"Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism tells the history of Early American Jews, focusing on the objects of everyday life used and created by Jews, such as ritual baths, food, gravestones, portraits, furniture, as well as the synagogue. By uncovering these objects and exposing the common culture of the Jewish Atlantic world, the book provides a fresh understanding of a crucial era in Jewish and American history. It offers new insights about the origins of Jewish American messianism, helping readers better understand messianism in contemporary American society. It charts the shared culture of these Jews who lived in the port towns in the Caribbean and on both sides of the Atlantic, and author Laura Arnold Leibman argues that thinking about Judaism as an embodied religion is key to understanding their culture. Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism makes early Jewish American history entertaining, accessible, and interesting to general readers, as well as to academic audiences." -- Publisher's website.

A short history of the Jews in America from 1654 and their first permanent community of twenty-three persons in New Amsterdam to the present, stressing the difficulties they have continually faced as an ethnic minority.

Auschwitz is the center of the twentieth century, its dark core, yet, in the postwar years in America few intellectuals dared to come to grips with the horror and the suffering. Jewish theologians too were slow to respond until, in the turbulent years of the sixties and beyond, a small number of Jewish thinkers came to realize that the survival of Judaism and continued Jewish life require first and foremost confronting Auschwitz; looking into the abyss had become unavoidable. In this book, Michael Morgan tells the story of these theologians, and offers the first comprehensive overview of post‐Holocaust Jewish theology. He gives an account of the encounter with the death camps in the postwar writings of figures such as Hannah Arendt, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi and describes the role of the Six Day War in 1967 on the development and reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought. In chapters on each of the central thinkers (Richard Rubinstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Cohen, and Emil Fackenheim), he analyzes the way they have struggled with the dialectic of history and identity, and with the threat of radical rupture. Throughout the book, the intellectual developments are set in their historical context and there are chapters on the reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought and its legacy for today. This is a book of philosophical and theological analysis as well as a work of intellectual history and will interest a wide spectrum of readers.

This companion discusses Jewish American literature in relation to ethnicity, religion, politics, race, gender, ideology, history, and ethics, and places it in the contexts of both Jewish and American writing. With its chronology and guides to further reading, this volume will prove valuable to scholars and students alike. --

The nation's thirty-first state emerged early as one of its most diverse as people immigrated to the west. California's indigenous tribes were forced off their lands first by Spanish settlers, then by the arrival of gold miners from every corner of the world. Because of its Catholic missionary history, Gold Rush California did not experience a more exclusive eastern-style Protestantism. This permitted more rapid and inclusive acculturation. California Jews, unlike their eastern counterparts whose arrival often followed that of European Protestants, were often among the first settlers to establish a west coast community. Jewish immigrants to California took advantage of its physical environment, ethnic diversity, and cultural distinctiveness to fashion a form of Judaism unique in the American experience. California Jews enjoyed unprecedented access to political power a generation earlier than their New York counterparts. They thrived in the multicultural mix, redefining the classic black-white racial binary by forging relations with a variety of religious and ethnic groups in both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The role, status, and treatment of women is one of the major issues confronting the military today. This volume provides a range of perspectives on the magnitude of concerns, the sources of problems, how issues might best be addressed, and the future for women in the armed services. It is based on a special issue of the journal Gender Issues , supplemented with additional contributions from leading scholars. Historical and theoretical perspectives are provided by Lorry M. Fenner and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Fenner focuses on the role of women in the military since 1940, and argues for broader inclusion of women as well as other groups that have previously been restricted from full participation. Elshtain analyzes the extraordinary ability of war to draw both women and men into civic life, and observes how it calls forth and establishes a sense of particular identity for both men and women. Critical views are provided by other scholars. Laura L. Miller examines the feminist movement's insistence on full participation in combat units. Former Army chaplain Marie deYoung provides qualitative and quantitative data on military readiness and unit cohesion in mixed gender units. Leading military scholars (Mady W. Segal, David R. Segal, Jerald G. Bachman, Peter Freedman-Doan, and Patrick M. O'Malley) review national surveys comparing male and female high school seniors' responses to surveys conducted on questions about their propensity to enlist. Male-female differences are also addressed by Judith Hicks Steihm, who looks at the opinions each group has about the capabilities and performance of women. She finds differences by rank on questions as to how hard female soldiers work as compared to male soldiers and whether women are ready for combat duty. Historically, the military has provided minorities equal opportunity. Brenda L. Moore and Schulyler C. Webb examine whether or not this is still perceived to be the case in today's Navy. They focus on different perceptions by women and men, and by African American women in particular. Finally, William O'Neill examines whether the post-cold war downsized military will find women soldiers more or less important. Drawing upon social science research, historical data, and contemporary opinion surveys, Women in the Military is a cutting-edge assessment of a major gender issue in the United States. It will be valuable to researchers in women's studies, as well as those teaching courses in sociology, history, and military studies. Rita James Simon is University Professor in the School of Public Affairs and the Washington College of Law at American University. She is the editor of Gender Issues and author of The American Jury, the Insanity Defense: A Critical Assessment of Law and Policy in the Post-Hinkley Era (with David Aaronson), Adoption, Race and Identity (with Howard Alstein), In the Golden Land: A Century of Russian and Soviet Jewish Immigration, Social Science Data and Supreme Court Decisions (with Rosemary Erickson), and Abortion: Statutes, Policies, and Public Attitudes the World Over.

