American Jewish History articles from September 2003

American Jewish History archives from September 2003

Introduction.(Editorial)
September 1, 2003... American Jewish History devotes this issue to the 350th anniversary of the Jewish people in America. In the three distinct parts into which it is divided, we invite attention not only to the past but to the future as well, looking forward, even...

Jewish settlement in the new world and its antecedents.(Part One: Reflections Upon American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... In 2004-2005, American Jewry will celebrate the three-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of its founding. Attention will focus in multiple directions: the majority American ambiance and its stances toward Jewish immigrants; the diverse ways in which...

The normalization of American Jewish history.(Part One: Reflections Upon American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... When I was a student some thirty-five years ago in one of the premier Ph.D. programs in Jewish history, at Columbia University, it was clear that American Jewish history fell outside the parameters of the field. True, one could study Jews as...

The religion, Judaism, in America: what has happened in three hundred and fifty years?(Part One: Reflections Upon American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... I. How Long Does Eternity Take? Four cases make the point that even a century is not a long time in which to realize a project of enduring influence in the history of Judaism--not including the fact that Moses could write down the whole...

Reflecting on American Jewish history.(Part One: Reflections Upon American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... I must confess that, in some thirty years of writing and teaching Jewish history, I have not thought seriously about the American Jewish experience, with the notable exception of some basic reading to prepare me to introduce the subject in my...

American Jews and the European gaze.(Part One: Reflections Upon American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... Recall the description in Alfred Kazin's New York Jew of his meeting Hannah Arendt, depicted by the characteristically lyrical Kazin in terms both sensual and intellectually obsequious. What he finds in her, as he sees it, is a true European,...

On their own terms: America's Jewish Women, 1954-2004.(Part Two: Recent American Jewish History, 1954-2004)
September 1, 2003... In the half century since the 1954 tercentenary celebration of Jewish life in America, a sea change has occurred in historical writing. As fresh approaches emerged, first social history and more recently cultural history, scholars of American...

From institutional decay to primary day: American Orthodox Jewry since World War II.(Part Two: Recent American Jewish History, 1954-2004)
September 1, 2003... A number of works on American Jewry written during the early second-half of the twentieth century began with the contrast between the very pessimistic evaluations about the state of American Judaism at the end of the nineteenth century and the...

The changing Jewish political profile.(Part Two: Recent American Jewish History, 1954-2004)
September 1, 2003... The tendency of Jews to support Democratic candidates and liberal ideas is well known. This "liberalism shows no signs of flagging," Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab wrote in 1995, "because Jewish defensive needs, domestic and foreign, have...

Post-World-War-II American Jewry and the confrontation with catastrophe.(Part Two: Recent American Jewish History, 1954-2004)
September 1, 2003... From the perspective of early-twenty-first-century American Jewish communal culture, few issues loom as large or carry as much valence in the performance of Jewish identity as the Holocaust, the horrific destruction of six million Jews at the...

Dutch notarial records pertaining to Asser Levy, 1659-1692.(Part Three: New Documents for the Study of American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... Among the voluminous records found in the Gemeente Archief (Municipal Archive) in Amsterdam are notarial archives, many of which relate to the New Amsterdam Jewish experience 350 years ago. Here can be found legal and business papers, as well...

Letters from Jamaica, 1719-1725.(Part Three: New Documents for the Study of American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... The letters transcribed here were written by Diego Luis Gonsales (Gonzales) and his son, Abraham Gonsales, both of Jamaica, to Nathan Simson of New York and London. Informative about many commercial matters, they underscore the importance of...

The diary of Joseph Lyons, 1833-1835.(Part Three: New Documents for the Study of American Jewish History)(Transcript)
September 1, 2003... Introduction On a warm April day in 1833, in the city of Savannah, Georgia, a young Jewish man opened the cover of a blank book and entered history. His name was Joseph Lyons, and his diary, presented here in its entirety for the first...

"The day is short and the task is great": reports from Jewish military chaplains in Europe, 1945-1947.(Part Three: New Documents for the Study of American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... In November 1940, with war already underway in Europe and its clouds hanging over the United States, Frank L. Well, president of the Jewish Welfare Board, met with Assistant Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson "to discuss the religious needs...

The 2003 concurrent resolution of Congress to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the American Jewish community.(Part Three: New Documents for the Study of American Jewish History)
September 1, 2003... Fifty years from now, when the American Jewish community begins to contemplate the 400th anniversary of Jewish settlement on these North American shores, researchers will inevitably compare and contrast the evolving character and content of the...