The Columbia History Of Jews And Judaism In America

This collection focuses on a variety of important themes in the American Jewish and Judaic experience. It opens with essays on early Jewish settlers (1654-1820), the expansion of Jewish life in America (1820-1901), the great wave of eastern European Jewish immigrants (1880-1924), the character of American Judaism between the two world wars, American Jewish life from the end of World War II to the Six-Day War, and the growth of Jews' influence and affluence. The second half of the volume includes essays on Orthodox Jews, the history of Jewish education in America, the rise of Jewish social clubs at the turn of the century, the history of southern and western Jewry, Jewish responses to Nazism and the Holocaust, feminism's confrontation with Judaism, and the eternal question of what defines American Jewish culture. Original and elegantly crafted, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America not only introduces the student to a thrilling history, but also provides the scholar with new perspectives and insights.

Spanning 350 years of Jewish experience in this country, A History of the Jews in America is an essential chronicle by the author of The Course of Modern Jewish History. With impressive scholarship and a riveting sense of detail, Howard M. Sachar tells the stories of Spanish marranos and Russian refugees, of aristocrats and threadbare social revolutionaries, of philanthropists and Hollywood moguls. At the same time, he elucidates the grand themes of the Jewish encounter with America, from the bigotry of a Christian majority to the tensions among Jews of different origins and beliefs, and from the struggle for acceptance to the ambivalence of assimilation.

A comprehensive, single volume work that studies the evolution of Jewish life in America.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the United States, Jews have bridged minority and majority cultures - their history illustrates the diversity of the American experience.

In 1789, when George Washington was elected the first president of the United States, laymen from all six Jewish congregations in the new nation sent him congratulatory letters. He replied to all six. Thus, after more than a century of Jewish life in colonial America the small communities of Jews present at the birth of the nation proudly announced their religious institutions to the country and were recognized by its new leader. By this time, the synagogue had become the most significant institution of American Jewish life, a dominance that was not challenged until the twentieth century, when other institutions such as Jewish community centers or Jewish philanthropic organizations claimed to be the hearts of their Jewish communities. Concise yet comprehensive, The Synagogue in America is the first history of this all-important structure, illuminating its changing role within the American Jewish community over the course of three centuries. From Atlanta and Des Moines to Los Angeles and New Orleans, Marc Lee Raphael moves beyond the New York metropolitan area to examine Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstuctionist synagogue life everywhere. Using the records of approximately 125 Jewish congregations, he traces the emergence of the synagogue in the United States from its first instances in the colonial period, when each of the half dozen initial Jewish communities had just one synagogue each, to its proliferation as the nation and the American Jewish community grew and diversified. Encompassing architecture, forms of worship, rabbinic life, fundraising, creative liturgies, and feminism, The Synagogue in America is the go-to history for understanding the synagogueOCOs significance in American Jewish life."

Presenting the American Jewish historical experience from its communal beginnings to the present through documents, photographs, and other illustrations, many of which have never before been published, this entirely new collection of source materials complements existing textbooks on American Jewish history with an organization and pedagogy that reflect the latest historiographical trends and the most creative teaching approaches. Ten chapters, organized chronologically, include source materials that highlight the major thematic questions of each era and tell many stories about what it was like to immigrate and acculturate to American life, practice different forms of Judaism, engage with the larger political, economic, and social cultures that surrounded American Jews, and offer assistance to Jews in need around the world. At the beginning of each chapter, the editors provide a brief historical overview highlighting some of the most important developments in both American and American Jewish history during that particular era. Source materials in the collection are preceded by short headnotes that orient readers to the documentsÕ historical context and significance.

Written by the most prominent scholars in American Jewish history, this encyclopedia illuminates the varied experiences of America's Jews and their impact on American society and culture over three and a half centuries. American Jews have profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, American culture. Yet American history texts have largely ignored the Jewish experience. The Encyclopedia of American Jewish History corrects that omission. In essays and short entries written by 125 of the world's leading scholars of American Jewish history and culture, this encyclopedia explores both religious and secular aspects of American Jewish life. It examines the European background and immigration of American Jews and their impact on the professions and academic disciplines, mass culture and the arts, literature and theater, and labor and radical movements. It explores Zionism, antisemitism, responses to the Holocaust, the branches of Judaism, and Jews' relations with other groups, including Christians, Muslims, and African Americans. The encyclopedia covers the Jewish press and education, Jewish organizations, and Jews' participation in America's wars. In two comprehensive volumes, Encyclopedia of American Jewish History makes 350 years of American Jewish experience accessible to scholars, all levels of students, and the reading public.