"The Trump presidency has resulted in a fundamentally disruptive moment in this nation's political culture. Not only were there different policy options and directions, but the cultural artifacts of politics changed because of how this president dramatically challenged the existing norms of political behavior and action. As we have shifted from a period of American liberalism to a time of political populism, deep fissures are dividing Americans in general and Jews in particular. The Impact of the Presidency of Donald Trump on American Jewry and Israel unpacks President Donald Trump's distinctive and unique relationship with the American Jewish community and the State of Israel. Addressing the various dimensions of his personal and political connections with Jews and Israel, this publication is designed to provide an assessment of how the Trump presidency has influenced and altered American Jewish political behavior. Writers from different backgrounds and political orientations bring a broad range of perspectives designed to examine various aspects of this presidency, including Trump's particular impact on Israel-US relations, his special connection with Orthodox Jews, and his complex and uneven relationship with Jewish Republicans. For liberal American Jews, these four years represented a fundamental revolution, overturning and challenging much that a generation of activists had fought to achieve and protect. For Trump's supporters, it afforded them an opportunity to advance their priorities, while joining the forty-fifth president in changing the American political landscape. The "Trump effect" will extend well beyond his four-year tenure, creating an environment that has fomented the politics of hate and exposed a deeply embedded presence of anti-Semitism. How Americans understand this moment in time and the ways society will adapt can be reflected through the prism of the Jewish encounter with Trumpism that this volume seeks to explore"--

Rainbow Jews looks at the intersection of gay and Jewish identity in American and Israeli film and theater from the 1960s to the present. Through a close reading of the texts of numerous American and Israeli plays and films, Friedman evaluates some of the key conventions that have been employed to construct, critique, and reflect the connection between Jewishness and gay identity in the United States and Israel. Friedman also explores ways in which gay-Jewish playwrights and filmmakers have progressed the reevaluation of sexual norms within Judaism over the past three decades, inspiring and integrating Jewish members of the GLBT community into the overall Jewish historical narrative.

An award-winning actor on screen and stage ( The Defiant Ones , The African Queen , The Sound of Music , My Fair Lady , Fiddler on the Roof ), an activist for civil rights and progressive causes worldwide, and a singer whose voice has won him great applause, Theodore Bikel here tells his own compelling life story. Born in Austria, raised in Palestine, educated in England, and with a stellar career in the United States and around the world, Bikel offers a personal history parallel to momentous events of the twentieth century. In an eloquent, fiercely committed voice, he writes of the Third Reich, the birth of the State of Israel, the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, and the tumultuous 1960s in America. In a new postscript to this paperback edition, he looks at recent events in the Middle East and takes both sides to task for their excesses.

