tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/american-jews-32265/articles
American Jews – The Conversation
2023-12-20T01:28:46Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220019
2023-12-20T01:28:46Z
2023-12-20T01:28:46Z
With ‘White Christmas,’ Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby helped make Christmas a holiday that all Americans could celebrate
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566447/original/file-20231218-29-3t65vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=451%2C37%2C5721%2C3895&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After Irving Berlin, left, penned 'White Christmas,' he pegged Bing Crosby as the ideal singer for what would become a holiday classic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-composer-lyricist-and-songwriter-irving-berlin-and-news-photo/1296904202?adppopup=true">Irving Haberman/IH Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/23/obituaries/irving-berlin-nation-s-songwriter-dies.html">Irving Berlin</a> was a Jewish immigrant who loved America. As his 1938 song “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200000007/">God Bless America</a>” suggests, he believed deeply in the nation’s potential for goodness, unity and global leadership. </p>
<p>In 1940, he wrote another quintessential American song, “<a href="https://achristmasclassic.org/">White Christmas</a>,” which the popular entertainer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/15/archives/bing-crosby-73-dies-in-madrid-at-golf-course-bing-crosby-73-dies-at.html">Bing Crosby</a> eventually made famous.</p>
<p>But this was a profoundly sad time for humanity. World War II – what would become <a href="https://www.highpointnc.gov/2111/World-War-II">the deadliest war in human history</a> – had begun in Europe and Asia, just as Americans were starting to pick up the pieces from the Great Depression.</p>
<p>Today, it can seem like humanity is at another tipping point: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-depolarise-deeply-divided-societies-podcast-193427">political polarization</a>, war in <a href="https://theconversation.com/west-banks-settler-violence-problem-is-a-second-sign-that-israels-policy-of-ignoring-palestinians-drive-for-a-homeland-isnt-a-long-term-solution-217177">the Middle East</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-attempt-to-control-narrative-in-ukraine-employs-age-old-tactic-of-othering-the-enemy-206154">and Europe</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/2023s-extreme-storms-heat-and-wildfires-broke-records-a-scientist-explains-how-global-warming-fuels-climate-disasters-217500">a global climate crisis</a>. Yet like other historians, I’ve long thought that <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pGEB0QIAAAAJ&hl=en">the study of the past</a> can help point the way forward.</p>
<p>“White Christmas” has resonated for more than 80 years, and I think the reasons why are worth understanding.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GJ36gbGlm8Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bing Crosby sings ‘White Christmas’ in the 1942 musical ‘Holiday Inn.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Yearning for unity</h2>
<p>Christmas in America had always reflected a mix of influences, from ancient Roman <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-christmas-tree-is-a-tradition-older-than-christmas-195636">celebrations of the winter solstice</a> to the Norse festival <a href="https://theconversation.com/yule-a-celebration-of-the-return-of-light-and-warmth-218779">known as Yule</a>. </p>
<p>Catholics in Europe had celebrated Christmas with public merriment since the Middle Ages, but Protestants often denounced the holiday as a vestige of paganism. These religious tensions <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-puritans-cracked-down-on-celebrating-christmas-151359">spilled over to the American colonies</a> and persisted after the Revolutionary War, when slavery divided the nation even further.</p>
<p>After the Civil War, many Americans pined for national traditions that could unify the country. Protestant opposition to Christmas celebrations had relaxed, so Congress finally <a href="https://time.com/4608452/christmas-america-national-holiday/">declared Christmas a federal holiday in 1870</a>. Millions of Americans soon adopted <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-christmas-tree-is-a-tradition-older-than-christmas-195636">the German tradition of decorating trees</a>. They also exchanged presents, sent cards and shared stories of Santa Claus, a figure whose image the cartoonist <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-cartoonist-created-modern-image-santa-claus-union-propaganda-180971074/">Thomas Nast</a> perfected in the late 19th century.</p>
<p>The Christmases that Berlin and Crosby “used to know” were those of the 1910s and 1920s, when the season expanded to include <a href="https://madisonsquarepark.org/community/news/2021/04/holiday-tree/">the nation’s first public Christmas tree lighting ceremony</a> and <a href="https://www.history.com/news/the-first-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade">the appearance of Santa Claus</a> at the end of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. </p>
<p>Despite these evolving secular influences, Christmas music and entertainment continued to emphasize Christianity. Churchgoers and carolers often sang “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World.”</p>
<h2>‘The best song anybody ever wrote’</h2>
<p>Berlin’s inspiration for the song came in 1937, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/White-Christmas/Jody-Rosen/9780743218764">when he spent Christmas in Beverly Hills</a>. He was near the film studios where he worked but far from his wife, Ellin – a devout Catholic – and the New York City home in Manhattan where they had always celebrated the holiday with their three daughters. </p>
<p>Being apart from Ellin that Christmas was particularly difficult: Their infant son had died on Dec. 26, 1928. Irving knew his wife would have to make the annual visit to their son’s grave by herself.</p>
<p>By 1940, Berlin had come up with his lyrics. In his Manhattan office, he sat at his piano and asked his arranger to take down the notes.</p>
<p>“Not only is it the best song I ever wrote,” <a href="https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/laurence-bergreen/as-thousands-cheer/9780306806759/">he promised</a>, “it’s the best song anybody ever wrote.”</p>
<p>Berlin had connected his lonesome Christmas to the broader turmoil of the time, including the outbreak of World War II and fraught debates about America’s role in the world. </p>
<p>This new song reflected his response: a dream of better times and places. It evoked a small town of yesteryear in which horse-drawn sleighs crossed freshly fallen snow. It also imagined a future in which dark days would be “merry and bright” once again.</p>
<p>This was a new kind of Christmas carol. It did not mention the birth of Jesus, angels or wise men – and it was a song that all Americans, including Jewish immigrants, could embrace.</p>
<p>Berlin soon took “White Christmas” back to Hollywood. He wanted it to appear in his newest musical, one that would tell the story of a retired singer whose hotel offered rooms and entertainment, but only on American holidays. He titled the film “Holiday Inn” and pitched it to Paramount Pictures, with Crosby as the lead.</p>
<h2>Fighting for ‘the right to dream’</h2>
<p>Raised in Spokane, Washington, Crosby had launched his music career in the 1920s. A weekly radio show and a contract with Paramount led to stardom during the 1930s. </p>
<p>With his slim build and protruding ears, Crosby did not look the part of a leading man. But his easygoing demeanor and mellow voice made him immensely popular. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034862/">Holiday Inn</a>” premiered in August 1942. Reviewers barely mentioned the song, but ordinary Americans couldn’t get enough of it. By December it was on every radio, in every jukebox and, as the Christian Science Monitor newspaper noted, in nearly “every home and heart” in the country.</p>
<p>The key reason was the nation’s entry into World War II.</p>
<p>“White Christmas” was not overtly patriotic, but it made Americans think about why they fought, sacrificed and endured separation from their loved ones. <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/White-Christmas/Jody-Rosen/9780743218764">As an editorial</a> in the Buffalo Courier-Express concluded, the song “provided a forcible reminder that we are fighting for the right to dream and for memories to dream about.”</p>
<p>This made it a song all Americans could embrace, including those not always treated like Americans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Painting of Santa Clause wearing a stars-and-stripes hat as a young boy and girl sit on his lap." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566453/original/file-20231219-15-3zn321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566453/original/file-20231219-15-3zn321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566453/original/file-20231219-15-3zn321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566453/original/file-20231219-15-3zn321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566453/original/file-20231219-15-3zn321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566453/original/file-20231219-15-3zn321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566453/original/file-20231219-15-3zn321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During World War II, aspects of the Christmas holiday – family, home, comfort and safety – took on greater meaning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/retro-santa-claus-wearing-a-stars-and-stripes-tophat-with-a-news-photo/525363617?adppopup=true">GraphicaArtis/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Affirming faith in humanity</h2>
<p>Berlin and Crosby didn’t set out to change how Americans celebrate Christmas. But that’s what they ended up doing.</p>
<p>Their song’s universal appeal and phenomenal success launched a new era of holiday entertainment – traditions that helped Americanize the Christmas season.</p>
<p>Like “White Christmas,” popular songs such as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (1943) tapped into a longing for being with friends and family. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (1949) and other new songs celebrated snow, sleigh rides and Santa Claus, not the birth of Jesus.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Red and blue cover for sheet music featuring photographs of two smiling young men and two smiling young women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566381/original/file-20231218-25-udqob2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sheet music for Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sheet-music-for-irving-berlins-white-christmas-new-york-news-photo/455915107?adppopup=true">Robert R. McElroy/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>“White Christmas” <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Bing_Crosby_a_Pocketful_of_Dreams.html?id=2DRE2U_8WJIC">had already sold 5 million copies by 1947</a> when Crosby recorded “Merry Christmas,” the first Christmas album ever produced. On the album, “White Christmas” appeared alongside holiday classics such as “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”</p>
<p>Hollywood followed suit. In the popular 1946 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/">It’s a Wonderful Life</a>,” for example, bonds of family and friendship proved their value just in time for Christmas. </p>
<p>Faith was affirmed, but it was a faith in humanity. </p>
<p>Over the coming decades, Christmas entertainment continued to reach new audiences.</p>
<p>The upbeat songs of Phil Spector’s 1963 album “A Christmas Gift for You,” for example, appealed to baby boomers. Producers also catered to younger audiences with television specials such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”</p>
<p>Hollywood then rediscovered Christmas during the 1980s, largely because of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_7_nm_0_q_christmas%2520story">A Christmas Story</a>,” a film that didn’t exactly view Christmas through rose-colored glasses. While satirizing the chaos and angst of the holiday season, the film nonetheless embraced Christmas, warts and all. A steady stream of Christmas films followed – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096061/">Scrooged</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099785/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_7_nm_0_q_home%2520alone">Home Alone</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319343/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_7_nm_0_q_elf">Elf</a>” – where themes of nostalgia, family and togetherness were ever-present.</p>
<p>Since the 1940s, the Christmas season has become even more inclusive. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/23/christmas-also-celebrated-by-many-non-christians/">A 2013 Pew Research survey</a> found that 81% of non-Christians in the U.S. celebrate Christmas. Yes, the holiday has also <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/122132/the-battle-for-christmas-by-stephen-nissenbaum/">become more commercial</a>. But that, too, has made it all the more American.</p>
<p>Amid these changes, Irving Berlin’s song has been a holiday mainstay, reminding listeners of what makes them not just American, but human: the importance of home, a longing for togetherness and a shared hope for a better future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220019/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Rast does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The secular carol doesn’t mention Jesus, angels or wise men, while reminding listeners of what makes them not just American, but human.
Ray Rast, Associate Professor of History, Gonzaga University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215119
2023-12-05T13:22:09Z
2023-12-05T13:22:09Z
Hanukkah celebrations have changed dramatically − but the same is true of Christmas
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563077/original/file-20231202-25-d6v2he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C1013%2C682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Candles on a large Hanukkah menorah shine in front of a Christmas tree at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/candles-have-been-lit-on-the-10-metre-tall-hannukah-menorah-news-photo/1036787974?adppopup=true">Gregor Fischer/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/12/945611059/hanukkah-story">Articles and op-eds</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/hanukkah-jewish-christmas-commercialized/2021/11/23/bcc1df94-495d-11ec-95dc-5f2a96e00fa3_story.html">in newspapers</a> remind readers of that fact every year, lamenting that the Jewish Festival of Lights has almost become an imitation of the Christian holiday.</p>
<p>These pieces exist for a reason. Hanukkah is a minor festival in the Jewish liturgical year, whose major holidays come in the fall and spring – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-jewish-high-holy-days-a-look-at-rosh-hashanah-yom-kippur-and-a-month-of-celebrating-renewal-and-moral-responsibility-166079">High Holidays</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-passover-different-from-all-other-nights-3-essential-reads-on-the-jewish-holiday-202678">Passover</a>, respectively. Because of its proximity to Christmas, however, Hanukkah has been culturally elevated into a major celebration.</p>
<p>American shops and schools nod to diversity by putting up menorahs next to Christmas trees or including the <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/media/video/dreidel-song-i-made-it-out-clay">dreidel song</a> in the “holiday concert” alongside Santa, Rudolph or the Christ child. Even Chabad, <a href="https://www.chabad.org/">an Orthodox Jewish movement</a>, holds public menorah lightings that look remarkably like public Christmas tree lightings. </p>
<p>Store windows, doctors’ offices and college dining halls display Christmas trees and menorahs side by side, though the <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-hanukkiyah-menorah/">latter is a ritual object</a>, not merely a decoration. A menorah, or “hanukkiah,” is lit in a specific way, on specific days, with accompanying prayers – more akin to a <a href="https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-what-do-the-candles-in-our-advent-wreath-mean">Christian</a> <a href="https://www.usccb.org/resources/what-advent-wreath">Advent wreath</a> than to the holly decking the halls.</p>
<p>Much of my <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/samira-mehta-0">Jewish studies and gender research</a> focuses on <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636368/beyond-chrismukkah/">interfaith families</a>, for whom these issues can be especially tricky. I empathize with Jewish Americans worried about Hanukkah growing too similar to Christmas – but the history of both holidays is more complicated than these comparisons let on.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of four young boys, three of them looking on as the eldest lights a candle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563078/original/file-20231202-75503-ehllq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The four sons of a Jewish family in Brookline, Mass., light the first candle of their menorah during Hanukkah in 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-four-sons-of-a-jewish-family-light-a-menorah-during-news-photo/138778964?adppopup=true">Spencer Grant/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ancient revolt</h2>
<p>There’s a deep irony, of course, in seeing Hanukkah as a prime example of assimilation: The festival itself celebrates a victory against assimilation. </p>
<p>In 168 B.C.E., Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of the Seleucid Empire, sent his army to conquer Jerusalem. <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/hanukkah/history-hanukkah-story">He outlawed Jewish holidays</a>, Shabbat observance and practices such as circumcision. His troops set up altars to the Greek gods in the Jewish temple, dedicating it to Zeus.</p>
<p>The Maccabees, a Jewish resistance movement led by a priestly family, opposed both Antiochus and Jews who assimilated to the conquering Greek culture. Hanukkah celebrates the rebels’ victory over the Seleucid army.</p>
<p>In the temple, the Jews kept an eternal flame burning – <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ner-tamid">as synagogues do today</a>. When the Maccabees reclaimed the temple, however, there was enough oil to last for only a day. Miraculously, the story says it lasted for a week: enough time to bring in more oil.</p>
<p>Traditional holiday celebrations, therefore, include lighting the menorah each night for eight days and eating food <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/12/20/untraditional-hanukkah-celebrations-are-often-full-of-traditions-for-jews-of-color_partner/">cooked in oil</a>. <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/hanukkah/hanukkah-customs-and-rituals">Spinning dreidel</a> games are also traditional, as are songs like “<a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/rock-of-ages-maoz-tzur/">Maoz Tzur</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A table with a blue and white tablecloth, set with several serving dishes of fried foods." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563075/original/file-20231202-25-jdl9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Latkes – fried potato pancakes – are one of the most popular Hanukkah foods in the U.S., usually served with applesauce or sour cream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/having-a-meal-at-private-hannukah-party-on-6th-night-12-31-news-photo/530882869?adppopup=true">Lisa J Goodman/Moment Mobile via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“<a href="https://forward.com/culture/358070/how-my-subversive-hanukkah-bush-is-part-of-the-war-on-christmas/">Hanukkah bushes</a>” topped with a Star of David, extravagant presents, community menorah lightings in the park, blue and white lights on houses and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/02/advent-calendar-trend/">Hanukkah Advent calendars</a>? Not traditional, if “traditional” means things that have happened for hundreds of years.</p>
<h2>Carols and carousing</h2>
<p>Assimilation to the United States’ Christian-majority culture has played a role in Hanukkah’s modern transformation. That said, the story of how Hanukkah came to have the commercial, kids-and-gifts focus that it has in the U.S. today is a bit more complicated. </p>
<p>When people worry that Hanukkah is simply a Jewish adaptation to the Christmas gift season, I think they are imagining that Christmas itself has always been as most Americans today know it – with the presents, the tree and the family togetherness. But, in fact, both contemporary Christmas and contemporary Hanukkah <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691017211/consumer-rites">grew up together</a> in response to the Industrial Revolution.</p>
<p>Before the Industrial Revolution, both Europe and North America were primarily agrarian societies. When the harvest was completed, the entire Advent season took on an air of revelry – there was caroling in the streets and a certain amount of drunken carousing. For the more wealthy, it was a season of parties and balls. Sometimes, there would be <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2712609">class-based conflict</a> – like vandalism or other crimes – between the wealthy partygoers and the working-class street parties.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A postcard-like image in muted colors of seemingly young men and women drinking at an indoor party." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563076/original/file-20231202-72894-1huoed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th century Christmas celebrations in London – not exactly puritanical.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/christmas-celebrations-in-london-news-photo/3303651?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The highlight of the season was New Year’s rather than Christmas. Gifts, if any, were small and usually handmade. The wealthy gave end-of-the-year bonuses to servants and tradespeople. All in all, the season was as much about friends as family, and celebrated in public as much or more than in private.</p>
<p>For a variety of reasons, social campaigners in the early 19th century looked to make Christmas into <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691017211/consumer-rites">the domestic celebration of consumption</a> that we have today. The shift from seasonal farm work to round-the-clock factory work made the evenings of carousing problematic, for example – hungover workers are not good workers – and moving the celebration to a single day solved that problem. Meanwhile, religious voices tried to emphasize Christmas as a celebration of Christ in Christian homes. </p>
<p>But more to the point, the Industrial Revolution created a huge market of relatively affordable goods that needed a market. Christmas provided an abundant market. And so did Hanukkah.</p>
<h2>New needs, new traditions</h2>
<p>Jews received the same advertisements for gifts and festive foods as their Christian neighbors, and it was hard to resist the pull of the celebratory season. However, the late American studies scholar <a href="https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/philosophy/faculty/AshtonDianne.html">Dianne Ashton’s</a> book “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814707395/hanukkah-in-america/">Hanukkah in America: A History</a>” suggests that Hanukkah did not take its current form only because American Jews were imitating Christmas in some sort of religious version of keeping up with the Joneses.</p>
<p>Hanukkah, which is celebrated mostly in the home, gave Jewish women a place to shine – much like a domestic Christmas gave such opportunities to Christian women. It allowed Jews to focus on the family bonds, which often <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Fighting-to-Become-Americans-P309.aspx">felt fragile and precious</a> in the shadow of immigration and relatives left behind. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A brunette woman crouches indoors by a table, amid a handful of children, as she holds a lit candle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563074/original/file-20231202-27-id5yza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rabbi teaches preschoolers how to light a Hanukkah menorah in November 2018 in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/small-group-of-pre-schoolers-from-gan-hayeled-learn-how-to-news-photo/1075040466?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814707395/hanukkah-in-america/">focusing on children</a>, such as by having them light the candles – a job traditionally done by adult men – offered a way to engage the next generation in a time and place where being Jewish felt like a choice.</p>
<p>In America, Jews were full citizens, free from the laws that had previously kept their communities isolated in many parts of Europe. That freedom also made it easier for each individual to choose how much to engage with Jewish community, if at all. In America, you could leave your Judaism behind without converting to Christianity – <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691004792/leaving-the-jewish-fold">and many Jews did</a>. Hanukkah was a fun way to build attachments to the holiday. </p>
<p>American Jews adapted Hanukkah to their own needs, emphasizing aspects of the religion that made it work in this new environment. One can see that as assimilation, sure, but it was also adaptation for survival. Joining in the “holiday season” did mitigate the feeling of being an outsider, and a minority, at the holidays. But it also allowed for the creation of a new way of engaging Judaism in a new space and time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samira Mehta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Assimilation no doubt played a role in making Hanukkah the commercialized holiday it is today. But other factors shaped the modern festival, too, a scholar of Jewish studies and gender explains.
