is appointed by the University president and will guide the Feinstein Center in addition to his or her own research and teaching. We are pleased to announce that Dr. Michael Alexander has been appointed to be the first Murray Friedman Professor of American Jewish History as well as the Director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History beginning January 2006.
- The Feinstein Center has targeted a number of new areas for investigation through conferences and subsequent publications. They include a study of Commentary magazine just published as Commentary in American Life (Temple University Press 2005) and on Jews and American Business.
- The Feinstein Center in cooperation with the Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education (ACAJE) and Jonathan Sarna, Brandeis University, has created a multimedia curriculum in American Jewish history for middle school students. The highly acclaimed curriculum consists of three student textbooks and three companion teaching guides along with a website at www.challengeandchange.temple.edu. In the making, a teacher training DVD, based on two years of successful teacher training seminars run by the Feinstein Center and ACAJE.
MURRAY FRIEDMAN, Founder and Director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, 1926-2005
Currently not available
The Feinstein Center, as part of its mandate to create electronic resources for the study of American Jewish History, has set up, and maintains, a searchable, electronic Directory of American Jewish Historical Repositories. These Repositories may be archives, museums, libraries, synagogues, newspapers, communal organizations; in short, any source of original material that may be of value to the student of American Jewish History. The purpose of this directory is to provide scholars with leads about potential locations for research. By simply typing a keyword, (which may be a name, location, institution, or idea), the directory will return a list of repositories that contain sources relating to that keyword.