How do American Jews identify as both Jewish and American? American Post-Judaism argues that Zionism and the Holocaust, two anchors of contemporary American Jewish identity, will no longer be centers of identity formation for future generations of American Jews. Shaul Magid articulates a new, post-ethnic American Jewishness. He discusses pragmatism and spirituality, monotheism and post-monotheism, Jesus, Jewish law, sainthood and self-realization, and the meaning of the Holocaust for those who have never known survivors. Magid presents Jewish Renewal as a movement that takes this radical cultural transition seriously in its striving for a new era in Jewish thought and practice.

"The history of how a set of ancient laws and regulations adapted to modern practices of American food production and foodways"--

This tale of two families is set on a grand scale, as James Thomas Flexner brings his talents to bear on his own noteworthy heritage. An American Saga is an historical narrative, grounded on documentary sources, which ends with the marriage of Helen Thomas and Simon Flexner. The account deals equally with the lives and the backgrounds of husband and wife, the author's parents. Simon Flexner was the famous medical investigator, discoverer of the "Flexner vacillus" and the "Flexner serum," who became the creating director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) and eventually acknowledged leader of American medical science. The Kentucky-born son of impoverished German Jewish immigrants, he grew up in penury. As he never completed the eighth grade, he was almost completely self-educated when he appeared at the Johns Hopkins University before its celebrated medical school had been founded. Almost instantly he began making the discoveries that soon made him the leading younger medical scientist in the United States.

This book examines how Messianic Judaism is organized and how it sustains itself and its adherents. the author traces its history from the efforts of Evangelical Christians to convert Jews, to the Jesus movement of the sixties, to the

From a brilliant and witty comic book aficionado, this “scholarly but lively narrative” ( Kirkus Reviews ) reveals the links between Jews and the iconic superheroes of Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby. Many of us know that the superheroes at the heart of the American comic book industry were created by Jews. But you’d be surprised to learn how much these beloved characters were shaped by the cultural and religious traditions of their makers. Superman Is Jewish? follows the “people of the book” as they become the people of the comic book. With great wit and compelling arguments, Harry Brod situates superheroes within the course of Jewish-American history: they are aliens in a foreign land, like Superman; figures plagued by guilt for abandoning their families, like Spider-Man; and outsiders persecuted for being different, like the X-Men. Brod blends humor and sharp observation as he considers the overt and discreet Jewish characteristics of these well-known figures and explores how their creators integrated their Jewish identities and their creativity. Captivating, poignant, and packed with historical insights, this guided tour travels from the Passover Haggadah’s exciting action scenes of Moses’s superpowers through the Yiddish humor of Mad magazine to two Pulitzer Prizes awarded in one decade to Jewish comic book guys Art Spiegelman and Michael Chabon. “A witty, insightful exposé” ( Publisher’s Weekly ), Superman Is Jewish? is an endlessly fascinating American saga about an immigrant group that used comic books to see itself in new, empowering—and laughable—ways. You don’t even have to be Jewish to get a kick out of it.

The first known Jewish resident of the Mexican Pueblo de Los ngeles arrived in 1841. When California entered the Union in 1850, the census listed just eight Jews living in Los Angeles. By 1855, the fledgling city had a Hebrew Benevolent Society and a Jew

In an extensive examination of this impassioned debate, Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman find that the president was neither savior nor bystander. In "FDR and the Jews," they draw upon many new primary sources to offer an intriguing portrait of a consummate politician--compassionate but also pragmatic--struggling with opposing priorities under perilous conditions

The author provides remarkable insight into the early development of organised Jewish life in the United States. this is a comprehensive, authoritative work about a Long-Neglected but Central figure of 19th century American Jewish

The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma on January 24, 1848, initiated one of the largest migrations in US history. Between 1849 and 1855, hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived in Northern California hoping to find gold in the foothills of th

Commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the American Jewish Archives and the tenth anniversary of Gary P. Zola as its Director, New Essays in American Jewish History includes twenty-two new articles representing the best in modern American and Jewish scholarship. More than a celebration, New Essays serves as a scholarly benchmark in the growing field of American Jewish studies.

A treasure trove of primary source documents on American Jewish history, culture, and life