Samira Mehta, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211591
2023-10-20T12:27:13Z
2023-10-20T12:27:13Z
A memorial in Yiddish, Italian and English tells the stories of Triangle Shirtwaist fire victims − testament not only to tragedy but to immigrant women’s fight to remake labor laws
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554421/original/file-20231017-27-ejzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5582%2C3710&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Victims' names engraved in a metal overhang, part of the Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial, are reflected in mirroring panels along the sidewalk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Triangle%20Shirtwaist%20Memorial/d4e18df9d4384eab9925fac331f75255?Query=triangle%20shirtwaist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=42&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 10-story Brown Building, site of one of the deadliest workplace disasters in United States history, stands one block east of Washington Square Park in New York City. Despite three bronze plaques noting its significance, it has long been easy to pass by without further thought.</p>
<p>On March 25, 1911, however, thousands of New Yorkers gathered outside what was then known as the Asch Building, home of <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/150.html#screen">the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory</a>. Drawn by <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/newspapersMagazines/nyt_032611.html">a brief but raging inferno</a>, they bore horrified witness to dozens of factory workers with no way to escape gathering on the ninth-floor window sills, desperately jumping, and smashing onto the sidewalks far below.</p>
<p>Horse-drawn fire crews <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/146.html#screen">responded within minutes</a> to reports of the fire, which broke out on a Saturday afternoon at closing time, and it took only a half-hour to douse the flames. But the fire had had its way.</p>
<p>One hundred and forty-six people lost their lives. Most of those who died worked on the ninth floor, where safety measures consisted of little more than pails of water, despite the potential fire bomb around them: overflowing bins of discarded cloth and lint, combined with tissue-paper patterns hung across the ceiling. Locked doors, an inadequate fire escape and other fire code violations meant many workers could find no way out except the windows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a man looking from a few feet away at dead bodies crumpled on a sidewalk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trapped behind locked doors, some workers saw no escape but the windows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/policeman-stands-in-the-street-observing-charred-rubble-and-news-photo/3112343?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Firemen were left to stack the lifeless bodies <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/151.html#screen">on the sidewalk</a>. The vast majority were girls or young women: meagerly paid laborers, and most of them Jewish or Italian immigrants.</p>
<p>On Oct. 11, 2023, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition <a href="https://apnews.com/article/triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-memorial-6696231893baecf72da373ebd3a94680">dedicated a striking memorial</a> at the site of this tragedy. The initial installation features a stainless steel ribbon extending in two parallel strands along the ground floor, displaying victims’ names and survivors’ testimony, written in their native languages: English, Yiddish and Italian. Over the next few months, another gently twisting ribbon traveling from the window sill of the ninth floor to the ground level and back up again will be added.</p>
<p>The memorial offers a bold and graceful reminder not only of the fire but of its imprint on the world we inhabit today.</p>
<p>When I asked the students in my history class at the University of Michigan if they had heard of the Triangle fire, I was shocked to see almost all raise their hands. Many were familiar with how the disaster inspired <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1033177379/labor-day-history-triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-patco-strike">the growth of labor activism</a> and worker protections. Few of them, however, had thought about the central role of American Jewish women, <a href="https://ssw.umich.edu/faculty/profiles/tenure-track/kargold">the focus of my research</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of a crowd of women in long coats, holding banners that say 'We mourn our loss.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators from Local 25 and the United Hebrew Trades of New York mourn fire victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-mourn-for-the-deaths-of-victims-of-the-news-photo/642536674?adppopup=true">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tense 2 years</h2>
<p>Only two years before the fire, a walkout over working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had sparked a series of labor actions that culminated in the <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">Uprising of the 20,000</a>, the largest <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/275.html#screen">American women’s strike</a> ever. </p>
<p>That disciplined activism was led by a small cadre of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography-clara-lemlich">young Jewish immigrant working-class women</a>. Years earlier, they had essentially created a branch of their own – Local 25 – within the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Their example led to a surge of strikes nationwide and forced the labor movement to finally take the needs of unskilled workers and women workers seriously.</p>
<p><a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/142.html#screen">The Triangle bosses</a> and other owners hired thugs to assault strike leaders and picketers. The police likewise felt free <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469635910/common-sense-and-a-little-fire-second-edition/">to beat the picketers</a>, which only abated when upper-class partners in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/286.html#screen">Women’s Trade Union League joined the picket lines</a> – raising fear among the police that they might be striking society matrons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of formally dressed women around a dining table decorated with plants and candles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Suffragettes and socialites attend a dinner held by Mrs. Martin Littleton in support of the striking workers, circa 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-physician-anna-howard-shaw-leader-of-the-womens-news-photo/1393779912?adppopup=true">Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Triangle Factory was among the 339 shops that “<a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">settled” with the union</a> in February 1910, with concessions that included higher wages, a 52-hour week, four paid holidays per year and a promise to no longer discriminate against union members. </p>
<p>The strikers’ <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">call for better safety standards</a>, however, <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">had been ignored</a> by the male union representatives and owners who had worked out the settlement. </p>
<h2>Moral force</h2>
<p>Local 25 grew from a few hundred to 10,000 members over the course <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909#pid-18206">of the 1909-10 strike</a>. That organizing prowess would be seen again in the wave of protest and indignation that followed the 1911 fire.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">unions’ strength</a> could be seen in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/184.html#screen">funeral march</a> that accompanied the fire’s seven unidentified victims to a municipal burying ground, as a crowd of 400,000 assembled to march or <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/187.html#screen">watch the procession</a>.</p>
<p>The power of the <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">activists’ moral indignation</a> emerged in full force
at a memorial meeting held a few days later. Workers grew restive as wealthy philanthropists, city officials and liberal reformers promised investigatory commissions – which they feared would mean little real change.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A close-up formal portrait of a woman with dark hair in a black and white photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feminist and union labor activist Rose Schneiderman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-feminist-and-labor-union-leader-rose-news-photo/461192915?adppopup=true">Interim Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose">Rose Schneiderman</a>, one of the working-class <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/221.html">immigrant labor activists</a> who had helped organize the 1909 strike, was also on the platform. <a href="https://francesperkinscenter.org/learn/her-life/">Reformer Frances Perkins</a>, who would soon become a close ally, noted Schneiderman trembling over <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">the loss of comrades, friends and co-workers</a>.</p>
<p>Schneiderman took the podium, excoriating the industry’s brutality and focusing on the unrealized power of the workers themselves. “I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies,” <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/115844?lang=bi">she declared</a>, “if I were to come here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public – and we have found you wanting.”</p>
<p>“I know from experience it is up to the working class to save themselves,” Schneiderman told the audience.</p>
<h2>Birth of the New Deal</h2>
<p>Yet the working class ended up needing allies like Perkins, who was instrumental in establishing a citizens’ Committee on Safety, and then <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/mono-regsafepart07">a legislative Factory Investigating Commission</a> as well.</p>
<p>On the day of the fire, Perkins had been enjoying tea at a friend’s house on Washington Square and rushed toward the commotion across the park, arriving on the scene to see bodies falling from the sky. That scene and Schneiderman’s speech <a href="https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/lectures/FrancesPerkinsLecture.html">left an indelible impression on her</a> – as they did on many New Yorkers. </p>
<p>For several reasons, including public outcry about the fire, this was the moment when New York City’s political machine began to shift its focus and <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">address workers’ needs</a>. Schneiderman and other activists worked with Perkins on investigations that led to the overhaul of <a href="https://www.nysarchivestrust.org/exhibits/industrialization">New York’s safety and labor laws</a>, such as <a href="https://bklyn.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-hearing-about-t/91238764/?locale=en-US">a 54-hour maximum work week</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young men hold posters printed with black and white photographs of women as they stand on a city street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York City commemorated the 108th anniversary of the fire in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/holding-flowers-pictures-and-traditional-dresses-people-news-photo/1138302794?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The young women whose pain had galvanized public response continued their union work, traveling around the country to help organize many of the strikes their activism inspired. Some also made an impact at the governmental level. Schneiderman became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose">influenced her views on workers’ needs</a>, as well as those of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt.</p>
<p>Perkins became President Roosevelt’s secretary of labor in 1933 and was the first woman to serve in a U.S. cabinet position. She brought the New York reforms born in the wake of the fire into <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/">the New Deal</a>, the slew of social programs the Roosevelt administration introduced to help Americans struggling through the Great Depression. </p>
<p>Schneiderman, too, had a role: the only woman to serve on the New Deal’s Labor Advisory Board. As Perkins later recalled, the day of the Triangle fire was “<a href="https://francesperkinscenter.org/learn/her-life/">the day the New Deal was born</a>.”</p>
<p>For 112 years, the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory have called out silently from the sidewalks and window frames of the Brown Building, which is now part of New York University’s campus. The new memorial calls on the passersby to stop, note and honor that one horrific half-hour, etched indelibly into the story of the city and the nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karla Goldman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A memorial at the site of the 1911 fire remembers those who died; a cadre of young Jewish women helped push for change in the wake of the tragedy.
Karla Goldman, Professor of Social Work and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215590
2023-10-17T12:20:05Z
2023-10-17T12:20:05Z
Israel is getting a surge in donations from the US in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554061/original/file-20231016-22-q212pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=868%2C36%2C3986%2C2599&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The attacks may have reversed a decline in philanthropy seen in recent years</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestiniansUSReactions/e1208b2d8b5646b0af03c3f1787ad542/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20%20(israel%20rally%20us)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=now-14d&totalCount=81&currentItemNo=39">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The U.S. government has stepped up its focus on Israel following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hamas-assault-echoes-1973-arab-israeli-war-a-shock-attack-and-questions-of-political-intelligence-culpability-215228">Oct. 7, 2023</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-rockets-airstrikes-tel-aviv-ca7903976387cfc1e1011ce9ea805a71">Hamas attacks</a>. American Jews are also responding, in part by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/with-bulletproof-vests-socks-soap-us-jews-rush-aid-israel-2023-10-11/">sending money and other kinds of aid</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim, a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oUIgI-YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of Jewish philanthropy</a>, to describe recent trends in U.S. giving to Israeli causes and how it’s changing.</em></p>
<h2>Is US Jewish giving to Israeli causes significant?</h2>
<p>Yes. Nonprofits in Israel say they get an estimated <a href="https://www.ilp.sites.tau.ac.il/post/giving-to-israel-american-institutional-philanthropy-to-israeli-nonprofits">US$2 billion a year in donations from other countries</a>. Over half of that is from Jewish organizations and individuals in North America, mostly the United States. <a href="http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/34091">Jewish federations</a>, regional organizations that give collectively to causes in the U.S. and in foreign countries, private family foundations and donor-advised funds provide the lion’s share of this money.</p>
<p>Historically, U.S. <a href="https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/items/1b3f1fcd-fc66-4c25-a35e-e31921dbc725">Jewish giving to Israeli causes</a> and other forms of <a href="https://www.israelbonds.com/Investing/Investing-Options.aspx">financial support for Israel</a>, such as purchases of Israeli bonds, have been motivated by religious, national and cultural traditions.</p>
<p>U.S. Jewish giving to Israeli causes has been significant <a href="https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/israel-reborn">since the country’s founding 75 years ago</a> in 1948. These donations have supported secular and faith-based programming and organizations, <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2787197017?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true">sustained community institutions</a>, funded the work of advocacy organizations and met social and educational needs.</p>
<p>This kind of philanthropy is a traditional expression of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/u-s-jews-connections-with-and-attitudes-toward-israel/">emotional attachment to Israel</a> that is shared by Jews of many different backgrounds and denominations. About <a href="https://rudermanfoundation.org/white_papers/the-american-jewish-community-trends-and-changes-in-engagement-and-perceptions/">2 in 3 American Jews</a> personally feel connected to Israel, according to recent research. </p>
<p>Multiple factors influence the amount of money U.S. Jews give to Israeli causes, including changes to <a href="https://scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/outputs/report/The-New-Philanthropy-American-Jewish-Giving/9924144303801921">American tax laws</a> regarding donations to overseas organizations. In recent years, Israel’s increasingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-aipac-could-lose-its-bipartisan-status-113241">conservative social and religious policies</a> – which clash with the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/u-s-jews-political-views/">liberal politics of most American Jews</a> – have <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-jewish-giving-to-israel-has-been-on-the-decline-since-2009/">contributed to a decline in giving</a>.</p>
<h2>Do wars and other major conflicts usually affect Jewish giving to Israel?</h2>
<p>Traditionally, more American Jews have donated to Israeli causes during emergencies, military operations and environmental disasters, and they’ve <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/giving/overseas-as-conflict-rises-so-do-gifts-to-israel.html">given more money</a> amid crises.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jewish-giving-to-israel-is-losing-ground-100946">those spikes in giving</a> have gotten smaller over the past two decades, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jewish-giving-to-israel-is-losing-ground-100946">American Jewish giving to Israel has declined</a> in general.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People mill around heaps of donated clothing and other essential goods." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554060/original/file-20231016-23-lbbygb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli evacuees from kibbutzim near the Gaza border receive clothing donations at a hotel in the Dead Sea area on Oct. 9, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-evacuees-from-kibbutzim-near-the-gaza-border-news-photo/1715759986?adppopup=true">Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s new this time?</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/how-foundations-with-programs-in-israel-are-responding-to-the-hamas-attacks">surge of donations</a> began immediately after Oct. 7. It included funds for nonprofits and <a href="https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/10/16/200m-raised-by-israel-bonds-in-wake-of-oct-7-attack/">Israeli bond purchases</a> by individual investors in the U.S. and around the world, as well as by state and local U.S. governments.</p>
<p>Fundraising efforts in the U.S. following Oct. 7 <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-767973">raised more than $100 million</a> within seven days after the attacks.</p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-civilians-help-victims-american-hospital/">U.S. volunteers are lending their time and expertise</a> to cover operational and logistical needs.</p>
<p>And some Israelis who live in the United States have helped arrange prefunded <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/anonymous-donor-buys-250-plane-tickets-israel-bound-idf-reservists-jfk-airport-report">charter flights for their compatriots</a> who wish to go back there to distribute aid.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7872%2C4820&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women look sad while holding Israeli flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7872%2C4820&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554059/original/file-20231016-25-icvjhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators gather during a rally in support of Israel outside the West Los Angeles Federal Building on Oct. 10, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-gather-during-a-rally-in-support-of-israel-news-photo/1717387782?adppopup=true">Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What was going on before Oct. 7?</h2>
<p>U.S. Jewish philanthropy for Israel had been changing before the current conflict began. The government’s <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/israel-law-review/article/long-hand-of-anticorruption-israeli-judicial-reform-in-comparative-perspective/8EA6B1CAE08CFD6FB4FA38B3FA36CEC0">controversial attempt to change Israel’s judicial system</a>, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was increasing global interest in events taking place in Israel and <a href="https://theconversation.com/israels-judicial-reform-efforts-could-complicate-its-relationship-with-us-but-the-countries-have-faced-other-bumps-along-the-road-203104">dividing Israeli society</a>.</p>
<p>Some American Jewish donors were voicing their objections and funding Israeli nonprofits that oppose the changes.</p>
<p>A group of wealthy U.S. Jewish donors and family foundations, for example, sent an <a href="https://www.jta.org/2023/02/20/israel/major-diaspora-philanthropists-warn-of-danger-to-israeli-democracy">open letter to Netanyahu</a> in February 2023 that warned of the negative potential consequences for Israeli democracy and the harm that would do to relations with Jews outside Israel. The signatories included <a href="https://www.acbp.net/founders.php">Charles Bronfman</a>, a co-founder of Birthright, which takes young Jewish people on free, 10-day trips to Israel.</p>
<h2>Are there other sources of US philanthropy for Israel outside the Jewish community?</h2>
<p>Multiple U.S. corporations have pledged to donate humanitarian aid or match employee donations, including <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-corporation-donates-1-million-united-jewish-appeal-providing-israel-emergency-relief">Fox Corp.</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-banks-tech-firms-offer-support-israel-victims-announce-aid-2023-10-13">Goldman Sachs</a>.</p>
<p>This is a rare <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-tech-investors-pledge-support-230009728.html">source of philanthropic support for Israel</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim is the Deputy Director U.S., of the Ruderman Family Foundation. </span></em></p>
As American Jews grieve, many are giving as well.
Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim, Visiting Scholar of Philanthropy, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206062
2023-05-23T12:25:54Z
2023-05-23T12:25:54Z
White House plan to combat antisemitism takes on centuries of hatred, discrimination and even lynching in America
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527578/original/file-20230522-21-ntbmq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C13%2C2986%2C2285&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bess Myerson, center, was crowned Miss America in 1945, but was turned away from hotels that did not admit Jews when she went on tour. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BessMyerson/974fb5c9447947cfab3bb849c9625d78/photo?Query=Bess%20Myerson%20Miss%20America&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=40&currentItemNo=6">AP photo/Sam Myers</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2022">reported antisemitic incidents</a> in the U.S. in 2022 soared to an all-time high, the White House began developing plans to combat this hate, proclaiming in an official statement, “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/12/statement-from-white-house-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-on-inter-agency-group-to-counter-antisemitism/">antisemitism has no place in America</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/U.S.-National-Strategy-to-Counter-Antisemitism.pdf">The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism</a>, released on May 25, 2023, was based on conversations with more than a thousand stakeholders, including me, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EPN4PGAAAAAJ&hl=en">a scholar of American Jewish history</a>. The plan outlines over 100 steps for federal agencies to take in the coming year and calls upon Congress, state and local governments and the private sector to join them. Understanding that history matters, those steps include raising awareness of antisemitism in the present and the past, and expanding knowledge of Jewish heritage in the U.S.</p>
<p>That heritage has two sides. Its bright side honors the achievements of America’s Jews and their many contributions to this nation. Its darker side contains a long history of antisemitism from Colonial days to today.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Writing is seen on the glass doors of a tire merchant's storefront." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527583/original/file-20230522-23-4hsrtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Antisemitic graffiti reading ‘Kill all Jews’ is scrawled on a storefront in the Bronx, New York City, during the U.S. presidential campaign of 1944.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anti-semitic-graffiti-on-the-h-jaffess-tire-company-shop-in-news-photo/1243626506?adppopup=true">FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Governors, generals and members of Congress</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Ec8M6CoRM">During the recent celebration</a> marking <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/28/a-proclamation-on-jewish-american-heritage-month-2023/">Jewish American Heritage Month</a> at the White House, Jewish accomplishments were spotlighted. Michaela Diamond and Ben Platt, stars of the Broadway revival of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/theater/parade-review-leo-frank.html">the musical “Parade</a>,” performed. That these actors, the show’s book writer, <a href="https://www.georgiawritershalloffame.org/honorees/alfred-uhry">Alfred Uhry</a>, and its composer, <a href="https://jasonrobertbrown.com/">Jason Robert Brown</a>, are all Jewish attests to Jews’ presence and contributions to American theater, the arts and beyond.</p>
<p>Yet “Parade” tells the story of one terrible episode in the history of American antisemitism. </p>
<p>In 1913, <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-leo-frank">Leo Frank</a>, the manager of an Atlanta pencil factory and a Jew, was accused of having murdered one of his teenage workers. Frank maintained his innocence, and the trial became a national media circus. </p>
<p>Mobs gathered outside the courtroom. Frank’s attorney told the court, <a href="https://www.leofrank.org/trial-and-evidence/defense/reuben-rose-arnold/">had Frank not been a Jew</a>, he never would have been prosecuted. </p>
<p>Even as the <a href="https://www.famous-trials.com/leo-frank/35-clemencydecision">trial judge questioned Frank’s guilt</a>, the jury convicted him, and Frank was sentenced to hang. Two years later, after Georgia’s governor commuted that sentence to life imprisonment, a gang of vigilantes, without firing a shot, <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-leo-frank">kidnapped Frank from jail and lynched him</a>.</p>
<p>Antisemitism had arrived in America 250 years before Leo Frank’s murder. In September 1654, after 23 Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution in colonial Brazil landed in Manhattan, the colony’s governor, Peter Stuyvesant, tried to eject this <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43057824">“deceitful race” of “blasphemers” and “enemies</a>.” </p>
<p>He failed. </p>
<p>Yet during the Civil War, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant did <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-and-general-orders-no-11.htm">expel Jews</a> from his military district, the District of the Tennessee, which spanned from the southern tip of Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, an order President Abraham Lincoln countermanded. </p>
<p>In the 1940s, <a href="https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/20149">Rep. John Rankin</a>, a Democrat from Mississippi, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1949/02/09/house-section">railed against the Jews</a> from the House floor, claiming that Jews “have been for 1,900 years trying to destroy Christianity, and everything that is based on Christian principles.” They had already “virtually destroyed Europe,” ranted Rankin, and were now doing the same to America.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A rectangular historic marker on a pole outside, with the heading 'Leo Frank lynching,' describing the circumstances of Frank's death." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527584/original/file-20230522-27-47lpen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Georgia Historical Society’s marker of the site where Leo Frank was lynched.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Resited_Leo_Frank_Marker.jpg#/media/File:Resited_Leo_Frank_Marker.jpg">Wikipedia By Jrryjude</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Misfortune’ to be a Jew</h2>
<p>Powerful voices from the private sector joined governors, generals and members of Congress in spouting antisemitism. </p>
<p>In May 1920, the newspaper The Dearborn Independent, owned by the automobile tycoon <a href="https://corporate.ford.com/articles/history/henry-ford-biography.html">Henry Ford</a>, ran the headline “<a href="https://www.associationforjewishstudies.org/publications-research/adventures-in-jewish-studies-podcast/the-protocols-henry-ford-and-the-international-jew-transcript">The International Jew: The World’s Problem</a>.” For the next 91 weeks, the weekly ran a series of articles decrying Jewish power and Jews’ dangerous influence on American life.</p>
<p>The paper’s <a href="https://www.americanjewisharchives.org/snapshots/henry-ford-and-antisemitism-the-notorious-dearborn-independent">circulation soared</a> as copies were distributed in every Ford dealership and sent to every member of Congress.</p>
<p>News of Ford’s antisemitism even reached Adolf Hitler, who, in March 1923, in the early days of the Nazi Party, told a Chicago reporter how much he admired Ford’s anti-Jewish policies. If he could, Hitler said, he would send some of his so-called “<a href="https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/image/354941273/?terms=%22Heinrich&match=1">shock troops</a>” to America to support Ford.</p>
<p>Encounters with antisemitism, and not only those from public figures, linger in the memories of American Jews. My book “<a href="https://pamelanadell.com/">America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today</a>” highlighted some of them. In the 1880s, a Philadelphia writer ruefully recalled a teacher saying: “It is your misfortune, not your fault, <a href="https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/gh93h1824?locale=en">that you are a Jew</a>.”</p>
<p>In 1945, just days after World War II ended, <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/myerson-bess">Bess Myerson</a>, a Jewish woman from the Bronx, was crowned Miss America. Heading out on tour after the pageant, this Miss America <a href="https://forward.com/culture/212132/bess-myerson-the-bronx-beauty-who-refused-to-chang/">was turned away</a> from what were called “restricted” hotels, which did not admit Jews. Three of the pageant’s sponsors refused to feature a Jewish Miss America in their ads. Myerson spent part of her year wearing her crown speaking out against antisemitism. Meanwhile, returning American GIs who had <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-forces-enter-buchenwald-1945">liberated the concentration camps</a> had seen with their own eyes just where antisemitism could lead.</p>
<p>The antisemitism the White House hopes to combat today rests on this history and much more. </p>
<p>The White House plan comes just as the trial of the man accused of the deadliest hate crime against American Jews, the murder of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/tree-of-life-shooting-trial.html">11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue</a> in October 2018, gets underway.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to reflect that the White House issued the plan on May 25, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pamela S. Nadell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Incidents of antisemitism in the US have risen to historic levels, and the White House has vowed to fight them.
