The Americanization Of The Jews

Assesses the current state of American Jewish life, drawing on the research and thinking of scholars from a variety of disciplines and diverse points of view.

A classic account of the growth and development of Reform Judaism in 19th century America is now in paperback with a new Foreword.

Contends that when Americanized, the Holocaust undergoes universalization and loses its specific Jewish character. This tendency can be seen in the expositions of museums such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, as well as in the art work "Holocaust Project" by Judy Chicago, where the Holocaust is equated with the sufferings of the Blacks in America and the abuse of women. Another tendency is the American reluctance to confront the brutal and horrific essence of the Holocaust. For instance, the play "The Diary of Anne Frank", by F. Goodrich and A. Hackett, and the film version both downplay Anne's Jewishness and the fact that all of the characters are doomed to death. The latter tendency led to the growing cult of survivors and rescuers as the bright side of the Holocaust, manifested in Spielberg's "Schindler's List" and the proliferation of books on Righteous Gentiles, as well as the founding of the Institute of the Righteous Acts and the Jewish Foundation of Christian Rescuers by R. Schulweis. Virtuous as they are, the Gentile rescuers cannot counterbalance the evil of the Nazi Holocaust.

The author demonstrates the uniqueness of American Zionism through a 50-year historical overview of the Jewish community in the United States and its relationship to its own government, to European events and to political developments in the yishuv.

Published to mark the 100th anniversary of The Jewish Publication Society, Jonathan Sarna’s engaging blend of anecdote and analysis presents the personalities and the controversies, the struggles and the achievements behind a century of publishing by the oldest English-language publisher of Jewish books in the world. Includes black and white photographs and extensive listings of JPS officers and editors, governing boards, and authors, translators, and illustrators, up to 1988.

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