American Jewish History articles from March 2003

American Jewish History archives from March 2003

Introduction.
March 1, 2003... This issue of American Jewish History, devoted to "Jews and Performance," seeks to expand the scope of the trajectory of Jews, Jewishness, and the performing arts. The seven essays included in it present a colorful mosaic of subject matter and...

The pulpit and the stage: Rabbi Joseph Silverman and the Actors' Church Alliance.
March 1, 2003... The interrelations between pulpit and stage constitute a curious lacuna in the historiography of the modern Jewish theater. Though surveys of Jewish theater customarily open with a citation of the biblical caution to avoid "the seat of the...

The architecture of the Bimah in American synagogues: framing the ritual *.
March 1, 2003... The character of a synagogue building, like that of any other structure, can be understood in multiple ways, both by those who interact with the building and by those who examine and analyze it from an academic perspective. As the architectural...

Performing Black-Jewish symbiosis: the "Hassidic Chant" of Paul Robeson.
March 1, 2003... On May 9, 1958, the African American singer and political activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976) performed "The Hassidic [sic] Chant of Levi Isaac," along with a host of spirituals and folk songs, before a devoted assembly of his fans at Carnegie...

Sinners, scandals, scoundrels, and scamps on the American Jewish stage.
March 1, 2003... Let us praise infamous Jews. Bad Jews have a good name in Western theater. Whether as a construct of Christian dogma or of antisemitism, or as an embodiment of Jewish protest or dissent, bad Jews serve admirably as vehicles for a gamut of...

Death of a salesman: deracination and its discontents *.
March 1, 2003... To me the theater is not a disconnected entertainment.... It's the sound and the ring of the spirit of the people at any one time. It is where a collective mass of people, through the genius of some author, is able to project...

Avalon and Liberty Heights: toward a better understanding of the American Jewish experience through cinema.
March 1, 2003... In Avalon, a highly acclaimed film that was released in 1990, audiences and reviewers alike saw a saga of Jewish immigrants who arrived in America as part of the great wave of European newcomers who came to the shores of the United States...

It's the real world after all: the American-Israel Pavilion--Jordan Pavilion controversy at the New York World's Fair, 1964-1965.
March 1, 2003... In November 1962, upon learning of the State of Israel's decision not to participate in the 1964 New York World's Fair, the editors of the National Jewish Post and Opinion warned its American Jewish readers of the crucial opportunity about to...

This House of Noble Deeds: the Mount Sinai Hospital, 1852-2002.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... This House of Noble Deeds: The Mount Sinai Hospital, 1852-2002. By Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. and Barbara J. Niss. New York: New York University Press, 2002. xii + 495 pp. The American philanthropic landscape is dotted with institutions seeking...

Mordecai: an Early American Family.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Mordecai: An Early American Family. By Emily Bingham. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003. xii + 346 pp. Written with the sweep of a novel and the documentation of a dissertation, Mordecai: An Early American Family is a three-generation saga...

Family of Strangers: Building a Jewish Community in Washington State.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Family of Strangers: Building a Jewish Community in Washington State. By Molly Cone, Howard Droker, and Jacqueline Willams. Seattle: Washington State Jewish Historical Society/University of Washington Press, 2003. xiii + 394 pp. Jews in...

Her Works Praise Her: a History of Jewish Women in America From Colonial Times to the Present.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Her Works Praise Her: A History of Jewish Women in America From Colonial Times to the Present. By Hasia R. Diner and Beryl Lieff Benderly. New York: Basic Books, 2002. xvii + 462 pp. This ambitious work is a lengthy and lively social...

Nazis and Good Neighbors: the United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II. By Max Paul Friedman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xii + 350 pp. The United States administration believes the nation...

Impossible Images: Contemporary Art After the Holocaust.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Impossible Images: Contemporary Art After the Holocaust. Edited by Shelley Hornstein, Laura Levitt, and Laurence J. Silberstein. New York: New York University Press, 2003. x + 285 pp. Based on a conference at Lehigh University, the...

The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature. By Michael P. Kramer and Hana Wirth-Nesher. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xvi + 296 pp. Those considering a writing career, be warned. If you choose to write about...

Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel and America.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel and America. Edited by Deborah Dash Moore and S. Ilan Troen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. x + 358 pp. This book of fourteen essays plus epilogue is the third in the series of Studies in Jewish...

The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis. By Jerald E. Podair. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. xi + 273 pp. Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto. By...

Judaism in America.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Judaism in America. By Marc Lee Raphael. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. viii + 234 pp. In 1957, Nathan Glazer published a volume entitled American Judaism as a part of a series in the Chicago History of American Civilization....

Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1895-1945.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1895-1945. By Marianne R. Sanua. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003. 446 pp. Going Greek is Marianne R. Sanua's prodigiously researched study of Jewish Greek life at...

Diamond Stories: Enduring Change on 47th Street.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Diamond Stories: Enduring Change on 47th Street. By Renee Rose Shield. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002. 288 pp. Almost all diamonds imported into the United States pass through New York City. A large majority of these are traded on...

Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights. By Clive Webb. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2001. xvii + 307 pp. From his academic perch on the other side of the Atlantic, University of Sussex scholar Clive Webb has...

Renewal: Reconnecting Soviet Jewry to the Jewish People; a Decade of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC) Activities in the Former Soviet Union, 1988-1998.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Renewal: Reconnecting Soviet Jewry to the Jewish People; a Decade of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC) Activities in the Former Soviet Union, 1988-1998. By Anita Weiner. Lanham: University Press of America, 2003. xv + 491 pp....