Pamela S. Nadell, Professor and Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's & Gender History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program, American University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201920
2023-04-19T12:44:57Z
2023-04-19T12:44:57Z
US giving to Israeli nonprofits – how much Jews and Christians donate and where the money goes
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521062/original/file-20230414-22-tyvncl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C284%2C4827%2C2687&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Israeli political conflicts could change the giving patterns of U.S. Jews. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anti-reform-protesters-wave-israeli-flags-chant-slogans-and-news-photo/1251806244">Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been protesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-is-facing-twin-existential-crises-what-is-benjamin-netanyahu-doing-to-solve-them-200820">proposed judiciary overhauls</a> and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23629744/why-israelis-protesting-netanyahu-far-right-government-judiciary-overhaul">continued erosion</a> of Palestinian human rights for months. </p>
<p>It’s possible that what’s happening loudly and without precedent on the streets of Israel is having a quieter but significant effect in the United States – which has the <a href="https://www.jewishagency.org/jewish-population-5782/">largest Jewish community outside Israel</a>.</p>
<p>American Jews may have concerns about the reforms themselves. In addition, the current Israeli administration counts among its supporters politicians who want to <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/01/11/why-israels-orthodox-jewish-parties-want-to-narrow-the-countrys-law-of-return/">tighten restrictions on whom Israel considers to be Jewish</a> in ways that would exclude some U.S. Jews. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63780509">Many of Netanyahu’s allies are also anti-LGBTQ</a>. While some American Jews might share these views, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-government-united-states-judaism-benjamin-netanyahu-c19f1de03e19428958181ebd2dcb1461">they are not representative</a>.</p>
<h2>Billions donated a year</h2>
<p>Israeli nonprofits amassed <a href="https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/mediarelease/DocLib/2022/253/08_22_253e.pdf">US$35.3 billion in total income in 2015</a>, roughly $45 billion in 2023 dollars, from all sources. That total included revenue like university tuition and concert ticket sales, as well as $4.4 billion – roughly $5.6 billion in 2023 dollars – in donations from all sources, foreign and domestic.</p>
<p>Donations from <a href="https://www.ilp.sites.tau.ac.il/_files/ugd/0e9d9e_f2c0ec8d1a06476e9192b8e62605dddc.pdf">outside Israel accounted for $2.8 billion</a> of those gifts, about two-thirds of this kind of funding. We analyzed <a href="https://www.guidestar.org/">Guidestar’s database of nonprofit tax records</a> to identify U.S. organizations sending money to Israel.</p>
<p>Israeli nonprofits, such as <a href="https://afmda.org/">Magen David Adom</a>, or Red Shield – Israel’s equivalent to the Red Cross and Red Crescent – and the <a href="https://www.k-shoa.org/index.php?language=eng">Foundation for the Welfare of Holocaust Victims</a>, rely on foreign donors for more than half of their philanthropic funding.</p>
<p>Much of this money, but not all of it, comes from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jewish-giving-to-israel-is-losing-ground-100946">American Jews and Jewish organizations</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7rkRD3AAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=a">I am a researcher</a> who focuses on how nonprofits get the resources they need to deliver their programs and services. I worked with <a href="https://en-law.tau.ac.il/profile/gfeit_74">Galia Feit</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=GRVc-3gAAAAJ">Osnat Hazan</a>, scholars based at <a href="https://english.tau.ac.il/">Tel Aviv University’s</a> <a href="https://www.ilp.sites.tau.ac.il/">Institute for Law and Philanthropy</a>, to get <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/who-gives-and-who-gets-the-challenges-of-following-the-money-from-the-u-s-to-israel/">a clearer picture of this funding</a> – which we studied because it was from the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available. </p>
<h2>Many different interests</h2>
<p>We’ve found that the donations that Israeli nonprofits get from the U.S. are notable in part for the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00433-8">variety of donors</a>.</p>
<p>Israelis who now live outside of Israel, non-Israeli Jews who consider Israel a Jewish homeland, and people who are neither Israeli nor Jewish alike help fund these organizations.</p>
<p>For non-Jews, Israel represents what is known as a <a href="https://scalar.usc.edu/works/boundary-objects-guide/boundary-objects">boundary object</a> – different groups assign different meanings to the same thing. Depending on their <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">particular religious and cultural identities</a>, American Jews have many different ideas of what Israel represents. But nearly all of these ideas differ from the idea of Israel held by, for example, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/26/as-israel-increasingly-relies-on-us-evangelicals-for-support-younger-ones-are-walking-away-what-polls-show/">evangelical Christians</a>. </p>
<p>No matter the motivation or rationale, the end result is that funds supporting Israel go to a wide array of nonprofits in the same country. </p>
<h2>Collecting and parsing data</h2>
<p>The first <a href="https://bir.brandeis.edu/bitstream/handle/10192/39/TheNewPhilanthropy.pdf">comprehensive study</a> assessing giving to Israel focused on Jewish philanthropy. Published in 2012, using 2007 data, the authors estimated that 774 organizations raised $2.1 billion, which would be about $3.06 billion in 2023 dollars.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-12-09/ty-article-magazine/.premium/inside-the-evangelical-money-flowing-into-the-west-bank/0000017f-f4b0-d460-afff-fff6add90000">study of evangelical Christian giving</a> to Israeli nonprofits covering a longer time period – from 2008 through 2016 – identified <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M-ItrvTeoqTb4qyqL-EFTcw9MYvsPt29sWIIp26z3ng/edit">11 organizations</a> donating an estimated total of $50 million to $65 million over the entire period – less than $82 million in 2023 dollars. While this is less than 3% of all of the funds Israeli nonprofits obtained in foreign donations, we believe it’s worth watching this trend in part because the amounts grew in the period we reviewed.</p>
<p>From this study we were able to identify 1,179 funding organizations granting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00433-8">a total of $1.8 billion</a> to Israeli organizations.</p>
<p><iframe id="rtd8P" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rtd8P/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>3 main kinds of funders</h2>
<p>We sorted funding organizations that support Israel into three main categories and one catchall.</p>
<p><strong>Centralized organizations</strong></p>
<p>These are major funders located outside Israel that distribute funds aggregated from multiple individuals and Jewish organizations. These include national organizations like the <a href="https://www.jnf.org/">Jewish National Fund</a> and the <a href="https://www.jewishfederations.org/federation-finder">146 local Jewish federations</a> located in such places as Cleveland, New York City and Los Angeles that fund local causes such as Jewish summer camps and education about Israel and the Holocaust, and also send money abroad.</p>
<p>Other examples include <a href="https://bbyo.org/">BBYO</a>, a national pluralistic movement for Jewish teens where I used to work; <a href="https://www.hillel.org/">Hillel International</a>, through which Jews on college campuses worship, connect and do service projects; and <a href="https://www.birthrightisrael.com/">Birthright Israel</a>, which provides free trips to young Jews to help them forge connections with Israel.</p>
<p>Centralized organizations have <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691170732/the-american-jewish-philanthropic-complex">historically channeled most of the funds</a> donated to Israeli organizations from abroad. </p>
<p>The 43 funders in this category represented only 4% of all funders but gave $707 million to Israeli nonprofits – 39% of the total donations.</p>
<p><strong>‘Friends of’ organizations</strong></p>
<p>These groups are smaller than centralized organizations. They mainly collect funds to support a single Israeli nonprofit, such as the <a href="https://afipo.org/">American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, the <a href="https://www.afhu.org/">American Friends of Hebrew University</a> and the <a href="http://www.naf-iolr.org/?page_id=18">North American Friends of Israel Oceanographic Research</a>.</p>
<p>The 349 friends of funders we identified accounted for 30% of all funders and $752 million, or 41%, of donations.</p>
<p><strong>Family foundations</strong></p>
<p>These charities are typically founded, funded and governed by members of a single family. Examples here include the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Bloomberg Family Foundation. Family foundations represent 25% of all funders and donated $87 million in 2015 – but only 5% of all the funds we assessed. </p>
<p>About 15% of the giving to Israeli nonprofits from the U.S. organizations we studied didn’t appear to originate in any of these three main categories.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Well-dressed older people gather for a festive meal in a pretty venue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra held a 2019 gala at a private home in California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/richard-ziman-speaks-at-the-american-friends-of-the-israel-news-photo/1151090111?adppopup=true">Tasia Wells/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4 categories of Israeli nonprofits</h2>
<p>There is less data on the Israeli groups getting this funding as opposed to the foreign groups making the donations, but we found enough information to identify <a href="https://www.ilp.sites.tau.ac.il/_files/ugd/0e9d9e_fda254b52723480da7669c35b86ee1dd.pdf">four main causes</a> based on either the identity of the funders themselves or the groups they fund.</p>
<p><strong>Jewish religious institutions</strong>
Israeli synagogues and yeshivas – Orthodox rabbinical seminaries – received $266 million, around 15% of all funds.</p>
<p><strong>Higher education</strong>
Donations to Israeli colleges and universities totaled $206 million, about 11% of the total.</p>
<p><strong>Health</strong>
Hospitals and medical research centers such as the <a href="https://www.hadassah.org.il/en/">Hadassah Medical Center</a> and the <a href="https://jewishmedicalassociationuk.org/medicine-in-israel/hospitals/western-galilee-hospital/">Western Galilee Hospital</a> obtained $81 million in donations, about 4% of all foreign philanthropic funds. </p>
<p><strong>Christian causes</strong>
Christian-focused organizations, such as <a href="https://fconline.foundationcenter.org/fdo-grantmaker-profile/">Outreach Foundation of the Presbyterian Church</a> and the <a href="https://www.ifcj.org/">International Fellowship of Christians and Jews</a>, donated $56.4 million.</p>
<h2>Changes ahead?</h2>
<p>This picture has no doubt changed. For example, the <a href="https://www.centralfundofisrael.org/">Central Fund of Israel</a> is reportedly a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/business/israel-judges-kohelet.html">major backer of the Kohelet Policy Forum</a> that is pushing many of the judicial reforms. However, that charity did not provide this detail in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-a-990-form-a-charity-accounting-expert-explains-175019">mandatory 990 form it filed with the Internal Revenue Service</a> for 2015. </p>
<p>We are beginning to study data from 2017 and 2019, which is only now becoming available. A group called the <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/475405929">American Friends of Kohelet Policy Forum</a> does show up in the newer data. Its connection to the Central Fund of Israel is unknown, but its inclusion is notable for illustrating the influence that U.S. organizational donors may have in Israel.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray-haired man stands next to the U.S. and Israeli flags while speaking at an event." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Kohelet Policy Forum conference in Jerusalem in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/isreali-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-speaks-at-the-news-photo/1192534346?adppopup=true">Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are signs that <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jewish-giving-to-israel-is-losing-ground-100946">giving from Jewish organizations to causes in Israel is decreasing</a> even as giving to Jewish causes outside of Israel increases. The <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/exclusive-jfnas-long-term-plan-for-aid-to-ukraine/">Jewish Federation of North America’s shifting view on Ukraine</a> is one example of this. Rather than viewing the war as a short-term emergency, the organization is planning for long-term, ongoing support. </p>
<p>And many of the nonprofits in our study were subject to the <a href="https://nff.org/learn/survey">same pressures and problems</a> many nonprofits experienced around the world at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic: an increased demand for services at odds with a reduction in donations, the loss of volunteers and a scramble for new ways to work when in-person operations became restricted or impossible.</p>
<p>Between <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-government-united-states-judaism-benjamin-netanyahu-c19f1de03e19428958181ebd2dcb1461">heightened concerns over Israel’s policies</a>, <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/alumni-friends/2022/september/alumni-roundtable-judaism.html">growing numbers of antisemitic incidents</a> and increasingly pressing social justice issues at home, we believe that Jewish federations and other local funding groups that historically made fundraising for Israeli causes a high priority may experience more pressure from their donors to instead support groups doing work closer to home.</p>
<p>We have no doubt that the <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2023-03-16/ty-article/.premium/top-democrats-call-to-make-u-s-aid-to-israel-conditional-on-two-state-solution/00000186-eba4-d048-adc6-ffbe82cf0000">political situations in both Israel and the U.S.</a> will only exacerbate these trends. Support from local communities and centralized organizations may <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/472070/democrats-sympathies-middle-east-shift-palestinians.aspx">shift along with changing political winds</a> as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-protests.html">American Jews face calls</a> to <a href="https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2023/2/8/with-the-right-wing-in-charge-in-israel-jewish-donors-cant-afford-to-turn-away">take sides in Israeli current events</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, what it means to support Israel, who gives, and what they are giving may be changing as <a href="https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-42/2/JoinStatementFederations.pdf">American Jews grapple with what is happening in Israel</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Levine Daniel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Political situations in both Israel and the US could be changing prior patterns with these donations, which fund hospitals, museums and a wide array of organizations.
Jamie Levine Daniel, Associate Professor, Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191318
2022-12-16T18:34:39Z
2022-12-16T18:34:39Z
‘Untraditional’ Hanukkah celebrations are often full of traditions for Jews of color
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501458/original/file-20221216-18-gmfu5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C6%2C2084%2C1405&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hanukkah creates opportunities for families to celebrate their heritage – especially in the kitchen.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/image-of-the-hanukkah-jewish-holiday-with-a-menorah-royalty-free-image/889576958?phrase=hanukkah%20morocco&adppopup=true">zilber42/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hanukkah, the Jewish “festival of lights,” commemorates <a href="https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2019/12/menorah-symbol-light">a story of a miracle</a>, when oil meant to last for one day lasted for eight. Today, Jews light the menorah, a candelabra with eight candles – and one “helper” candle, called a shamas – to remember the Hanukkah oil, which kept the Jerusalem temple’s everlasting lamp burning brightly. Each year, the holiday starts with just the shamas and one of the eight candles and ends, on the last night, with the entire menorah lit up.</p>
<p>But because the reason for the light is oil, Jews also celebrate by eating food cooked in oil. In the United States, most people think of those oil-soaked foods as <a href="https://smittenkitchen.com/2008/12/potato-pancakes-latkes/">latkes</a>, or potato pancakes, and jelly doughnuts called <a href="https://smittenkitchen.com/2014/12/jelly-doughnuts/">sufganiyot</a>. For most American Jews, these are indeed important holiday foods, replete with memories – both of their heavy, greasy deliciousness and of the smells that permeate the house for days after a latke fry. </p>
<p>More specifically, though, these treats are Ashkenazi, referring to Jews whose ancestors came from Eastern Europe. Two-thirds of Jews in the U.S. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/race-ethnicity-heritage-and-immigration-among-u-s-jews/#:%7E:text=Two%2Dthirds%20of%20U.S.%20Jews,of%20these%20or%20other%20categories.">identify as Ashkenazi</a>, which has strongly shaped American Jewish culture. That Eastern European culture, however, is only one of many Jewish cultures around the world.</p>
<p>In recent years, Jews of color and non-Ashkenazi Jews have been bringing attention to new Hanukkah traditions that celebrate the diversity of Judaism in the U.S. My work as <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/wgst/samira-mehta">a scholar of gender</a> and <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/people/faculty/samira-mehta">Jewish studies</a> often looks at how multicultural families <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636368/beyond-chrismukkah/">navigate and celebrate</a> the many aspects of their identities.</p>
<h2>Many different Jewish stories</h2>
<p>Jews of color come from many places. Some people were born into communities that have always been Jewish and have never been considered white: For instance, there are Jewish communities in <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/jews-in-mumbai-find-new-ways-to-keep-religious-traditions-alive/story-CYBhfoOQ1qoGIjG90vOgSJ.html">India</a>, <a href="https://minorityrights.org/minorities/ethiopian-jews/">Ethiopia</a> and <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-jews-of-kaifeng-chinas-only-native-jewish-community/">China</a>. Others are people of color adopted into white Jewish families; adult converts to Judaism; or children of interracial, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7312/zell16030-010">interfaith marriage</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man and woman flank a teenage girl in a red and black dress as they all smile and laugh." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501382/original/file-20221215-24-i4s7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501382/original/file-20221215-24-i4s7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501382/original/file-20221215-24-i4s7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501382/original/file-20221215-24-i4s7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501382/original/file-20221215-24-i4s7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501382/original/file-20221215-24-i4s7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501382/original/file-20221215-24-i4s7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many families find ways to incorporate other sides of their heritage into Jewish ceremonies and holidays.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tsvi-reiter-and-lei-he-react-as-they-celebrate-daughter-news-photo/1211399973?phrase=bat%20mitzvah&adppopup=true">Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many Jews of color have strong ties to Ashkenazi Judaism. Increasingly, though, they are publicly celebrating the range of traditions they bring to the table, <a href="https://jewsofcolorinitiative.org/">making space for more diversity in mainstream Jewish life</a>. There’s been more conversation about the Ethiopian Jewish holiday <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-sigd/">Sigd</a>, for example, and what role it might play in American Jewish life.</p>
<p>One of my favorite examples is a children’s book called “<a href="https://pjlibrary.org/books/queen-of-the-hanukkah-dosas/if00831">The Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas</a>,” which features a boy and his little sister, named Sadie. Their dad is Ashkenazi and their mom is Indian or Indian American, as is their live-in grandmother, Amma-amma. In their house, Hanukkah means cooking up a plate of dosas, South Indian crepes sometimes wrapped around a savory filling. The narrator is annoyed by Sadie’s tendency to climb on things, but her climbing skills save the day, and the dinner, when the family is locked out of their house and she can climb in and open the door.</p>
<p>What I especially appreciate about this particular book is that the dosas are not the point of the story. This is a story about an annoying little sister who in the end saves the day, and her family just happens to make dosas as a Hanukkah treat. “The Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas” doesn’t mention whether the Indian side of the family is Jewish, but either way, its message for kids is clear: It can be totally normal to be a half-white, Jewish, half-Indian kid who has dosas for Hanukkah.</p>
<h2>‘Kosher Soul’</h2>
<p>In real life, one of the most influential Jews of color adding distinctive Hanukkah foods to the communal table is Michael Twitty. This acclaimed food historian is author of “<a href="https://thecookinggene.com/">The Cooking Gene</a>,” about the social and culinary history of African American food, and “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/koshersoul-michael-w-twitty?variant=39813830836258&s=09">Kosher Soul</a>,” which brings together traditions from these two sides of his identity.</p>
<p>Twitty <a href="https://afroculinaria.com/2011/12/22/hannukah-oy-hannukah-my-african-american-jewish-version-at-least/">notes on his blog</a>, Afroculinaria, that “traditionally African Jewish communities – the Beta Yisrael of Ethiopia, the Lemba of Southern Africa, and groups in West Africa, did not celebrate Hannukah.” That said, in the spirit of celebrating Jewish food from around the world, he shared the Somali dish sambusa, a flaky deep-fried pastry something like a samosa, that can be filled with meat or vegetables. As with dosas, it is not so much that these foods are traditionally associated with Hanukkah but that they could provide Black Jews with a way to celebrate African and Jewish aspects of their heritage with a food fried in oil. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A Black man wearing a white and red checked shirt and black pants stands in front of a backdrop with the words 'The New York Times.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500916/original/file-20221214-23-gagrtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500916/original/file-20221214-23-gagrtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500916/original/file-20221214-23-gagrtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500916/original/file-20221214-23-gagrtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500916/original/file-20221214-23-gagrtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500916/original/file-20221214-23-gagrtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500916/original/file-20221214-23-gagrtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael W. Twitty attends the New York Times Food for Tomorrow Conference in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/michael-w-twitty-attends-the-new-york-times-food-for-news-photo/610643252?phrase=michael%20twitty&adppopup=true">Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for New York Times</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twitty is known for his skill at a wide range of cuisines, including a wide range of Jewish food; cuisine cooked by African Americans for themselves and, at times, white employers; and African foods. Drawing on all these traditions, Twitty created a riff on more traditional latkes: <a href="https://afroculinaria.com/2011/12/22/hannukah-oy-hannukah-my-african-american-jewish-version-at-least/">Louisiana-style latkes</a>, which include the “holy trinity” of Creole and Cajun cuisine – garlic, green onions and celery in this recipe – plus a bit of cayenne pepper.</p>
<p>Plenty of people improvise their latke recipes: My former synagogue, like many others, had latke cook-offs in which people brought all sorts of innovations, including black bean and sweet potato latkes and latkes flavored like samosa fillings. For Twitty, pulling from Creole flavors allows him to marry his Jewish religion and his African American heritage – and to offer a path for other Black Jews to do likewise.</p>
<h2>Full table, full selves</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A handful of men hold scrolls with Hebrew lettering at the front of a synagogue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500928/original/file-20221214-219-7zvqjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500928/original/file-20221214-219-7zvqjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500928/original/file-20221214-219-7zvqjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500928/original/file-20221214-219-7zvqjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500928/original/file-20221214-219-7zvqjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500928/original/file-20221214-219-7zvqjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500928/original/file-20221214-219-7zvqjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Worshippers celebrate the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana, at Shaare Rason Synagogue in Mumbai, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-jewish-community-people-offer-prayers-as-they-celebrate-news-photo/1172725974?phrase=indian%20jewish&adppopup=true">Pratik Chorge/Hindustan Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my new book, “<a href="http://www.beacon.org/The-Racism-of-People-Who-Love-You-P1861.aspx">The Racism of People Who Love You</a>,” I think a lot about being brown in white spaces and about the innovations that come from blended identities. </p>
<p>I am not from a historically Jewish Indian community, but my own innovation, as a Jew of color, is this. The last Hanukkah before the pandemic, my mom came out to visit me. She is neither Jewish nor Indian but became an excellent Indian cook during many decades of her marriage. I, however, am not an excellent Indian cook and, whenever I am able to spend time with my mom, I want her to make something called <a href="https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/aloo-chole">aloo puri</a>, which is a chickpea and potato dish served with <a href="https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/poori-recipe-puri-recipe/">crispy, puffy fried bread</a>. I have no idea how to make the bread, and it is a “seeing Mommy” treat.</p>
<p>I invited an Indian colleague who was not going home for winter break to join us for dinner. When I happened to mention this dinner to one of my senior Jewish studies colleagues, he commented that he wanted to have my mom cook an Indian dinner for him, and so, with my mom’s permission, I invited him and his husband to join us as well. </p>
<p>My mom looked at me. “Puri are fried in oil,” she said, and all of a sudden we had a Hanukkah party, with a menorah lighting and fried food. For me, having my senior colleague there and excited to join us was a moment of realizing I could bring my full self to the table. </p>
<p>If I were the type to make holiday wishes, that is, perhaps, what I would wish for: a place where all Jews of color could bring their full selves to all the tables where they sit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191318/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samira Mehta receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation for an initiative called Jews of Color: Histories and Futures.</span></em></p>
Multicultural Jewish families and Jews of color are innovating food-centered holidays to bring their whole selves to the table.
