Reena Sigman Friedman. These Are Our Children: Jewish Orphanages in the United States, 1880–1925. (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life.) Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for Brandeis University. 1994. Pp. xiv, 298. $39.95

1995 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New England ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Jewish History ◽  
American Jewish

American Jewish History

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasia Diner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
First Century ◽  
American Jewish History ◽  
Modern Jewish History ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Jewish ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

American Jewish history as a field of scholarly inquiry takes as its subject-matter the experience of Jews in the United States and places it within the context of both modern Jewish history and the history of the United States. Its practitioners see their intellectual project as inextricably connected to both histories. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the enterprise of American Jewish history enjoys a condition of robust health. By the 1990s American immigration history had generally declined in favour within the ranks of American historians. That Jews, outsiders to American culture upon their arrival in the United States, were able to penetrate barriers and enter the mainstream clashes with the way historians want to see the American past. As a group who craved both economic security and respectability, their story lacks the dramatic punch of resisters and rebels to the American ethos.

Judaism and Jewishness in Histories of American Jewry

2021 ◽  
pp. 253-260
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Jews ◽  
American Jewish History ◽  
American Jewry ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
American Jewish

This chapter reviews five books on American Jewish history, written by Joyce Antler, Jessica Cooperman, Kirsten Fermaglich, Rachel Kranson, and Jack Wertheimer. Reading these books together is challenging because they present substantially different interpretations of American Jews. If no definitive single interpretation of 20th-century American Jewish history emerges from these five books, what can be learned about American Jews by reading them together? Two key points emerge. Judaism proves a highly contested arena of American Jewish life. Yet despite the importance of religion, this fractious domain involves only a small portion of American Jews. Cooperman, Kranson, and Wertheimer all explore limits that confound efforts to promote Judaism in the United States among ordinary Jews. By contrast, “Jewishness” opens a valuable window into the complexity of life among Jews in the United States. Fermaglich focuses on how New York Jews coped with rising discrimination that impeded their ambitions for social and economic mobility. In her exploration of Jewish women's politics, Antler illuminates varied components of Jewish identity only occasionally influenced by religious dimensions.

A Business Turn in American Jewish Religious History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Skolnick Einhorn
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Jewish Life ◽  
American Judaism ◽  
American Jewish History ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives ◽  
American Jewish ◽  
The Impact

American Jewish history has generally had an eye toward the role of organizations (and the business of those institutions) in its analysis of Judaism and the Jewish community. Still, histories of American Judaism have begun their own recent turn, away from a heavy emphasis on major organizations and their major philanthropists. Scholars have recently begun to more deeply investigate the impact of grassroots initiatives, institutions, and organizations. As this chapter will explore, by integrating social and feminist history, scholars of American Jewish life have begun to draw a more complete picture of lived Judaism in the United States. American Jewish women’s early organizations and philanthropy laid the groundwork for Jewish educational, social service, and health organizations today. This more inclusive view of American Jewish history broadens and deepens the business lens, yielding a richer understanding of almost four centuries of American Judaism and American Jewish life.

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