The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America

499 Pages·2008·4.77 MB·English

by  Marc Lee Raphael (ed.)

The Columbia History
of Jews and Judaism in America

Edited by Marc Lee Raphael
(cid:2)
The Columbia History
of Jews and Judaism in America
columbia university press
new york
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2008 Columbia University Press
“Rites of Citizenship: Jewish Celebrations of the Nation”
copyright © 2008 Beth S. Wenger
All rights reserved
Library of Congress C atal oging-i n-P ublication Data
The Columbia history of Jews and Judaism in America / edited by Marc Lee Raphael.
p . c m.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–231–13222–0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Jews—United States—History. 2. Judaism—United States—History.
3. Jews—Cultural assimilation—United States. I. Raphael, Marc Lee.
II. Title: History of Jews and Judaism in America.
E 184.35.C65 2007
973'.04924—dc22 2007024758
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed
on permanent and durable a cid- free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
contents
Introduction 1
marc lee raphael
Chronological Essays
1. America’s Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654–1820 21
eli faber
2. Expanding Jewish Life in America, 1826–1901 47
dianne ashton
3. The Great Wave: Eastern Eu ro pe an Jewish Immigration
to the United States, 1880–1924 70
eric l. goldstein
4. American Judaism Between the Two World Wars 93
jeffrey s. gurock
5. Triumph, Accommodation, and Re sis tance: American Jewish Life
from the End of World War II to the S ix- Day War 114
riv-e llen prell
6. Infl uence and Affl uence, 1967–2000 142
stephen j. whitfield
vi Contents
Topical Essays
7. The Ever Dying Denomination: American Jewish Orthodoxy,
1824–1965 167
kimmy caplan
8. The History of Jewish Education in America, 1700–2000 189
melissa r. klapper
9. A Regional Context for Pacifi c Jewry, 1880–1930 217
william toll
10. Fun and Games: The American Jewish Social Club 246
jenna weissman joselit
11. A Multithematic Approach to Southern Jewish History 263
mark k. bauman
12. American Jewish Responses to Nazism and the Holocaust 291
rafael medoff
13. Holocaust Consciousness and American Jewish Politics 313
michael e. st aub
14. What Is American Jewish Culture? 337
jeffrey shandler
15. Rites of Citizenship: Jewish Celebrations of the Nation 366
beth s. wenger
16. A Bright New Constellation: Feminism and American Judaism 385
pamela s. nadell
17. Contemporary Jewish Thought 406
alan t. levenson
18. There’s No Space Like Home: The Repres en ta tion
of Jewish American Life 433
linda s. raphael

Contributors 459
Index 463
The Columbia History
of Jews and Judaism in America

introduction
marc lee raphael
In the past twenty years, six distinguished historians have written s ingle- volume
histories of either the “Jews” or “Judaism” in the United States. Five have done the
f ormer—Arthur Hertzberg (The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy
Encounter, a History, 1989), Howard M. Sachar (A History of the Jews in America,
1992); Jacob Rader Marcus (The American Jew, 1585–1990: A History, 1995), Ger-
ald Sorin (Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America, 1997), Hasia
R. Diner (The Jews of the United States, 1654–2000, 2004)—and one, Jonathan D.
Sarna (American Judaism: A History, 2004), has used the term Judaism.
These volumes quickly replaced the several one-v olume histories of the previ-
ous era, which began with Peter Wiernik (History of the Jews in America: From the
Period of Discovery of the New World to the Present Time, 1912, revised and ex-
panded, 1931, 3d ed., 1972), and continued with Lee J. Levinger (A History of the
Jews in the United States (1930, 20th ed., 1961), Oscar Handlin (Adventure in Free-
dom: Three Hundred Years of Jewish Life in America, 1954, 1971), Rufus Learsi (The
Jews in America: A History (1954, 1972), and, the most widely used history of the
1970s and 1980s, Henry L. Feingold’s Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from
Colonial Times to the Present (1974; rev. ed., 1981).
Nobody has really successfully defi ned a Jew in America. The old joke, that the
defi nition of a Jew is someone who asks “what is the defi nition of a Jew?” has consid-
erable truth, for few n on-J ews ask the question, and nobody has suggested a defi ni-
tion that has won universal ac cept ance. Is it someone with Jewish parents? Is one