Samira Mehta, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/187954
2022-08-11T12:14:50Z
2022-08-11T12:14:50Z
Russia’s threats to shut down Jewish Agency raise alarm bells for those who remember the past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477976/original/file-20220808-68796-8pl6q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C9%2C2101%2C1400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During the Cold War, Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union was tightly restricted. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/male-hand-holds-israeli-and-russian-international-royalty-free-image/1389932182?adppopup=true">Dzurag/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Russia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-russia-invade-ukraine-178512">invasion of Ukraine</a> in February 2022 sparked a surge of refugees fleeing the war zone, but political repression and economic uncertainty have also prompted <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/14/russians-flee-putins-regime-after-ukraine-war-in-second-wave-of-migration.html">emigration from Russia itself</a>. Among the emigrants are Russian Jews, 16,000 of whom <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/26/russia-closure-israel-migration-jewish-agency-ukraine">have left for Israel</a> in the nearly six months since the war’s start.</p>
<p>Now, Russia’s Justice Ministry is threatening the organization that helps the emigrants leave. A Moscow court held <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/29/russia-jewish-agency-israel-ukraine/">a preliminary hearing</a> on July 28, 2022, about the ministry’s application to dissolve the Russian branch of <a href="https://www.jewishagency.org/">the Jewish Agency for Israel</a>.</p>
<p>The Jewish Agency, a nonprofit with government ties that is older than the country itself, helps Jews around the world who want to immigrate to Israel. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/29/russia-jewish-agency-israel-ukraine/">move to shut down</a> its <a href="https://www.jewishagency.org/ru/">operations in Russia</a> has <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/world/get-out-now-soviet-refusenik-natan-sharansky's-warning-to-russia's-jews-as-crackdown-fears-grow-5VS51v8pkfWI9EkwdYv0wO">raised alarm</a> – particularly among people who see it as turning back the clock to a time, not so long ago, when Soviet Russia forced Jews to endure state-sponsored antisemitism while <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/when-they-come-for-us-well-be-gone-gal-beckerman?variant=39934628429858">trampling on their right to emigrate</a>.</p>
<h2>Soviet antisemitism</h2>
<p>On paper, the Soviet Union vowed to create an egalitarian society. In reality, it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/713677598">denied rights to minority populations</a>, including Jews. </p>
<p>The government <a href="http://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/international/volume23n1/documents/159-176.pdf">closed down Jewish schools and cultural institutions</a>, criminalized the <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/05/06/Soviets-arrest-Hebrew-teacher/1764421041600/">teaching</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/05/world/soviet-said-to-sentence-popular-hebrew-teacher-to-labor-camp.html">of</a> <a href="https://www.jta.org/archive/jewish-section-blamed-for-the-hebrew-language-persecutions-in-russia">Hebrew</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110820805.485">murdered</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/14/theater/a-jew-stalin-killed-now-symbolizes-rebirth.html">Jewish leaders</a>, orchestrated <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/doctors_plot">anti-Jewish campaigns</a> in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13501677208577110">press</a> and in the <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Economic_Trials">courts</a> and created glass ceilings that blocked Jews’ ability to advance at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001312457801000206">school</a> and in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13501678508577476">workplace</a>. In 1966, during a telephone address to Jewish Americans, <a href="https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE1094744">Martin Luther King Jr. called it “a kind of spiritual and cultural genocide</a>.”</p>
<p>Cold War politics made the predicament worse. The Soviet government’s domestic persecutions of Jews were bound up in its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13501677808577276">foreign policy toward Israel</a>. When the country declared independence in 1948, the U.S. and USSR each raced to secure its allegiance. After Israel aligned with the West, however, the Soviet Union became patron of the Arab states and <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-soviet-union-and-the-six-day-war-revelations-the-polish-archives">broke diplomatic ties</a> with Israel in 1967.</p>
<p>During the string of Arab-Israeli wars from the 1950s to 1970s, the USSR accompanied military support for Egypt and Syria with anti-Jewish campaigns at home. Using “<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/soviet-anti-semitic-cartoons">anti-Zionism” as a dog whistle</a>, Soviet propaganda <a href="https://fathomjournal.org/soviet-anti-zionism-and-contemporary-left-antisemitism/">resurrected classic antisemitic stereotypes</a> of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">Jewish conspiracies for global domination</a>.</p>
<h2>International pressure</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, Soviet Jews began trying to escape their predicament by applying for exit permits to emigrate. A movement for emigration rights sprang up among Jews in the USSR, led by activists who sought to go to Israel. <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> gives all people the right to leave their country, but the Soviet government refused the applications for emigration permits and heaped more troubles on those who had dared to ask.</p>
<p>Stuck in the Soviet Union, these “<a href="https://refusenikproject.org/history/#historical-overview">refuseniks</a>,” as they came to be known, lost their jobs and housing and were harassed by the secret police. Leaders of the emigration rights movement – including <a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19780724,00.html">Natan Sharansky</a>, who went on to become <a href="https://archive.jewishagency.org/executive-members/natan-sharansky-honorary-member">chairman of the Jewish Agency</a> and deputy prime minister of Israel – were arrested and sent to prison camps or Siberian exile.</p>
<p>As Soviet Jews fought to emigrate, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40207022">a global human rights campaign</a> mobilized on their behalf – a movement I have <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429201127-6/foreign-tourists-domestic-encounters-shaul-kelner">written</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/685280">about</a> as <a href="https://as.vanderbilt.edu//jewishstudies/people/faculty/shaul-kelner/">a scholar of modern Judaism</a>. Marching under slogans like “Let them live as Jews, or let them leave” and “<a href="https://mjhnyc.org/events/let-my-people-go-lessons-we-learned-from-the-soviet-jewry-movement/">Let my people go</a>,” political leaders, clergy, civil rights activists, labor unions and <a href="https://blog.nli.org.il/en/ingrid_bergman_35/">celebrities</a> joined Jewish people in embracing the cause.</p>
<p>On a congressional delegation to Russia in 1979, then-Sen. <a href="https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.1979.09.21.001/8">Joe Biden</a> <a href="https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.1979.09.21.001/8">visited Leningrad’s synagogue</a> to meet Soviet Jewish emigration-rights activists. In December 1987, at the start of the summit between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a quarter-million Americans gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to demand freedom for Soviet Jewry. Republican Vice President <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5026758/user-clip-vp-george-hw-bush-addressing-1987-freedom-rally-soviet-jews">George H.W. Bush</a> and Democratic U.S. Rep. <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4893792/user-clip-rep-john-lewis-addresses-freedom-rally-soviet-jewry-washington-dc-december-7-1987">John Lewis</a> shared the podium.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo shows a closely packed crowd at a protest, with a large sign that says 'Their fight is our fight.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tens of thousands of people gather in front of the United Nations in New York in 1975 to call for more rights for Jewish people in the Soviet Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/these-are-some-of-the-estimated-100-000-persons-who-news-photo/515296322?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A trickle, then a flood</h2>
<p>The human rights campaign succeeded, but not all at once. In 1964, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Let-My-People-Go-The-Transnational-Politics-of-Soviet-Jewish-Emigration/Peretz/p/book/9780367598266">the USSR let only 537 Jews emigrate</a>. In the 1970s, it let around <a href="https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/files/2021-04/Tolts%20M.%20A%20Half%20Century%20of%20Jewish%20Emigration%20from%20the%20Former%20Soviet%20Union%20-%20Harvard4%20_0.pdf">25,000 out on average each year</a>, bending to the international outcry and hoping to advance détente with the West. But in the early 1980s, the Cold War chilled, and the Soviet Union closed the gates again.</p>
<p>With Gorbachev’s liberalizing reforms in the late 1980s, however, the USSR walked back its anti-Jewish policies, <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1112015">reestablished ties with Israel</a> and opened the gates to unrestricted Jewish emigration.</p>
<p>Once Jews were free to leave, most chose to go. About 400,000 left in 1990 and 1991, when the USSR collapsed, and the flow continued afterward. All told, between 1970 and 2022, <a href="https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/files/2021-04/Tolts%20M.%20A%20Half%20Century%20of%20Jewish%20Emigration%20from%20the%20Former%20Soviet%20Union%20-%20Harvard4%20_0.pdf">almost 2 million Jews emigrated</a> – mostly to Israel, but also in the hundreds of thousands to the U.S., Canada and Germany. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a suit smiles and holds a young girl in a white jacket, who waves at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soviet refusenik Yuri Balovlenkov, who had to wait nearly a decade for an exit visa to leave the USSR, holds his daughter after arriving in the U.S. in 1987.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/soviet-refusenik-yuri-balovlenkov-with-his-daughter-and-news-photo/50682904?adppopup=true">Cynthia Johnson/The Chronicle Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Emigration has ticked upward since the Ukraine war began. Fewer than <a href="https://www.jewishdatabank.org/content/upload/bjdb/2019_World_Jewish_Population_(AJYB,_DellaPergola)_DataBank_Final2.pdf">150,000</a> Jewish people remain in Russia today. <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/world/get-out-now-soviet-refusenik-natan-sharansky%27s-warning-to-russia%27s-jews-as-crackdown-fears-grow-5VS51v8pkfWI9EkwdYv0wO">Another 450,000 or so</a> who do not necessarily consider themselves Jewish but have Jewish ancestry are also <a href="https://archive.jewishagency.org/first-steps/program/5131">eligible for immediate Israeli citizenship</a>.</p>
<h2>Political dance</h2>
<p>Throughout all these decades, the Jewish Agency for Israel has been the main organization helping Russian Jews emigrate – working in Russia itself since 1989, and before then, when Israel and the USSR did not maintain diplomatic ties, from transit stations in <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/camp-tale">Austria</a> and <a href="https://cis.org/Report/Refugee-Resettlement-and-Freedom-Choice-Case-Soviet-Jewry">Italy</a>.</p>
<p>For most of the post-Soviet period, Israel and Russia have maintained cautiously friendly ties, and the Jewish Agency’s work has proceeded smoothly. This, and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-11/israel-says-u-s-not-in-syrian-game-as-russia-seen-dominant#xj4y7vzkg">Russia’s military presence</a> <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/coping-the-russian-challenge-the-middle-east-us-israeli-perspectives-and-opportunities-for">in Syria</a>, along Israel’s northern border, have <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-712561">muted the Israeli response</a> to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the war has <a href="https://www.jpost.com/international/article-705688">stoked tensions</a> between Moscow and Jerusalem. Increasingly isolated, Russia has also <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/20/putin-meeting-iran-turkey-russia-middle-east-syria-ukraine/">drawn closer to Iran</a>. As a result, a new relationship between Russia and Israel may be taking shape.</p>
<h2>An old technique, made new?</h2>
<p>Russia’s Justice Ministry claims that the Jewish Agency’s collection of data about Russian citizens <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2022-07-05/ty-article/.premium/russia-threatens-to-bar-jewish-agency-operations-in-the-country-cites-law-violations/00000181-cf10-d982-abb3-efb726380000">violates Russian law</a> and denies the case is political. The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19, 2022.</p>
<p>Outlawing the Jewish Agency is unlikely to end Jewish emigration, since people are still able to leave the country. The gates are still open, for now. Passing through them may become a bit harder. </p>
<p>During the Cold War, the Soviet Union knew that Jewish emigration symbolized something important to the West. It used that to its advantage, <a href="https://jewishstudies.ysu.edu/?page_id=733">treating Jews as “pawns</a>,” in the words of historian <a href="https://en.jewish-history.huji.ac.il/people/jonathan-dekel-chen">Jonathan Dekel-Chen</a>. The Kremlin <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/putin-russia-jewish-agency-emigration-israel/670948/">let them go or held them back</a> as a way of telegraphing its interest or lack thereof in good relations with the West. </p>
<p>Now, it seems Vladimir Putin’s Russia has found the old telegraph from the Cold War attic, dusted it off, and discovered that it still works for tapping out signals today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaul Kelner has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Brandeis-Genesis Institute for Russian Jewry. He has consulted and contributed writings to research and education projects supported by the Jewish Agency for Israel.</span></em></p>
During the Cold War, Russia’s refusal to allow Jews to leave the country reflected its political aims. The same is likely true today, a Jewish studies scholar explains.
Shaul Kelner, Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180503
2022-04-13T13:50:28Z
2022-04-13T13:50:28Z
How a coffee company and a marketing maven brewed up a Passover tradition: A brief history of the Maxwell House Haggadah
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457781/original/file-20220412-13-uv7znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C4%2C1008%2C741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Jewish family welcomes home their Navy man and gathers for a Passover Seder at their home in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1943.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jewish-family-welcomes-home-their-navy-man-and-gathers-for-news-photo/576825922?adppopup=true">Minnesota Historical Society/CORBIS/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For <a href="https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/a-brief-history-of-the-haggadah">more than a millennium</a>, the haggadah has been <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-haggadah/">the centerpiece of the Jewish holiday of Passover</a>. The book sets out the ceremony for the Seder meal, when families tell the biblical Exodus story of God delivering the ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt.</p>
<p>Today, thousands of different haggadahs exist, with prayers, rituals and readings tailored to every type of Seder – from <a href="https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/ma-mishtana-a-gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-questioning-ally-haggadah/">LGBTQ+-affirming</a> to <a href="https://www.rac.org/sites/default/files/Earth%20Justice%20Seder%20Haggadah%20Mar%202016.pdf">climate-conscious</a>. But for decades, one of the most popular and influential haggadahs in the United States has been a simple version with an unlikely source: the Maxwell House Haggadah, dreamed up in 1932 by the coffee corporation and a Jewish advertising executive.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="The cover page of the Maxwell House Haggadah, in English and Hebrew." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457786/original/file-20220412-37887-8dyi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457786/original/file-20220412-37887-8dyi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457786/original/file-20220412-37887-8dyi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457786/original/file-20220412-37887-8dyi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457786/original/file-20220412-37887-8dyi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457786/original/file-20220412-37887-8dyi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457786/original/file-20220412-37887-8dyi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Maxwell House Haggadah, first published in 1932.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph Jacobs Advertising</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Its history reflects how Jews modernized and <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/adapting-to-abundance/9780231068536">adapted to their new country</a>, while also upholding traditions. But coffee has no ritual ties to Passover. So what explains the Maxwell House Haggadah’s sustained popularity?</p>
<h2>Coffee competition</h2>
<p>One explanation is advertising: a field so pervasive and powerful in people’s lives that it becomes almost invisible. As <a href="https://www.otis.edu/faculty/kerri-steinberg">a scholar of American Jewish visual culture and communication</a>, I have researched how marketing can <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/jewish-mad-men/9780813563756">influence Americans’ religious and cultural identities</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/jewish-mad-men/9780813563756">The story</a> of the Maxwell House Haggadah begins with the meeting of two marketing masterminds. The first, Joseph Jacobs, grew up on <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691095455/lower-east-side-memories">the Lower East Side</a> in New York at the turn of the 20th century, amid a wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. He went on to establish his advertising company in 1919. The second was Joel Owsley Cheek of the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company, who hailed from the South. Cheek-Neal was then the parent company of Maxwell House coffee, with its famous slogan “<a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/mark-pendergrast/uncommon-grounds/9781541646421/#module-whats-inside">good to the last drop</a>.”</p>
<p>Jacobs’ quest to familiarize companies with <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/adapting-to-abundance/9780231068536">the buying power of the growing population of Jewish Americans</a> led him to talk with Cheek in 1922 about placing ads for Maxwell House coffee in Jewish journals. There was only one problem: American Jews of Eastern European descent believed that coffee beans, like other legumes, were forbidden for Passover, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/amp-stories/what-is-kosher-for-passover/">when certain foods must be avoided</a>, so they drank tea during the weeklong holiday.</p>
<p>Consulting a rabbi from the Lower East Side, who declared that technically coffee beans were like berries and therefore kosher for Passover, Jacobs <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/jewish-mad-men/9780813563756">secured a rabbinical stamp of approval</a> for Maxwell coffee in 1923.</p>
<p>During the Great Depression of the 1930s, when a major grocery chain <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/jewish-mad-men/9780813563756">discounted their own brand of coffee</a>, Maxwell House turned to Jacobs’ firm to help them stay competitive. The Maxwell House Haggadah was born when he suggested distributing a book for free with each purchased can of coffee.</p>
<p>Beyond its appeal as a giveaway, however, the content of the haggadah needed to earn Jewish customers’ trust. The front cover relied upon a classical design of centered text in Hebrew, but also English. Inside, pen and ink illustrations of biblical stories continued the sense of tradition. The pages of the haggadah turned from right to left, as is typical of Hebrew texts.</p>
<p>It worked. According to <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.36019/9780813563770-005/pdf">a market report</a> commissioned by the Joseph Jacobs Organization to guide its marketing efforts, Maxwell House became the coffee of choice for Jewish households around New York City.</p>
<h2>Modernizing the haggadah</h2>
<p>The Maxwell House Haggadah remained largely the same through the 1940s and ‘50s, and soon achieved the status of a Passover classic. Yet <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/334394335130">the 1965 version</a> marked a definitive break with the past. As 1960s culture introduced more minimalist, graphic art, raging against the classicism of the past, the haggadah’s images changed to reflect the times. And though the written text remained largely the same, the addition of English transliterations of blessings and prayers hinted at <a href="https://jps.org/books/jps-the-americanization-of-jewish-culture-1888-1988/">Americanizing Jews’</a> loss of Hebrew reading skills.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An advertisement for Maxwell House Coffee." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457787/original/file-20220412-14-n3dmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457787/original/file-20220412-14-n3dmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457787/original/file-20220412-14-n3dmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457787/original/file-20220412-14-n3dmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457787/original/file-20220412-14-n3dmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457787/original/file-20220412-14-n3dmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457787/original/file-20220412-14-n3dmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ad for Maxwell House coffee, themed for Passover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph Jacobs Advertising</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the next 30 years, very little changed in the haggadah. But in 2000, it finally received a visual makeover, as seen in an advertisement that year. Stark graphics, popular since the mid-‘60s, were replaced with nostalgic photos depicting an intergenerational family at a Seder. This tender imagery invoked tradition at a time when <a href="http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/national-jewish-population-survey-1990/">many Americans had grown more distant from their Jewish communities</a>, prompting concern from Jewish leaders. </p>
<p>In 2009, the haggadah achieved worldwide fame when President Barack Obama used it to conduct <a href="https://www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/2009/04/scenes-from-a-white-house-seder.html">his first White House Seder</a>. Shortly after, it underwent a complete <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/nyregion/09haggadah.html">overhaul</a> for the 21st century. Maxwell House’s version was now less illustrated and included more written text, like the haggadahs used by more religious Jews. By eliminating antiquated words like “thee” and “thine,” along with gender-specific pronouns for God, the new version felt more relevant for a younger and more <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691168043/not-in-the-heavens">secular Jewish population</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President Obama and guests sit around a dinner table at the White House." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457778/original/file-20220412-9671-9c8arl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457778/original/file-20220412-9671-9c8arl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457778/original/file-20220412-9671-9c8arl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457778/original/file-20220412-9671-9c8arl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457778/original/file-20220412-9671-9c8arl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457778/original/file-20220412-9671-9c8arl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457778/original/file-20220412-9671-9c8arl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this image released by the White House, President Barack Obama and the first family mark the Jewish holiday of Passover with a Seder at the White House in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaPassover/2d8cf33f0d094d7cb6b0b47192c8eeba/photo?Query=obama%20seder&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And in 2019, when “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” the television show about a mid-century Jewish housewife-turned-comedian, was at its height of popularity, Maxwell House published a special <a href="https://www.thekitchn.com/maxwell-house-mrs-maisel-haggadah-268520">Mrs. Maisel edition of its haggadah</a>. A throwback to the haggadah’s heyday in the late ‘50s, this <a href="https://www.kveller.com/theres-now-a-marvelous-mrs-maisel-maxwell-house-haggadah/">television tie-in</a> represented yet another marketing effort to retain American Jews’ affection for Maxwell House coffee in a crowded market. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="The pink cover of the " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457795/original/file-20220412-8252-ve7ex9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457795/original/file-20220412-8252-ve7ex9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457795/original/file-20220412-8252-ve7ex9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457795/original/file-20220412-8252-ve7ex9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457795/original/file-20220412-8252-ve7ex9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457795/original/file-20220412-8252-ve7ex9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457795/original/file-20220412-8252-ve7ex9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.amazon.com/Marvelous-Limited-Passover-Haggadah-Maxwell/dp/B07PGGXVGG">Maxwell House/Amazon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a sea of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/why-a-haggadah.html">thousands of haggadahs</a>, it is Maxwell House’s that has become the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=imeID66v8gIC&q=balin#v=snippet&q=%22good%20to%20the%20last%20drop%22&f=false">de facto representative of American Jewish life</a>. The story of its place within U.S. households points to marketing’s key role in shaping a yearly tradition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerri Steinberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A collaboration between advertiser Joseph Jacobs and the famous coffee company produced the classic U.S. haggadah. The book sets out the ceremony for the Seder meal.
Kerri Steinberg, Department Chair of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Otis College of Art and Design
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/178946
2022-03-15T12:12:15Z
2022-03-15T12:12:15Z
The first bat mitzvah was 100 years ago, and has been opening doors for Jewish women ever since
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451753/original/file-20220313-21-1d9gm1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C16%2C1014%2C718&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tsvi Reiter, Yvonne Reiter and Hei Le participate in Yvonne's bat mitzvah ceremony, which was performed over Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tsvi-reiter-yvonne-reiter-and-hei-le-participate-in-a-news-photo/1211399432?adppopup=true">Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>March 18, 2022, marks <a href="https://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/18/1922/judith-kaplan#:%7E:text=Judith%20Kaplan%2C%20at%20age%20twelve,the%20founder%20of%20Reconstructionist%20Judaism.">the 100th anniversary</a> of the first bat mitzvah ceremony in the United States. </p>
<p>Judith Kaplan, daughter of <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mordecai-kaplan-founder-of-reconstructionist-judaism/">the influential rabbi Mordechai Kaplan</a>, became the first woman to publicly celebrate the traditional Jewish coming-of-age ceremony. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zv626yc/revision/7#:%7E:text=Bar%20and%20Bat%20Mitzvah%20ceremonies%20are%20significant%20because%20they%20are,living%20according%20to%20Jewish%20Law%20.">Becoming a bat mitzvah</a>, or “daughter of the commandments,” signifies that a young woman has attained legal adulthood under Jewish law. </p>
<p>A bat mitzvah is based on the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/30809#:%7E:text=The%20Jewish%20coming%2Dof%2Dage,thirteen%2Dyear%2Dold%20son.">centuries-old</a> ritual of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-bar-mitzvah-129745">bar mitzvah</a>, or “son of the commandments,” the ceremony for 13-year-old boys. Today, it typically involves months or years of study, chanting Torah in front of the congregation and giving <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/how-write-dvar-torah">a reflection on the week’s reading</a>.</p>
<p>Since that day in 1922, coming-of-age ceremonies for Jewish girls have gradually become more popular, especially in more liberal branches of Judaism. As someone <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=5582082465f93a9a0dfd4438912f554a0f5856bc">who studies</a> how legal and social changes intersect to advance the rights of women in religious communities, I see bat mitzvah as having a transformative impact on the rights of women in Jewish life, one that continues to reverberate in important ways today.</p>
<h2>Growing equality</h2>
<p>For many years, the significance of becoming a bat or bar mitzvah was very different. For boys, it marked the moment when they took on all the privileges accorded to adult men in the tradition, including the right to be <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/minyan">counted in a minyan</a>, the minimum number of people required for community prayers; to be honored by being called up to give blessings over the Torah reading; and to read from the Torah itself. For girls, meanwhile, it often marked a celebration of maturity, but did not necessarily bring along the rights to full and equal participation in synagogue rituals. </p>
<p>It is only in recent decades that the rituals enacted and the rights bestowed for boys and girls have <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qAaUlkLC_lsC&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223&dq=regina+stein+%22the+road+to+bat+mitzvah%22+%22women+and+american+judaism%22&source=bl&ots=3q2UzWWZyO&sig=ACfU3U3kiApFTqKBF9XJmoxGqhtaJ0UjZA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwii2Yrj38P2AhXDkYkEHVVsB8UQ6AF6BAgUEAM#v=onepage&q=regina%20stein%20%22the%20road%20to%20bat%20mitzvah%22%20%22women%20and%20american%20judaism%22&f=false">become substantially equivalent</a>, and only in more liberal movements.</p>
<p>Indeed, because of controversies over whether women should be permitted <a href="https://www.jpost.com/magazine/judaism/may-women-read-from-the-torah">to read aloud from the Torah</a>, Judith Kaplan was not given the honor of being called up to read from a Torah scroll – part of the ordinary routine for bar mitzvah boys. Rather, she spoke after the service had formally concluded, reciting prayers and reading selections from the biblical passages out of a book. </p>
<p>Even today, bat mitzvah girls in some communities read passages from sacred texts after services on Friday night or Saturday morning, instead of during the standard Saturday morning service. But <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/bat-mitzvah-american-jewish-women">the bat mitzvah ritual</a>, in varying forms, has become widespread in all movements within Judaism. It is widely practiced in Reform, Conservative and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/subdivisions/reconstructionist_1.shtml">Reconstructionist communities</a> – a branch of progressive Judaism later founded by Judith Kalpan’s father – and is <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1918218/jewish/Bat-Mitzvah-What-It-Is-and-How-to-Celebrate.htm">increasingly popular in the Orthodox world</a>.</p>
<p>The introduction of bat mitzvah was a steppingstone to <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/women-remaking-american-judaism">expanding roles for women</a> in every part of the Jewish world. In the Conservative movement, for example, women’s inclusion in bat mitzvah created tensions with their exclusion from other aspects of ritual life and leadership. Girls and women who were educated alongside boys and celebrated their bat mitzvah in similar ways later found themselves excluded from adult roles. Jewish studies scholar <a href="https://www.jtsa.edu/team/anne-lapidus-lerner/">Anne Lapidus Lerner</a> <a href="http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1977_3_SpecialArticles.pdf">summed it up this way</a>:</p>
<p>“The bar-mitzvah ceremony marks a young man’s entrance into adult Jewish responsibility and privilege – the first, it is hoped, of many such occasions. But a bat-mitzvah would mark a young woman’s exit from participation. It would be the only time she was permitted to go up to read the haftarah” – <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/haftarah/">selections from the Biblical books of the prophets</a> read after the Torah portion each Sabbath.</p>
<p>The push to resolve this inconsistency led to an expansion of women’s roles within Conservative Judaism, including <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1983-women-let-into-rabbinical-school-1.5194443">the ordination of women as rabbis</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A girl chants from a religious text inside a synagogue as two adults look on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451754/original/file-20220313-16-1v63iki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451754/original/file-20220313-16-1v63iki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451754/original/file-20220313-16-1v63iki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451754/original/file-20220313-16-1v63iki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451754/original/file-20220313-16-1v63iki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451754/original/file-20220313-16-1v63iki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451754/original/file-20220313-16-1v63iki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Batya Sperling Milner, who is blind, recites her Torah portion during rehearsal for her bat mitzvah ceremony at Ohev Shalom, an Orthodox synagogue in Washington, D.C. A computer programmer added the Torah chant code to the braille Torah so she could learn to recite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/batya-sperling-milner-who-is-blind-recites-her-torah-news-photo/1083021590?adppopup=true">Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/52607/">Orthodox women</a> continue to push boundaries around bat mitzvah. Many Orthodox synagogues have <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/orthodox-judaism-grapples-with-bat-mitzvah/">special programs devoted to girls coming of age</a> and host celebrations marked by lighting Sabbath candles and sharing their learning about sacred texts in a speech to the community. Some Orthodox communities host women-only prayer groups where girls read from the Torah, while families in other communities host ceremonies in their homes.</p>
<h2>New directions</h2>
<p>As the ritual of bat mitzvah became more widely accepted, adult women who had been denied opportunities to study for it as children <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3AwbfXnobIsC&pg=PA279&lpg=PA279&dq=lisa+grant+%22finding+her+right+place+in+the+synagogue%22&source=bl&ots=Ltie3k88rk&sig=ACfU3U24qe_LEvpjneaHQNJGgHkQjDFE5Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinl6DD38P2AhXjkokEHXbZCygQ6AF6BAgLEAM#v=onepage&q=lisa%20grant%20%22finding%20her%20right%20place%20in%20the%20synagogue%22&f=false">have sought out bat mitzvah</a> as well. They may <a href="https://www.jewishtimes.com/finding-her-voice-why-seven-women-chose-to-have-an-adult-bat-mitzvah/">choose adult bat mitzvah</a> because they seek to become more involved in ritual leadership in their synagogue community, or to enhance their skills so that they can guide their children when it becomes time for them to begin training for their own bar or bat mitzvah.</p>
<p>Becoming an adult bat mitzvah may also provide a public forum to mark important transformations in one’s Jewish identity. <a href="https://www.projectkesher.org/">Project Kesher</a>, an American nongovernmental organization that fosters Jewish women’s leadership in the former Soviet Union, supports programs for adult bat mitzvah. These initiatives allow women who were forbidden to receive a Jewish education by <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/79086/soviet-union-jews-movement">antisemitic state policies</a> to reclaim their identities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man and woman stand on either side of an elderly woman reading from a Torah scroll." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451756/original/file-20220313-21-1jjra0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451756/original/file-20220313-21-1jjra0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451756/original/file-20220313-21-1jjra0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451756/original/file-20220313-21-1jjra0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451756/original/file-20220313-21-1jjra0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451756/original/file-20220313-21-1jjra0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451756/original/file-20220313-21-1jjra0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charlotte Gottlieb, 93, reads from the Torah during her bat mitzvah ceremony in Maryland. Women who were unable to have a ceremony at age 13 are now able to celebrate this Jewish ritual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/charlotte-gottlieb-reads-from-the-torah-during-her-bat-news-photo/531671170?adppopup=true">Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sometimes, the ritual of adult bat mitzvah celebrates a more personal journey. In a recent episode of “And Just Like That,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/frank-unapologetic-and-female-oriented-the-cultural-legacy-of-sex-and-the-city-and-the-lure-of-the-reboot-175061">the sequel to “Sex and City</a>,” the character Charlotte faces a crisis when her child does not want to participate in their Jewish coming of age ceremony. Charlotte saves the day by using the occasion to have her own bat mitzvah, to celebrate her own Jewish identity as a “Jew by choice,” after converting to Judaism years ago.</p>
<p>That TV episode also highlights another emerging innovation around the ritual of bat mitzvah: the adoption of the gender-neutral terms “b’nai mitzvah” or “<a href="https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/a-guide-for-the-gender-neutral-b-mitzvah/">b-mitzvah</a>.” In many contexts, the rituals of bar and bat mitzvah have become identical, but the names of the ritual are still sexually differentiated: “bar mitzvah” for boys, and “bat mitzvah” for girls. Some congregations, like Charlotte’s, have moved to using the term “b’nai” – children of the commandments – or simply “b-mitzvah” as a term that embraces all children, including those who identify as non-binary.</p>
<p>So, when American Jews celebrate the 100th anniversary of bat mitzvah, they not only celebrate a momentous occasion in the life of one young girl, but an innovation that has paved the way for wider inclusion of generations of women, children and those previously excluded from a central ritual of Jewish life.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Fishbayn Joffe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Judith Kaplan became the first American bat mitzvah in 1922. The Jewish coming-of-age ceremony has become more popular for girls ever since.
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172840
2021-12-15T13:26:23Z
2021-12-15T13:26:23Z
To tree, or not to tree? How Jewish-Christian families navigate the ‘December Dilemma’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435667/original/file-20211203-21-jke8oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C1014%2C640&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lots of families wrestle with how – and whether – to celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/happy-hanukkah-ornament-hangs-on-the-christmas-tree-at-amy-news-photo/630848980?adppopup=true">Brianna Soukup/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Traditionally, for Christian-Jewish families – or at least in writing about them – the month of December is referred to as a “dilemma.” This time of year <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/23/nyregion/in-interfaith-homes-dealing-with-the-december-dilemma.html">brings discussion</a> about whether to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or both, which often centers on one key question: “To tree, or not to tree?”</p>
<p>Of course, interfaith families negotiate these kinds of decisions all year round: Should we observe your traditions, my traditions, both, or neither? On some level, these are questions that any family – blood or chosen – has to navigate, even when they share the same religion. But December throws them into high relief for interfaith families, especially the decision of whether to put up a Christmas tree.</p>
<p>In my work on <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/people/faculty/samira-mehta">American religion, particularly Judaism</a>, I have spent nearly a decade researching interfaith families – a topic which interests me, in part, because of my own experience in interfaith families.</p>
<p>Many people try to make decisions about how to observe holidays by drawing lines around what traditions are “religious” vs. “cultural.” But in my interviews, many families say that it is ultimately not what they choose to celebrate, but how they talk about it, that makes everyone feel included.</p>
<h2>More multifaith families</h2>
<p>What “interfaith marriage” means <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674423107">varies in different historical eras</a>. At moments in American history, a marriage between a Methodist and a Presbyterian would count, although both traditions are Protestant Christian. Many religious groups have had objections to interfaith marriage, often couched in worry that growing up in a multifaith home would be confusing or damaging for children.</p>
<p>After the peak of Jewish immigration in the early 20th century, the rate of interfaith marriage was low for the first few decades, but rose as Jewish communities became more assimilated and <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/204024/fighting-to-become-americans-by-riv-ellen-prell/">accepted as “American”</a>. By the 1990s, an estimated 50% of American Jews <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/national-jewish-population-survey-1990/">married non-Jews</a>, most of whom were Christian, had been raised in Christian households, or were from secular families who celebrated Christian holidays. The Jewish community often assumed people who “married out” were <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636368/beyond-chrismukkah/">“lost” to Judaism</a>.</p>
<p>When Americans Jews started to marry non-Jews in increasingly large numbers in the 1970s and 1980s, there was <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2507722993?accountid=11311&pq-origsite=primo">a huge controversy</a> over whether rabbis should perform their marriages. Initially, some rabbis in the Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal movements – modern Judaism’s more liberal branches – decided that they would be willing to, as long as those couples agreed to keep a Jewish home. That said, this was not an era of high Jewish observance, so having a Jewish home was often less about Jewish practices like lighting candles for Shabbat and more about keeping Christian elements like holidays out of the home – at least until children were old enough to go to Hebrew school.</p>
<p>Many people argued that a home should not combine religions. As a small minority, Jewish Americans worried that <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/10217/tales-of-two-jewries-don-t-tell-much-anymore/">interfaith marriage</a> would mean a smaller Jewish community. And for some Jews, having elements of Christianity in the home could be painful, given its history of often <a href="https://theconversation.com/antisemitism-how-the-origins-of-historys-oldest-hatred-still-hold-sway-today-87878">oppressing Judaism</a>, and because holidays like Christmas increased their own sense of being cultural outsiders. You might have people of multiple religions in that home, they argued, but a Jewish home could not include Christian holidays – and Christmas, representing the birth of the Christian savior, seemed like the ultimate marker of Christianity.</p>
<h2>‘Culture’ vs. ‘religion’</h2>
<p>In this view, Christmas was a religious holiday and the tree was the symbol of a religious holiday, despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-unwrap-christmas-and-santa-for-the-little-atheists-in-your-life-51803">how celebrations like decorating, baking cookies and hanging stockings for Santa can be stripped of Christian theological meaning</a> for many people – including my own Hindu relatives. At the same time, however, many religious leaders and advice manuals argued that a Christmas tree was a cultural symbol, not a religious one, and therefore it shouldn’t matter to a Christian spouse whether or not the family put up a tree.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Cookies shaped like a menorah, a dreidel, a snowman, and a Christmas tree sit on a plate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436763/original/file-20211209-140109-1i026ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436763/original/file-20211209-140109-1i026ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436763/original/file-20211209-140109-1i026ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436763/original/file-20211209-140109-1i026ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436763/original/file-20211209-140109-1i026ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436763/original/file-20211209-140109-1i026ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436763/original/file-20211209-140109-1i026ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Whose holidays get celebrated – and how – in interfaith homes?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Northcut/DigitalVision via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, “religion” and “culture” are complicated, debated categories that do not mean the same thing to everyone. In the U.S., the most common definition of religion <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691127767/between-heaven-and-earth">is shaped by Christianity</a> – and often, specifically, a form of Protestant Christianity that emphasizes beliefs over almost everything else. In this understanding, religion is mostly about what someone holds in their heart, not outward signs of that faith – particularly activities that aren’t rooted in theology, like church suppers, Easter eggs or Santa.</p>
<p>But “belief” can’t capture a whole tradition, even Protestant ones, never mind <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4139954">other traditions like Judaism</a>. This understanding of “religion” as something separate from “culture” also assumes that somehow “religion” is more important to people.</p>
<p>It <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636368/beyond-chrismukkah/">does not help someone understand</a> why a Christmas tree might feel emotionally central to a cultural Christian who does not have faith, or feel terribly problematic to a Jew even if they understand that the tree is not part of theology.</p>
<h2>Listening with care</h2>
<p>Ultimately, perhaps, it is not actually important to use these lines between religion and culture, especially since they are much more complicated than they might appear at first glance. </p>
<p>In my <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636368/beyond-chrismukkah/">ethnographic research</a>, the families that had the happiest holidays were the families that listened well to each other and felt that everyone’s voices were heard. </p>
<p>For instance, one couple took the standard advice to forgo the tree, but decorated with evergreens. This solution did not really satisfy the wife, who had grown up Christian, and annoyed her Jewish husband. In the end, no one was happy.</p>
<p>By contrast, another couple discussed what mattered most to them. The Jewish husband explained that he felt an “allergy” to both Jesus and the Christmas tree. His Christian wife thought about it and came to the conclusion that Jesus was central to her holiday, but a tree was not. Therefore, they had a nativity scene but went without a tree – in other words, they went with the clearly religious symbol. She appreciated his willingness to let her have Christ in their home; he appreciated that she gave up the tree. </p>
<p>One Jewish woman said that her husband’s decorations – stockings and a tree – can make her feel like it is “all Christmas, all the time,” especially when Hanukkah falls early and celebrations are over long before Christmas. But she appreciates that he agreed to raise their child as a Jew, to have their primary religious community be Jewish, and to attend services with her for the High Holidays and special events. It is hard for her to have a tree in their home, but she recognizes that, while her main compromise comes in December, he has altered his life year-round. </p>
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<p>Other families settled joyfully into doing both, building family traditions out of both heritages. Still other families agreed to give up Christmas at home in favor of fun family vacations, or long visits with Christmas-celebrating relatives.</p>
<p>What made a difference? For these families, my research suggested that it was not what they decided, but how they decided: by listening to each other in a spirit of collaboration and generosity. </p>
<p>These compromises may seem especially challenging in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11060281">a shared domestic space</a>, which people want to feel like “home.” But the basic principle holds true in other environments, as well: listening to loved ones, sharing what matters to us, honoring as much of that as possible – and maybe learning to love what our loved ones love.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samira Mehta receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation.</span></em></p>
Figuring out whether to celebrate holidays, and how, is tricky for lots of interfaith families – but thoughtful communication makes a difference.
Samira Mehta, Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172838
2021-11-30T20:10:33Z
2021-11-30T20:10:33Z
Biden brings a menorah lighting back to the White House, rededicating a Hanukkah tradition from the 20th century
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434756/original/file-20211130-19-lugoip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C27%2C4576%2C3094&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The lighting of the National Menorah in Washington, D.C. in 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TempestInACoffeeCup/97886c33be6746f39a45537b5aefd4f8/photo?Query=white%20house%20menorah&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=101&currentItemNo=95">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden’s staff has dispatched invitations to a “<a href="https://twitter.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1463711477236436994?s=20">Menorah Lighting to be held at the White House</a>” on Dec. 1, the evening when the fourth candle of the eight-day festival of Hanukkah will be lit. The event promises to be quite different from last year’s event, hosted by Donald Trump. </p>
<p>President Trump in 2020 held what he called a “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55265441">Hanukkah Reception</a>” in midafternoon before Hanukkah began. The reception was a heavily partisan affair, no candles were lit, much food was consumed, and some of the participants went maskless, the raging COVID epidemic notwithstanding. Most Democrats as well as many Jewish leaders stayed home. </p>
<p>President Biden’s “menorah lighting,” by contrast, promises to privilege ritual over reception, focusing on the lighting of the traditional Hanukkah candelabrum itself. Reportedly, the event will be nonpartisan, with COVID-19 precautions enforced. According to the Jewish Forward, <a href="https://forward.com/news/478762/the-more-modest-less-partisan-white-house-hanukkah-party-is-on/">no food or drink will be served at all, so masks won’t even need to be lifted</a>. In addition, the guest list has been severely pared down to encourage social distancing – so much so that a senior White House official was quoted as saying it would likely be the smallest White House Hanukkah party in history. </p>
<p>The vice president and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff are <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/vp-kamala-harris-and-husband-doug-emhoff-light-hanukkah-menorah-at-home/">slated to be among those in attendance</a>, and for the first time the ceremony will be livestreamed. On Nov. 28, Emhoff also attended the lighting of the National Menorah on the Washington Ellipse. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1463923298413252615"}"></div></p>
<p>Overlooked amid these carefully parsed details is a question that, to me, as a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/index.html">historian of American Jewish life and a scholar of American religion</a>, seems far more fascinating and important: How did the office of the president of the United States come to hold official White House menorah lightings and Hanukkah parties in the first place? </p>
<h2>White House traditions</h2>
<p>For most of American history, the only December holiday that <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-backgrounders/white-house-christmas-traditions">gained White House recognition</a> was Christmas. President John Adams and first lady Abigail Adams, back in 1800, threw the first White House Christmas party, a modest affair, planned with their 4-year-old granddaughter in mind, and with invitations sent to selected government officials and their children. </p>
<p>In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge inaugurated the <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/a-coolidge-christmas">practice of lighting an official White House Christmas tree</a>. He also delivered the first formal presidential Christmas message. His message assumed, as most Americans of that time did, that everybody celebrated Christmas. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Jimmy Carter, stands with a rabbi, at the Hanukkah menorah lighting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434757/original/file-20211130-25-1gv89hd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Jimmy Carter at Lafayette Park in Washington D.C. for the Hanukkah menorah lighting in 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Carter_Menorah.jpg">White House</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It displayed, according to <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1352/WHITE_HOUSE_CAROLS_AND_BRILLIA.pdf">The Washington Post</a>, “the reverence of a Christian people giving at the seat of their government the expression of their praise for ‘the King of kings’ on the eve of the anniversary of His birth.” Neither Adams nor Coolidge uttered one word about Hanukkah. </p>
<p>Official notice of Hanukkah waited another half-century – until 1979 – by which time Jews had become much more visible as members of American society and government. Ironically, the president who first <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/525">paid attention to Hanukkah was Jimmy Carter</a>, although he wasn’t the Jewish community’s favorite Democratic candidate. When he ran for reelection in 1980, he got <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-voting-record-in-u-s-presidential-elections">less than 50%</a> of the Jewish vote – less than any Democrat since 1928. </p>
<p>In 1979, following weeks of seclusion in the White House after Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, seizing 52 diplomats and citizens, President Carter emerged and crossed over to Lafayette Park. He <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/525">lit the large Hanukkah candelabrum</a>, dubbed the “National Menorah,” that had been <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-theres-30-foot-menorah-national-mall-180961553/">erected in the park with private funds</a> and delivered brief remarks. </p>
<p>Seeing that Jews celebrate their own holiday in December – Hanukkah – he directed his <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/There_Really_Is_a_Santa_Claus/6rAc9xM5VqYC?hl=en&gbpv=0">next annual Christmas message not to all Americans, as heretofore, but</a> only “to those of our fellow citizens who join us in the joyous celebration of Christmas.” </p>
<p>Every president since has recognized Hanukkah with a special menorah lighting ceremony or reception and limited his Christmas messages to those who actually observe the holiday.</p>
<h2>Menorah lightings</h2>
<p>Hanukkah came to the White House itself in 1989, when <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/president/holiday/hanukkah/">President George H.W. Bush displayed a menorah</a> there – a candelabrum given to him by the Synagogue Council of America. </p>
<p>But Bill Clinton was the first president to actually light a menorah in the White House. In 1993, he invited a dozen schoolchildren to the Oval Office for a small ceremony. The event made headlines when <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1993-12-09-9312090779-story.html">6-year-old Ilana Kattan’s ponytail dipped into the flame</a> and a wisp of smoke was visible around her head. <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/12/white-house-hanukkah-hair-fire-bill-clinton.html">Clinton memorably extinguished the flame</a> with his bare hands. </p>
<p>Menorah lightings grew in prominence during the Clinton years. Memorably, in 1998 Clinton <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/president/holiday/hanukkah/">joined Israel’s then-President Ezer Weizman</a> in lighting a candle on the first night of Hanukkah in Jerusalem. </p>
<p>But no White House Hanukkah parties ever took place under Clinton. Instead, he included Jewish leaders in a large annual “holiday party.” </p>
<h2>Annual Hanukkah parties</h2>
<p>The first president to host an official White House Hanukkah party, and the first to actually light a menorah in the White House residence and not just in its public spaces, was <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?167772-1/hanukkah-menorah-lighting">George W. Bush, beginning in both cases in 2001</a>.</p>
<p>Bush made a point of inserting religion into his many annual Christmas parties. He <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011210-7.html">sought to underscore</a> through the Hanukkah party that the White House “belongs to people of all faiths.” Since then Hanukkah has become an official White House tradition. </p>
<p>Hasidic leaders in the distinctive black suits worn by members of their community regularly appeared at these parties. Beginning in 2005 the <a href="https://www.insider.com/white-house-hanukkah-party-history-how-it-began#the-white-house-kitchen-was-made-kosher-for-the-occasion-starting-in-2005-7">parties became completely kosher</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C64%2C2502%2C1600&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C64%2C2502%2C1600&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Barack Obama at the annual Hanukkah reception in the White House in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaHanukkah/88ffacdd25304636bef6e2162e018d7a/photo?Query=hanukkah%20white%20house&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=216&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barack Obama maintained the tradition of the White House Hanukkah party, holding two of them in 2013, and Donald Trump maintained the tradition as well. Both in 2018 and 2019, he also held <a href="https://www.jta.org/2018/12/07/united-states/trumps-hanukkah-parties-celebrate-his-decision-to-move-the-israel-embassy">two Hanukkah parties</a> for his friends and Jewish family members – including his daughter, Ivanka – and invited selected non-Jewish guests to attend them. Last year, amid the pandemic, Trump again held two Hanukkah parties. He spoke at one of them and lamented the “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/stopping-by-white-house-hanukkah-party-trump-laments-stolen-election/">stolen election</a>” that he insisted he had won.</p>
<p>The fact that this year the White House is abandoning the Hanukkah reception altogether and returning to the tradition of the menorah lighting suggests a shift back to the religious aspects of Hanukkah. </p>
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<p>What is truly significant, however, is how much America has changed since Presidents John Adams and Calvin Coolidge invented America’s White House Christmas traditions and paid no attention to Hanukkah at all.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hanukkah-came-to-be-an-annual-white-house-celebration-150506">first published</a> on Dec. 4, 2020</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan D. Sarna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Every president since Jimmy Carter has recognized Hanukkah with a special menorah lighting ceremony.
Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161324
2021-05-25T12:12:08Z
2021-05-25T12:12:08Z
Marriage trends, political views undermining the notion of a unified American Jewish identity
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402454/original/file-20210524-15-1vg0f82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C3000%2C1962&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A recent Pew survey found that American Jews are increasingly becoming more diverse and politically polarized.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/students-visit-the-newly-restored-eldridge-street-synagogue-news-photo/78419904?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The notion of a united Jewish American community bound together by common beliefs has been eroded by rising interfaith marriages and a growing divide between religious and nonreligious Jews.</p>
<p>That is one of the main themes that emerges from a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, the first since 2013, that provided a portrait of the American Jewish community, including its beliefs, practices, marital patterns, racial and ethnic makeup and political views.</p>
<p>The American Jewish community, it found, comprises 7.5 million Jews, or <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">2.4% of the U.S. population</a>. The survey headlined four central findings of special interest: American Jews are culturally engaged, increasingly diverse, politically polarized and worried about anti-Semitism. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/near-eastern-judaic/people/faculty/sarna.html">scholar of American Jewish history</a>, I was most interested in how much the survey reveals about changes in the American Jewish community.</p>
<p>Immigration, intermarriage and the rapid <a href="https://www.ou.org/pewevent/">growth of Orthodox Judaism</a>, among other phenomena, have changed the composition of the community, especially among the younger generation. Many of these changes are likely to have even greater impacts in the decades ahead. </p>
<h2>Civil religion</h2>
<p>Back in 1986, an insightful book titled <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Sacred_Survival.html?id=ajaTAAAAIAAJ">“Sacred Survival”</a> set forth what its author, the late social scientist and intellectual <a href="https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=jonathan-woocher&pid=186025455&fhid=12152">Jonathan Woocher</a>, described as “the civil religion of American Jews.” </p>
<p>It was a term based upon the findings of sociologist <a href="http://www.robertbellah.com/">Robert Bellah</a>, who, in a celebrated 1967 essay, <a href="http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm">introduced the concept</a> of “civil religion” in America. He argued that notwithstanding America’s religious diversity, a “transcendent universal religion” united the country as expressed in presidential inaugural addresses and other civic ceremonies.</p>
<p>Woocher made a parallel case with regard to Jews. Despite the many religious and other differences that divided American Jews from one another, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Sacred_Survival.html?id=ajaTAAAAIAAJ">there were a series of beliefs</a> that the vast majority considered sacred and inviolable. </p>
<p>Among these major tenets common to religious and nonreligious Jews alike he listed “unity of the Jewish people,” “mutual responsibility,” “the centrality of the state of Israel” and “Jewish survival.” These core beliefs, he argued, bound Jews together.</p>
<p>Not one of these beliefs, according to the new Pew survey, continues to unite American Jews today. Although the survey does not explain this change, it hints that intermarriage, which it defines as the presence within the Jewish community of a rising number of what it calls “non-Jewish spouses,” is a big part of the change. Fully 72% of non-Orthodox Jews who have married since 2010 describe their spouses as being “non-Jewish.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/pf_05-11-21_jewish-americans-00-21/"><img width="634" height="1002" src="https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?w=634" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Intermarriage more common among Jews married more recently" srcset="https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png 634w, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?resize=190,300 190w, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?resize=160,253 160w, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?resize=256,405 256w, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?resize=200,316 200w, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?resize=260,411 260w, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?resize=310,490 310w, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/04/PF_05.11.21_jewish.americans-00-21.png?resize=420,664 420w" sizes="(max-width: 634px) 100vw, 634px"></a></p>
<p>The new Pew survey helpfully distinguishes between those who identify themselves as “Jews by religion” and those who describe themselves as “Jews of no religion,” meaning that they identify as Jews only ethnically, culturally or by family background.</p>
<p>A large majority – 68% – of “Jews by religion” have Jewish spouses. But an even larger majority – 79% – of “Jews of no religion,” which represents about a third of the American Jewish community, have non-Jewish spouses. Among Jews under 50, <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">according to the survey</a>, “two sharply divergent expressions of Jewishness appear to be gaining ground – one involving religion deeply enmeshed in every aspect of life, and the other involving little or no religion at all.” </p>
<p>That, I argue, helps to explain why the “civil religion” that once united American Jews has largely disappeared. The chasms illuminated by the Pew survey between religious Jews and nonreligious ones, and between Jews who have married within their faith and those who have not, increasingly divide Jews once brought together by a common set of beliefs. </p>
<h2>Increasing divisions</h2>
<p>Several examples highlight these chasms as well as the loss of those shared beliefs that once existed. First, Jews who married within the faith continue to uphold “the unity of the Jewish people,” much as they did in Woocher’s day – fully 95% of Orthodox Jews feel “a great deal” of a sense of belonging to the Jewish people.</p>
<p>By contrast, the “Jews of no religion,” and Jews who affiliate with no particular branch of Judaism – over two-thirds of whom are married to non-Jewish spouses –
<a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">overwhelmingly rate</a> their sense of belonging to a wider Jewish community in terms like “none,” “not much” or “some.” </p>
<p>Similarly, when asked about mutual responsibility among Jews, or, <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">as Pew puts it</a>, how responsible they feel “to help Jews in need around the world,” 95% of Orthodox Jews say “some” or “a great deal,” as do 87% of all Jews by religion. Among “Jews of no religion,” fewer than two-thirds feel this responsibility. </p>
<p>An even larger gap exists with respect to “attachment to Israel.” Orthodox and Conservative Jews overwhelmingly – about 80% – report that they feel “very” or “somewhat” attached to Israel. By contrast, a <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">significant majority of Jews</a> of no religion – 67% – or of no particular branch – 59% – report that they are “not too” or “not at all” attached to Israel. </p>
<p>These differences played out in public and on social media during the recently ended hostilities between Israel and Gaza. Although <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/us/jews-israel-palestine.html">The New York Times ascribed</a> the differences largely to age, the Pew survey suggests that the gap between religious and nonreligious Jews and between Jews who have married inside their faith and those who have not may be more significant still.</p>
<h2>‘A Tale of Two Jewries’</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Jewish boy cuts a cake for family and friends after his bar mitzvah ceremony." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402414/original/file-20210524-23-13qz1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Surveys show that many Jewish people wanted their children and grandchildren to remain Jewish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/robert-abolafia-cuts-a-cake-for-family-and-friends-after-news-photo/607352050?adppopup=true">© Ted Spiegel//Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The widest gap of all within the American Jewish community nowadays, according to Pew, surrounds the question of the continuation of the Jewish people – <a href="https://pluralism.org/jewish-continuity-the-next-generation">once a bedrock concern and sacred desire</a> among American Jews of every kind. </p>
<p>However much Jews once disagreed internally, <a href="https://momentmag.com/opinion-what-do-we-mean-by-jewish-continuity/">they all wanted their children and grandchildren to remain Jewish</a>, in no small part a result of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Have-Jewish-Grandchildren-Continuity/dp/0853032823">trauma of losing so many Jews during the Holocaust</a>. Now, however, those feelings seem to be ebbing. </p>
<p>Asked whether “it is very important that their grandchildren be Jewish,” almost all Orthodox Jews – 91% – said yes, and so did 62% of Conservative ones. By contrast, only a small percentage – 4% of Jews of no religion and 11% of Jews of no particular branch of Judaism – agreed.</p>
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<p>The Pew survey does not explain this overwhelming difference, but perhaps it is understandable that those with non-Jewish spouses have different expectations for their offspring than those with Jewish spouses who share their religious and cultural beliefs. </p>
<p>Fifteen years ago, the eminent <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/steven-m-cohen">Jewish sociologist Steven M. Cohen</a>, based on earlier data from Jewish population studies, published “<a href="https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/atal/ATaleOfTwoJewries.pdf">A Tale of Two Jewries</a>,” in which he noted “sharp differences” between Jews who have married within their faith and those who have not and warned that their futures would likely be different as well.</p>
<p>The latest Pew survey of Jewish Americans validates Cohen’s astute prophecy. By contrast, the civil religion that Woocher described as the “religious ideology … at the heart of the Jewish commitment of a significant segment of American Jewry” no longer unites Americans Jews at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan D. Sarna served on the advisory board for the 2013 Pew Survey of Jewish Americans.</span></em></p>
The American Jewish community is changing as it becomes increasingly diverse and politically polarized.
Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155197
2021-02-23T17:52:04Z
2021-02-23T17:52:04Z
How New York’s 19th-century Jews turned Purim into an American party
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385888/original/file-20210223-22-4dt0wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C2959%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Jewish Museum's Purim Ball at the Park Avenue Armory in 2015 in New York City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-view-of-atmosphere-during-the-jewish-museums-purim-news-photo/464419164?adppopup=true">Andrew Toth/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Purim, which falls this year on Feb. 26, ranks among Judaism’s most joyous holidays. </p>
<p>In synagogues, Jews read the Scroll of Esther, a book in the Hebrew Bible that explains how Purim came to be. Jewish people dress up in costumes and host carnivals. At home, they indulge in festive dinners with ample wine. It’s a time of togetherness. Jews deliver treats to one another and make sure to provide charity for their most needy. </p>
<p>As a historian of <a href="https://touro.academia.edu/ZevEleff">American Judaism</a>, I point to Purim as an important holiday that did much to increase Jews’ visibility in the United States in the 19th century.</p>
<p>During that period, Purim put a social spotlight on New York’s Jews and their up-and-coming relationship to the city’s most elite class. </p>
<h2>The story of Purim</h2>
<p>Purim tells the tale of Esther, an orphaned girl-turned-queen, how she married King Achashverosh, then saved the entire Jewish community in the ancient Persian city of Shushan, through her bravery and wit. </p>
<p>The story, going back to the fourth century, describes the plot of Haman, a top advisor to King Achashverosh, to exterminate the local Jewish community. Haman was jealous of the local Jewish leader Mordecai, who enjoyed high standing in Achashverosh’s court. </p>
<p>Mordecai was also Esther’s uncle, a fact unknown to Achashverosh, so that Esther’s Jewish identity could remain concealed. When Queen Esther learns about Haman’s plan, she risks her life and discloses her Jewishness to her husband. The king sides with his bride over his doomed advisor. Purim became a celebration of the victory of Shushan’s Jews over the evil Haman.</p>
<p>The Purim story resonates with today’s American Jews. It’s packed with contemporary themes such as charges of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/jews-disloyal-trump.html">dual loyalty</a>, that Jews cannot be trusted as Americans when they remain tied to Israel. With many Jews marrying outside of their religion, Purim rings relevant on the issue of intermarriage as well.</p>
<p>Yet, Esther’s tale was perhaps less useful in the 19th century when America’s Jews were not so visible and they weren’t <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/ebook/9780520943704/speaking-of-jews">as concerned</a> about assimilation. When a group of New York Jewish socialites invented the Purim Ball in the 1860s, their intention was to downplay Purim’s Persian legend. </p>
<p>Their goal was to be the same, not different. They wanted to be counted in Manhattan’s upper crust.</p>
<h2>The start of a fancy Purim Ball</h2>
<p>In January 1860, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23600500?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Myer Isaacs</a>, a lawyer and political activist, issued a proposal in the pages of the Jewish Messenger, a weekly published in his native New York by his father, Samuel Myer Isaacs. The younger Isaacs <a href="https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/3/resources/5653">suggested</a> “Purim night should be selected as the occasion of a good fancy dress ball, the proceeds to be devoted to charity.” </p>
<p>Isaacs’s assumptions about the linkage between a classy event and fundraising was typical of the “charity market” among Victorian Era elites. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-charity-market-and-humanitarianism-in-britain-1870-1912-9781350057982/">Philanthropy was an exchange</a>: The donor obtained an “experience” — musical concerts, theater, for example — for his or her generous contribution. </p>
<p>It was a period when charity provided the affluent with an opportunity to solidify their place atop the social ladder. </p>
<p>Purim was an ideal candidate for this sort of ritual enhancement for New York’s Jewish elite. One of its traditions was charity-giving; the Purim Ball over time would become a reliable source of income for the Jewish orphanages and welfare societies in New York.</p>
<h2>Purim in New York</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The feast of Purim" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385147/original/file-20210218-16-15snx3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Feast of Purim – Reception at the Home for Aged and Infirm Jews, at No. 328 West 32nd Street.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-york-city-the-feast-of-purim-reception-at-the-home-for-news-photo/615226106?adppopup=true">Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No one was quick to pick up on Isaacs’s recommendation, however. Isaacs tried again the following year, always in the pages of his father’s newspaper. </p>
<p>In 1862, he took more concrete steps. The 20-year-old gathered a small group of first-generation American Jews with aspirations to appear on a routine basis in the New York society columns. They organized the <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/the-purim-association/2016/03/23/">first Purim ball at Irving Hall</a>, a prominent theater space in Manhattan, decorating the space with ornaments and plenty of pageantry such as entertainment and plays. </p>
<p>New York statute forbade masquerades, so Isaacs and his friends <a href="https://archives.cjh.org//repositories/3/resources/5653">publicized</a> it to wealthy New Yorkers as a “Fancy Dress Ball.” The guests, Jews and non-Jews, intuited the meaning and appeared dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and Shakespearean figures such as Romeo and Hamlet. Even though it was a Purim event, there was no mention that anyone was expected to dress up as Queen Esther.</p>
<p>The affair was very well received by attendees, compelling Isaacs to formalize the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058700">Purim Association of the City of New York</a> to help ensure the newfound tradition persisted. </p>
<p>The Purim Ball <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058700">straddled the line</a> between a Jewish ritual and a New York society event. Yet, it hewed in the direction of the latter, attracting the leading women and men of New York. The mayor, police chief and leading figures of Tammany Hall frequented the balls. The Purim Association did not hold the gala on the actual date of Purim — usually it was held the day after or in the subsequent week — allowing New York’s Jews to observe Purim with its more traditional and less extravagant trappings. </p>
<p>The Purim Ball’s second installment was upgraded to the grander and more capacious Academy of Music. Its organizers distributed 800 invitations, which turned out to be quite insufficient. In all, 3,000 women and men attended the ball in March 1863. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1863/03/07/archives/local-intelligence-the-purim-ball-a-jewish-festivala-great-success.html">A report published in the New York Times</a> declared that a “more brilliant affair has never been witnessed at the Academy.” </p>
<p>The Times article <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1863/03/07/archives/local-intelligence-the-purim-ball-a-jewish-festivala-great-success.html">stated</a>, “Very many exquisite evening toilettes set off the charms of the black-eyed belles in the boxes, and the universal masculine verdict is, that so many pretty faces have never before been seen at any one occasion, within the walls of the Academy.”</p>
<h2>A Manhattan ‘institution’</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Persian food for Purim, Hamantaschen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385606/original/file-20210222-15-1ekxuu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Persian food for Purim – Pistachio Rosewater Hamantaschen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/persian-food-for-purim-pistachio-rosewater-hamantaschen-news-photo/1129318528?adppopup=true">Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post via Getty Images; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The masquerade theme might have fit into Purim tradition, but Isaacs intended for it to accommodate all New Yorkers. As Isaac then wrote in the Jewish Messenger, he wanted it to “come off in such a way as to justify the suggestion that all New York is celebrating Purim.”</p>
<p>The favorable reviews were sufficient for Isaacs to declare that the Purim Ball had emerged, by its second iteration, as a Manhattan “institution,” an affair “naturalized in New York.”</p>
<p>The archives at the American Jewish Historical Society reveal that the top-priced seating boxes went to couples with Jewish surnames such as Seligman, Rosenwald, Schiff and Guggenheim. The Purim Association spared no expense on the music. </p>
<p>New York socialites and leading politicians continued to gravitate to the event, looking forward to the Purim Ball. Tickets for the event, sold at auction, did not last long on the open market, especially the preferred theater boxes.</p>
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<p>By the 1890s, the <a href="https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/3/resources/5653">Purim Association</a> rented a larger space in Madison Square Garden and held bidding for the choicest seats in the vestry room of one of New York’s most well-heeled synagogue, Temple Emanu-El. </p>
<h2>Beyond New York</h2>
<p>The success of New York’s Purim Ball inspired others to organize similar events. By the 1880s, it was replicated in dozens of communities. </p>
<p>St. Louis’s Jews were very proud of their “well-regulated” masquerade ball which, <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/569239647/?terms=%22The%20Purim%20Ball%20of%20the%20Ladies%27%20Hebrew%20Relief%20Society%22&match=1">they claimed</a> was “one of the most enjoyable affairs in the society world.”</p>
<p>In 1891, the Purim program held in Philadelphia, much influenced by a local aristocratic spirit, was fashioned <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/168332711/?terms=%22Hebrew%20Assembly%22%20Philadelphia%20Inquirer&match=1">more like a debutante ball</a>, a coming-of-age event for upper-class young ladies.</p>
<p>The Purim Ball, then, was a cultural transaction. Jews believed it led them to acquire status and America obtained a curious and swanky incarnation of Purim, in New York and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zev Eleff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the 19th century, Purim became an occasion to hold fancy dress parties, the proceeds from which were given to charities. These parties helped American Jews gain a standing among the elite.
Zev Eleff, Associate Professor of Jewish History, Touro University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/153757
2021-01-21T20:38:38Z
2021-01-21T20:38:38Z
Sen. Ossoff was sworn in on pioneering Atlanta rabbi’s Bible – a nod to historic role of American Jews in civil rights struggle
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380059/original/file-20210121-21-1n3uc4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C12%2C2802%2C1552&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Kamala Harris swears in Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff on Capitol Hill in Washington. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/HarrisSenate/bb5f4903643b472a9d1575605f37536f/photo?Query=Sen.%20Jon%20Ossoff,%20D-Ga.,%20on%20the%20floor%20of%20the%20Senate%20Wednesday,%20Jan.%206,%202021,%20on%20Capitol%20Hill%20in%20Washington.%20Senate%20Television%20via%20AP&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2&currentItemNo=0">Senate Television via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-ossoff-s-expected-georgia-win-will-make-jewish-history-1.9428335">The first Jewish senator in Georgia history</a>, Jon Ossoff, was sworn in on Jan. 20, on what his office described in a <a href="https://twitter.com/jake_best_/status/1351652208945885185?s=21">tweet</a> as a “Hebrew scripture that belonged to historic Atlanta Rabbi Jacob Rothschild.”</p>
<p>It left many wondering what exactly the Hebrew scripture meant, and what the relevance was of using this particular copy.</p>
<p>The term “Hebrew scripture” usually refers to the 24 books that Christians denominate as the Old Testament. These biblical books, originally written in Hebrew, are ordered differently in Judaism and Christianity.</p>
<p>In Ossoff’s case, the volume selected was a well-thumbed copy of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, which Jews known as the Torah, edited with commentary by the American-educated former <a href="https://www.jewishideas.org/article/bridge-across-tigris-chief-rabbi-joseph-herman-hertz">Chief Rabbi of Britain Joseph H. Hertz</a>. That, for many years, <a href="https://jewishaction.com/jewish-world/history/the-story-of-the-synagogue-chumash/">was the edition</a> of the Torah found in most American synagogues and temples. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/near-eastern-judaic/people/faculty/sarna.html">scholar of American Jewish history</a>, I recognize that in emphasizing the book’s tie to Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild, Ossoff appeared to be making a statement about Black-Jewish relations – <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/01/04/georgia-black-jewish-campaign-is-the-latest-chapter-in-an-old-story-warnock-ossoff/">a central theme in his campaign</a> and a signal of his ties to Congressman John R. Lewis, his mentor, as well as Rev. Raphael Warnock, his fellow incoming Georgia senator. </p>
<h2>A Jewish translation of Scripture</h2>
<p>First, the selection of the Bible upon which Jon Ossoff was sworn deserves attention. This Hebrew-English text employs the <a href="https://biblehub.com/jps/">1917 translation</a> produced by the Jewish Publication Society, then located in Philadelphia. </p>
<p>It is a distinctive Jewish translation of scripture. Though modeled on the majestic language and cadence of the famous <a href="https://time.com/4821911/king-james-bible-history/">King James Bible</a>, authorized by the Church of England and first published in 1611, it nevertheless introduced many new translations from the original Hebrew based on updated scholarship and longstanding Jewish interpretive traditions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The King James Bible" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first King James Bible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1612_First_Quarto_of_King_James_Bible.jpg">Jeremylinvip/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“It was a Bible translation to which American Jews could point with pride as the creation of the Jewish consciousness on a par with similar products of the Catholic and Protestant churches,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/21/archives/dr-abraham-a-neuman-jewish-historian-dies.html">historian Abraham Neuman</a> <a href="http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1940_1941_3_SpecialArticles.pdf">observed</a> in 1940. “To the Jews it presented a Bible which combined the spirit of Jewish tradition with the results of biblical scholarship, ancient, medieval and modern. To the non-Jews it opened the gateway of Jewish tradition in the interpretation of the Word of God,” he noted. </p>
<p>Thanks to the 1917 translation, American Jews <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-bible-with-and-without-jesus-amy-jill-levinemarc-zvi-brettler?variant=32117339717666">no longer had to depend on other</a> translations to understand “their Bible” – they now had a Bible translation of their own.</p>
<p>Ossoff was making a profoundly Jewish statement in selecting the volume on which he was sworn in. Earlier, President Biden made a similar Catholic statement by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/politics/bible-inauguration-biden.html">being sworn in on a Celtic Bible</a> featuring the Catholic <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/rhe/">Douay-Rheims</a> translation, published in the 17th century to <a href="http://www.tcseagles.org/faculty/nchilds/editoruploads/files/Timeline_of_Bible_Translation_History.pdf">uphold Catholic tradition</a> in the face of the Protestant Reformation. </p>
<h2>Atlanta’s rabbi</h2>
<p>The book itself belonged to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild</a>, who served from 1946 until his death in 1973 as the rabbi of Atlanta’s oldest and most prominent Reform congregation, Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, known as “<a href="https://www.atlantaga.gov/government/departments/city-planning/office-of-design/urban-design-commission/the-temple-hebrew-benevolent-congregation">The Temple</a>.” </p>
<p>As an outspoken proponent of civil rights, he supported school desegregation; invited Black clergy like <a href="https://www.mmuf.org/about/dr-benjamin-e-mays">Benjamin E. Mays</a>, president of Morehouse College, to speak to his congregants; and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0">wrote</a> that Jews bore a special responsibility “to erase inequality.” </p>
<p>To punish Rothschild and as a warning to others, white supremacist members of The Confederate Underground, a collective name for various right-wing extremist organizations in the 1950s, on Oct. 12, 1958, bombed The Temple, <a href="http://melissafaygreene.com/book/the-temple-bombing/">in a blast that was reportedly felt for miles around</a>. </p>
<p>Until the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html">mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue</a> almost exactly 60 years later, on Oct. 27, 2018, the temple bombing was the most devastating attack in history on an American synagogue. Rothschild refused to be frightened off and remained at The Temple’s helm.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rabbi Jacob Rothschild and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rabbi Jacob Rothschild with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta on Jan. 28, 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MLK/b6c8bdddf486441da3ce8079c7dc7d12/photo?Query=Rabbi%20Jacob%20Rothschild&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1960s, Rabbi Rothschild met Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who had <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/ebenezer-baptist-church-atlanta-georgia">joined his father as co-pastor</a> of Ebenezer Baptist Church. The Rothschilds and the Kings became friends, and, in 1963, Rothschild introduced King when he spoke before a packed audience of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, known today as the <a href="https://urj.org/">Union for Reform Judaism</a>, at its biennial gathering. </p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Later, he played a central role in organizing a large Atlanta dinner honoring King for winning the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. When King was assassinated in 1968, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">Rabbi Rothschild delivered the eulogy</a> at the city-wide service in Atlanta in his memory. </p>
<h2>Rothschild’s message and Ossoff’s</h2>
<p>Citing the same biblical passages heard at President Biden’s inauguration, Rothschild <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">called for America to become</a> “a land where a man does not lift up sword against his neighbor, but where each sits under his own vine and under his own fig tree and there is none to make him afraid.”</p>
<p>In deciding to be sworn in on the “Hebrew scripture” that belonged to Rabbi Rothschild, Senator Ossoff gestures back to this relationship that once brought Black and Jewish Americans together in a common quest. </p>
<p>In this gesture, he is delivering the same message as King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, did in 1984, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">when she wrote</a> that the story of Rabbi Rothschild serves as “an inspiring story of commitment and brotherhood during an exciting, creative period of American history.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153757/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan D. Sarna knows members of Rabbi Rothschild's family. </span></em></p>
In choosing a Hebrew Bible belonging to a civil rights leader, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, Sen. Jon Ossoff appeared to be sending out a message on the strong historic ties between Black people and Jews.
Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150506
2020-12-04T13:28:14Z
2020-12-04T13:28:14Z
How Hanukkah came to be an annual White House celebration
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372888/original/file-20201203-15-15vjmd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C39%2C3747%2C2459&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump speaks during a Hanukkah reception at the White House in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumpHanukkah/a1da70611d804af38115d0f2d980ec12/photo?Query=white%20house%20hanukkah%20trump&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=58&currentItemNo=7">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-throwing-in-person-white-house-hanukkah-party-despite-covid-concerns/">President Trump’s plan of holding an in-person Hanukkah reception</a> at the White House on Dec. 9, despite concerns over the coronavirus, is getting much attention on social media. </p>
<p>Some asked whether anyone would be reckless enough to attend, observing that an in-person party, amid the COVID-19 surge, could turn out to be another superspreader event. Others wondered who would be invited, recalling that President Trump, in the past, limited his invitation list to supporters, and why the event was being held on that date. The eight-day festival of Hanukkah, regulated by the Jewish lunar calendar, begins this year on the night of Dec. 10. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1330913002317635585"}"></div></p>
<p>Overlooked amid these questions is one that to me, as a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/index.html">historian of American Jewish life and a scholar of American religion</a>, seems far more fascinating and important. How did the office of the president of the United States come to hold an official White House Hanukkah party in the first place? </p>
<h2>White House traditions</h2>
<p>For most of American history, the only December holiday that <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-backgrounders/white-house-christmas-traditions">gained White House recognition</a> was Christmas. President John Adams and first lady Abigail Adams, back in 1800, threw the first White House Christmas party, a modest affair, planned with their four-year-old granddaughter in mind, and with invitations sent to selected government officials and their children. </p>
<p>In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge inaugurated the <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/a-coolidge-christmas">practice of lighting an official White House Christmas tree</a>. He also delivered the first formal presidential Christmas message. His message assumed, as most Americans of that time did, that everybody celebrated Christmas. </p>
<p>It displayed, according to <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1352/WHITE_HOUSE_CAROLS_AND_BRILLIA.pdf">The Washington Post</a>, “the reverence of a Christian people giving at the seat of their government the expression of their praise for ‘the King of kings’ on the eve of the anniversary of His birth.” Neither Adams nor Coolidge uttered one word about Hanukkah. </p>
<p>Official notice of Hanukkah waited another half-century – until 1979 – by which time Jews had become much more visible as members of American society and government. Ironically, the president who first <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/525">paid attention to Hanukkah was Jimmy Carter</a>, although he wasn’t the Jewish community’s favorite Democratic candidate. When he ran for reelection in 1980, he got <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-voting-record-in-u-s-presidential-elections">less than 50%</a> of the Jewish vote – less than any Democrat since 1928. </p>
<p>In 1979, following weeks of seclusion in the White House after Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran seizing 52 diplomats and citizens, President Carter emerged and crossed over to Lafayette Park. He <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/525">lit the large Hanukkah candelabrum</a>, dubbed the “National Menorah,” <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-theres-30-foot-menorah-national-mall-180961553/">erected in the park with private funds</a> and delivered brief remarks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The lighting ceremony of the National Hanukkah Menorah, at the Ellipse, near the White House, in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MenorahLighting/90f1d602ce634eef8ff66f1c25aa48d0/photo?Query=menorah%20white%20house&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=101&currentItemNo=17">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seeing that Jews celebrate their own holiday in December – not Christmas but Hanukkah – he directed his <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/There_Really_Is_a_Santa_Claus/6rAc9xM5VqYC?hl=en&gbpv=0">next annual Christmas message</a> only “to those of our fellow citizens who join us in the joyous celebration of Christmas.” </p>
<p>Every president since has recognized Hanukkah with a special menorah-lighting ceremony, and limited his Christmas messages to those who actually observe the holiday.</p>
<h2>Menorah lightings</h2>
<p>Hanukkah came to the White House itself, in 1989, when <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/president/holiday/hanukkah/">President George H.W. Bush displayed a menorah</a> there, a candelabrum given to him by the Synagogue Council of America. </p>
<p>But Bill Clinton was the first president to actually light a menorah in the White House. In 1993, he invited a dozen schoolchildren to the Oval Office for a small ceremony. The event made headlines when <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1993-12-09-9312090779-story.html">6-year-old Ilana Kattan’s ponytail dipped into the flame</a> and a wisp of smoke was visible around her head. Clinton was reported to have gently rubbed her ponytail with his fingers.</p>
<p>Menorah lightings grew in prominence during the Clinton years. Memorably, in 1998, Clinton <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/president/holiday/hanukkah/">joined Israel’s then-President Ezer Weizman</a> in lighting a candle on the first night of Hanukkah in Jerusalem. </p>
<p>But no White House Hanukkah parties ever took place under Clinton. Instead, he included Jewish leaders in a large annual “holiday party.” </p>
<h2>Annual Hanukkah parties</h2>
<p>The first president to host an official White House Hanukkah party, and the first to actually light a menorah in the White House residence and not just in its public spaces, was <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?167772-1/hanukkah-menorah-lighting">George W. Bush, beginning in both cases in 2001</a>.</p>
<p>Since Bush made a point of inserting religion, complete with baby Jesus, into his many annual Christmas parties, he sought to underscore through the Hanukkah party that, <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011210-7.html">as he explained</a>, the White House “belongs to people of all faiths.” Since then Hanukkah has become an official White House tradition. </p>
<p>Hasidic leaders in the distinctive black suits worn by members of their community regularly appeared at these parties. Beginning in 2005 the <a href="https://www.insider.com/white-house-hanukkah-party-history-how-it-began#the-white-house-kitchen-was-made-kosher-for-the-occasion-starting-in-2005-7">parties became completely kosher</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C64%2C2502%2C1600&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C64%2C2502%2C1600&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Barack Obama at the annual Hanukkah reception in the White House in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaHanukkah/88ffacdd25304636bef6e2162e018d7a/photo?Query=hanukkah%20white%20house&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=216&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barack Obama maintained the tradition of the White House Hanukkah party, holding two of them in 2013, and Donald Trump maintained the tradition as well. Both in 2018 and 2019, he also held <a href="https://www.jta.org/2018/12/07/united-states/trumps-hanukkah-parties-celebrate-his-decision-to-move-the-israel-embassy">two Hanukkah parties</a> for his friends and Jewish family members – including his daughter, Ivanka – and invited selected non-Jewish guests to attend them. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The fact that this year, amid COVID-19 concerns and a presidential transition, the White House is planning just one Hanukkah party, has pruned the guest list and will <a href="https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/trumps-white-house-is-throwing-an-in-person-hanukkah-party">hold the event on Dec. 9, before Hanukkah starts</a>, remains noteworthy. </p>
<p>What is truly significant, however, is how much America has changed since Presidents John Adams and Calvin Coolidge invented America’s White House Christmas traditions and paid no attention to Hanukkah at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan D. Sarna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For much of American history, the only December holiday to be recognized in the White House was Christmas, but menorah lightings are now an annual tradition.
Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126004
2019-11-25T13:25:57Z
2019-11-25T13:25:57Z
How American anti-Semitism reflects the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of religious liberty
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303011/original/file-20191121-483-guw6ju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mother hugs her son at the memorial of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2019, the first anniversary of the shooting at the synagogue.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Synagogue-Shooting-Anniversary/13d1bb8783f348378e150ad1ce4e2047/11/0">AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans recently observed the <a href="https://patch.com/pennsylvania/pittsburgh/tree-life-synagogue-shootings-solemn-anniversary">first anniversary</a> of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, in which 11 were killed and six wounded. </p>
<p>A year earlier, white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanted the slogan, “Jews shall not replace us.” </p>
<p>Synagogues around the country have also been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti. Last month, during the Jewish High Holy Days, a swastika and the word “Trump” were <a href="https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/On-High-Holy-Days-anti-Semitic-graffiti-found-on-14503157.php">spray-painted on the steps of the law school</a> at Yale University, where I teach. </p>
<p>This is not the first time that hate speech and violence against Jews and other racial and religious minorities have flared in the U.S. Recent events mirror the situation in the early 20th century, when white Christian nationalists in the United States demonized immigrants and treated Jews as a danger to the nation.</p>
<p>Then, as now, people on all sides of these disputes invoked the American ideal of religious freedom. As I show in my book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">Religious Freedom</a>,” while some Americans used this constitutional protection to justify a politics of exclusion, others drew a widening circle of inclusion.</p>
<h2>The politics of exclusion</h2>
<p>At the turn of the 20th century, white Christian nationalists saw Jews and other religious outsiders as threats to the nation and used religious freedom as a weapon against them.</p>
<p>In 1892, writing for an anti-Semitic publication “<a href="https://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/all/vf/Record/405611661">Sound the Tocsin of Alarm</a>,” Orville Jones, a lawyer and Methodist layman from Missouri, warned that the Jew had a “persistent determination… to practice fraud, extortion, and especially usury.” </p>
<p>He went on to add that “the Jew” was now recruiting others to join “his crime against civilization.” </p>
<p>Jones was on the extreme end, to be sure, but Jews at the time experienced <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/479563">serious discrimination</a> on both racial and religious grounds. Jewish merchants were brutally assaulted in Mississippi in the 1890s and violent attacks occurred across the country in subsequent decades. Many universities limited Jewish enrollment, while some institutions banned Jews altogether. </p>
<p>Congress implemented strict immigration quotas in the 1920s, in an effort to keep Jews and other racially defined minorities out of the country. Jewish immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe, were treated as a distinct race and increasingly excluded from the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691136318/the-price-of-whiteness">privileges of whiteness</a> in American life.</p>
<p>This might seem to be a blatant violation of religious freedom. But white Christian nationalists like Orville Jones used this very ideal to justify exclusionary and sometimes violent policies against Jews and other minority groups. They claimed that Jews posed a direct threat to American freedom. </p>
<p>“Again the Sons of the Republic are called upon,” <a href="https://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/all/vf/Record/405611661">he wrote</a>, “to fight the initial battle of the world’s hope for civil and religious liberty.” This struggle had to be waged against what he called the “sneaking cowardly cruel indirect power” of the Jew. </p>
<p>He and others like him believed they were fighting for the religious freedom of America’s white Christian majority.</p>
<h2>The call for inclusion</h2>
<p>American Jews fought back, using this same ideal of religious freedom to counter discrimination and violence. </p>
<p>Most Americans in the early 20th century, even those who were inclined to support Jewish rights, viewed Jews as a distinct race. As I show in <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">my book</a>, the Federal Council of Churches tackled the problem of anti-Semitism in the early 1920s with the expressed goal of ending “racial antipathies” and creating a new “spirit of brotherhood” in American life. </p>
<p>Americans at this time did not think of race simply as a matter of skin color, and even Jews sometimes spoke of themselves as a separate race. They celebrated the historical achievements of the Hebrew race or nation.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302969/original/file-20191121-515-1joyz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302969/original/file-20191121-515-1joyz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302969/original/file-20191121-515-1joyz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302969/original/file-20191121-515-1joyz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302969/original/file-20191121-515-1joyz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302969/original/file-20191121-515-1joyz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302969/original/file-20191121-515-1joyz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Jewish refugee children salute the American flag in June 1939, at a suburban Philadelphia estate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Pennsylva-/a664a9558ff24d159e7629d8e81b944f/112/0">AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>At the same time, American Jews had for generations insisted that the American promise of religious freedom must also apply to them. </p>
<p>Oscar Straus, for example, who served as treasury secretary under President Theodore Roosevelt, was an amateur historian who located the intellectual foundations of religious freedom <a href="https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=7006&recCount=25&recPointer=1&bibId=8673192">in the Hebrew Bible</a>. He even named his son Roger Williams Straus after Rhode Island’s colonial champion of this freedom. </p>
<p>The younger Straus, a successful businessman in New York, was also a strong proponent of religious freedom. He took on a leading role in the <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">National Conference of Christians and Jews </a>, which fought Nazi anti-Semitism in the 1930s through public events that featured Protestants, Catholics and Jews speaking on topics of common interest. </p>
<p>Together they argued for religious freedom and toleration as the best defense against bigotry and violence. They also identified Judaism as a religion to be respected and given the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. In so doing, they were fighting the anti-Semitic portrayal of Jews as an inferior race who were inherently disloyal to the United States and its ideals. </p>
<p>As Nazi armies moved across Europe, Straus’ book “<a href="https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb13462353__SStraus%2C%20Roger%20Williams%2C%201891__Orightresult__X3?lang=eng&suite=def">Religious Liberty and Democracy</a>” issued a desperate plea for unity against the anti-religious totalitarianism of the world. </p>
<p>One effect of all this was to redefine Jewish communal identity in religious terms. For American Jews, and eventually for most other Americans as well, being Jewish was increasingly a matter of religion more than it was about racial or national difference.</p>
<p>Because Jews were no longer considered a separate race, those who appeared white could now gain the privileges of <a href="https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=7146&recCount=25&recPointer=0&bibId=3560545">whiteness</a> in American life.</p>
<h2>The ambivalent promise of religious freedom</h2>
<p>After World War II Judaism was accepted as an integral part of a new American religious triad – Protestant, Catholic and Jew. In his <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3640906.html">1955 book</a>, sociologist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/28/archives/will-herberg-author-dies-at-75-communist-became-conservative.html">Will Herberg</a> argued that these three faiths now shaped what it meant to be religious in America and defined who could be considered a real American.</p>
<p>But as I <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">argue in my book</a>, this tri-faith celebration of American religious freedom could also obscure the ongoing problem of racism in American life. </p>
<p>One African American commentator <a href="https://search.proquest.com/docview/201967728?accountid=15172">wrote in 1933</a> that while the “nice liberals” of the National Conference of Christians and Jews may have been tackling the bigotries of religion, their discussion groups never included a “Negro.” And they were strangely silent on “the worst intolerance of all: color prejudice.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303013/original/file-20191121-474-y4b3cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303013/original/file-20191121-474-y4b3cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303013/original/file-20191121-474-y4b3cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303013/original/file-20191121-474-y4b3cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303013/original/file-20191121-474-y4b3cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303013/original/file-20191121-474-y4b3cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303013/original/file-20191121-474-y4b3cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Community members protest about an alleged hate crime against Muslims in the Astoria section of the Queens borough of New York in December 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Anti-Muslim-Backlash/777cef9221b04c0da4eff5926b0babcb/38/0">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Atheists and other religious minorities – such as Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and practitioners of Indigenous traditions – also remained <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807857700/a-nation-of-religions/">on the margins</a> of this culturally reconfigured “American.” </p>
<p>Religious freedom is a powerful tool that can expand the bounds of who and what counts as religious. At the same time, my research has taught me that appeals for religious freedom can be exclusionary, often in unintended ways. We cannot allow white Christian nationalists to define its limits.</p>
<p>
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<div>
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<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Yale University Divinity School is a member of the Association of Theological Schools</a></p>
<footer>The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
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</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tisa Wenger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The US Constitution is supposed to protect freedom of religion. But in the 20th century, white Christian nationalists used this ideal to discriminate against Jews and justify their exclusion.
Tisa Wenger, Associate Professor of American Religious History, Yale University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123250
2019-11-06T12:35:32Z
2019-11-06T12:35:32Z
Anti-Semitism in the US today is a variation on an old theme
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299898/original/file-20191101-88372-1sw2p4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite courting the Jewish vote, President Trump has used anti-Semitic rhetoric.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/a257317da4bc4e65ac9384b22e0fcfa3/20/0">AP/John Locher</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Senators Jacky Rosen and James Lankford, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/28/opinions/senate-task-force-to-combat-anti-semitism-rosen-lankford/index.html">who describe themselves</a> as “a practicing Jewish Democrat from Nevada and a devoted Christian Republican from Oklahoma,” are spearheading a new effort to fight an old problem: anti-Semitism in America.</p>
<p>The Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism, wrote the senators in an opinion column for CNN, will “collaborate with law enforcement, federal agencies, state and local government, educators, advocates, clergy, and other stakeholders to combat anti-Semitism by educating and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/28/opinions/senate-task-force-to-combat-anti-semitism-rosen-lankford/index.html">empowering our communities</a>.”</p>
<p>They’ve got a big job ahead of them. </p>
<h2>Ancient roots</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299896/original/file-20191101-88382-1hey2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">After calls for her resignation, Trenton City Council member Kathy McBride had to apologize for using the phrase ‘Jew her down’ in a meeting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Anti-Semitism-City-Council/835f13fb21624a9092fda527c5610c7e/1/0">AP/Mel Evans</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In early September, Trenton’s City Council President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/nyregion/trenton-jewish-anti-semite-kathy-mcbride.html">Kathy McBride uttered the phrase “Jew her down</a>” in <a href="https://www.trentonian.com/news/local/audio-of-executive-session/audio_65bb331a-d8a5-11e9-9b4c-1f4b9168a8f5.html">a public discussion</a>. McBride said she was sorry 12 days later. The Associated Press ran the headline: “<a href="https://apnews.com/fb9f5c1ccea34da8a2b9be525f2daf05">Politician apologizes for use of anti-Semitic trope</a>.” </p>
<p>Congresswoman Ilhan Omar responded to GOP threats to censure her for denouncing Israel, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/02/11/its-all-about-benjamins-baby-ilhan-omar-again-accused-anti-semitism-over-tweets/">It’s all about the Benjamins baby</a>.” She was referring to the dollars <a href="https://www.aipac.org/">AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee</a>, purportedly throws at legislators standing up for Israel. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/us/politics/ilhan-omar-anti-semitism.html">Omar later apologized</a>. </p>
<p>President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-that-jewish-people-who-vote-for-democrats-are-very-disloyal-to-israel-denies-his-remarks-are-anti-semitic/2019/08/21/055e53bc-c42d-11e9-b5e4-54aa56d5b7ce_story.html">Trump tells American Jews</a>: “If you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people and you’re being very disloyal to Israel.” </p>
<p>Likely none of these politicians grasped in the moment the anti-Semitism underlying their remarks. This was not the first time on American soil that Jews were charged with financial cunning, government manipulation and questionable loyalty. </p>
<p>These canards, <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-from-the-early-church-to-1400">rooted in ancient and medieval anti-Judaism</a>, have a long history in America.</p>
<h2>Religious anti-Semitism</h2>
<p>There are different strains of anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Religious anti-Semitism is the charge that the Jews were responsible for <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-from-the-early-church-to-1400">the crucifixion of Jesus</a>. In this formulation, their descendants must, forever, pay for that treachery – sometimes by being locked behind ghetto walls, other times with their lives. It dates to the split of Christianity from Judaism in the first century.</p>
<p>Fifteen centuries later, in 1654, New Amsterdam Governor <a href="https://www.pbs.org/jewishamericans/jewish_life/">Peter Stuyvesant tried to expel the 23 Jews</a> fleeing persecution who had just landed in the colony. He called them a “deceitful race – such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ.” </p>
<p>Subsequently, American Sunday school primers, Bible mission tracts and popular novels recalled Jews’ complicity in the murder of Jesus and sought to convert them. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=C7ptAAAAMAAJ&q=tarnished+dream&dq=tarnished+dream&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfgeqF_8blAhWEpFkKHRfvBFgQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg">Sabbath Lessons (1813)</a> taught Sunday school children about the “conspiracy of the Jewish rulers against Jesus Christ.” In the novel <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QiS1xQEACAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">“The Prince of the House of David” (1855)</a>, a part of a trilogy which reportedly sold over 5 million copies, the author, an Episcopal priest, called on “the daughters of Israel” to abandon Judaism and follow Christ.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300157/original/file-20191104-88409-uryu7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration from 1882 in the satiric magazine, The Judge, showing a line of women, seeking employment, standing before a lecherous man who was obviously Jewish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.05450">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mel Gibson’s 2004 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/">The Passion of the Christ</a>” carried religious anti-Semitism into the 21st century. Its Jewish mob – the men’s beards and noses immense, their heads covered in prayer shawls – appeared on the wide screen screaming “Crucify him” to a bloodied Jesus standing before the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate.</p>
<h2>Money and power</h2>
<p>The anti-Semitism making headlines today doesn’t always replay the charge that the Jews killed Jesus. Instead it draws from a long roster of other anti-Jewish stereotypes. They depict the Jews as a people interested only in money, malevolently employing their wealth to undermine the political order.</p>
<p>In just six words, “about the Benjamins,” Minnesota’s Rep. Omar echoed age-old claims of Jewish cunning, financial manipulation and government control. Her remarks echoed those of an 1852 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1852/05/25/archives/jewish-disabilities.html?searchResultPosition=1">New York Times journalist</a> who wrote of Jews’ “sharp schooling in money-getting” and that, controlling all capital, they declared “empires solvent or bankrupt, at will.”</p>
<p>Later in the 19th century, in the January 1897 Atlantic Monthly a friend of Harvard professor and ambassador James Russell Lowell recalled how Lowell – a minister’s son who knew Hebrew – <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_tarnished_dream.html?id=C7ptAAAAMAAJ">decried Jewish bankers, brokers and the ones who had slipped into politics and diplomacy</a>. Lowell feared that they were poised to control “the Earth’s surface.” </p>
<p>Lowell’s sentiment was typical of many of his generation’s well-bred, well-educated public servants, intellectuals and civic leaders. </p>
<p>In 1890, the Reverend Charles F. Deems wrote of a segment of Jews whose only passion is “the greed of gain.” In novels, that love for money translated into the charge that Jews “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_tarnished_dream.html?id=C7ptAAAAMAAJ">control the money power of the world</a>.” </p>
<p>Lowell’s assertion of an international Jewish conspiracy predated the forgery known as the “<a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">Protocols of the Elders of Zion</a>.” It first appeared in Russia in 1905 in a book about the coming of the Antichrist published by the mystic Sergei Nilus. Its anti-Semitic fantasies of Jewish leaders plotting to destroy Christianity and control the world <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">inspired Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf</a>.”</p>
<p>The myth of a world Jewish conspiracy found a home in America in the 1920s thanks to publication of “<a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-international-jew-quot">The International Jew – The World’s Foremost Problem</a>.” Quoting liberally from the “Protocols,” this series in the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2013218776/">Dearborn Independent</a> newspaper was subsequently published as a multi-volume book. </p>
<p>“The International Jew” charged that the Jews controlled the world’s finances, that they were the “power behind many a throne.” </p>
<p>Circulation of the Dearborn Independent grew to 700,000 by 1924-1925 <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_tarnished_dream.html?id=C7ptAAAAMAAJ">as its publisher mailed thousands of copies around</a> the country, to bank presidents, Rotary clubs, women’s clubs, college presidents and the members of Congress. The publisher was the industrial tycoon <a href="https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-resources/popular-topics/henry-ford-and-anti-semitism-a-complex-story">Henry Ford</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300153/original/file-20191104-88399-3o10lb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dearborn Independent front page, May 22, 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2013218776/1920-05-22/ed-1/seq-1/">Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Forever outsiders</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-questions-sincerity-of-tlaibs-tears-as-she-talked-about-her-grandmother/2019/08/20/03d7b532-c339-11e9-b72f-b31dfaa77212_story.html">Donald Trump said American Jews</a> who opposed his policies were disloyal to the Jewish people and to Israel, he was saying that Jews held dual loyalty. </p>
<p>Forever outsiders and aliens, in this view, Jews put their devotion to the Jewish people above allegiance to their nation.</p>
<p>In 2015, NPR host <a href="https://dianerehm.org/audio/#/shows/2015-06-10/the-2016-presidential-race-a-conversation-with-democratic-candidate-and-vermont-senator-bernie-sanders/110376/@00:00">Diane Rehm</a> asked Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders whether his “dual citizenship” with Israel disqualified him to serve as U.S. president. Senator Sanders is not a citizen of the State of Israel.</p>
<p>The dual-loyalty accusations have dogged Jews across time and across the globe. <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-2/religion-loyalty-and-belonging">Napoleon put the question bluntly</a> to an assembly of Jewish notables in 1806: “Do Jews born in France, and treated by the law as French citizens, consider France as their country? Are they bound to defend it? Are they bound to obey (its) laws?” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299892/original/file-20191101-88394-e9l93g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1890 survey about anti-Semitism asks for the opinions of prominent U.S. figures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rG8fAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA176-IA1&lpg=PA176-IA1&dq=American+Hebrew+Prejudices+against+the+Jews+survey+Capen+Tufts&source=bl&ots=u8w2OFLKfS&sig=ACfU3U3U3A6oAeOFAmYCEzFxugV3AbcxxQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwwufLucnlAhURjVkKHSfVCPAQ6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Critic, Google Books</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1890, observing a spike in anti-Semitism that saw Jews excluded from summer resorts, blackballed as members of private clubs and denied admission to private schools, the editors of the New York Jewish newspaper the American Hebrew asked more than 50 clergy, college presidents, lawyers and politicians about <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rG8fAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA176-IA1&lpg=PA176-IA1&dq=American+Hebrew+Prejudices+against+the+Jews+survey+Capen+Tufts&source=bl&ots=u8w2OFIQmO&sig=ACfU3U3EF7FkU3p5uOVGGTiU5m0MIv9Xuw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl6O7ysMnlAhWDrFkKHX81APQQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=American%20Hebrew%20Prejudices%20against%20the%20Jews%20survey%20Capen%20Tufts&f=false">“Prejudices Against the Jews.”</a> They then published the responses.</p>
<p>Tufts College President E.N. Capen declared: The Jews could never “assimilate like other aliens; they are always Hebrew … They never can be Americans, pure and simple.” His was not the only response to state starkly that the Jews remained a nation within a nation.</p>
<p>After the state of Israel was established in 1948, its Prime Minister <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Mv2mjlwnR-0C&lpg=PA46&ots=cGbfeYwVMv&dq=%E2%80%9CThe%20Jews%20of%20the%20United%20States%2C%20as%20a%20community%20and%20as%20individuals%2C%20have%20only%20one%20political%20attachment%20and%20that%20is%20to%20the%20United%20States%20of%20America.%22&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CThe%20Jews%20of%20the%20United%20States,%20as%20a%20community%20and%20as%20individuals,%20have%20only%20one%20political%20attachment%20and%20that%20is%20to%20the%20United%20States%20of%20America.%22&f=false">David Ben-Gurion declared</a>: “The Jews of the United States, as a community and as individuals, have only one political attachment and that is to the United States of America. They owe no political allegiance to Israel.”</p>
<p>In charging Jews who vote for the Democratic Party – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/03/24/why-most-american-jews-vote-for-democrats-explained/">as the majority of American Jews do</a> – with disloyalty to their people and Israel, President Trump turns that principle on its head. </p>
<p>Once again an old charge is voiced. Jews can never be fully Americans. Their loyalty to the Jewish people and to Israel trumps their loyalty to America. </p>
<p>With anti-Semitism today bombarding American Jews from the right and the left, the moment appears new, but its language is not. It’s a very old theme.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pamela S. Nadell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A task force has been assembled in the US Senate to fight anti-Semitism. A specialist in Jewish-American history says the group has a big job ahead of it. Anti-Semitism has a long history in the US.
Pamela S. Nadell, Professor and Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's & Gender History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program, American University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/114496
2019-08-26T13:40:02Z
2019-08-26T13:40:02Z
Why Trump’s tweets on Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib go into the heart of American Jewish politics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289287/original/file-20190823-170956-1p5umbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Trump recently pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to block the entry of two congresswomen to Israel.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Israel-Trump/26e5341d3ad34384b4ea4200ed2374f3/23/0">AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Trump recently asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deny entry to two Democratic congresswomen planning to visit Israel. Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, Trump claimed, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1162000480681287683">“hate Israel and all Jewish people.”</a> </p>
<p>Within a few hours, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/world/middleeast/trump-israel-omar-tlaib.html">the Israeli prime minister banned the representatives</a>. </p>
<p>Subsequently, Trump questioned how any Democrat could “defend these two people over the state of Israel,” invoking a theme he hammered on in tweets for a week about American Jews’ political loyalties to Israel. Trump went on to suggest that any <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/us/politics/trump-jewish-voters.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">“Jewish people that vote for a Democrat” show “great disloyalty,”</a> presumably to Israel. </p>
<p><a href="https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/portfolio/noam-pianko/">As a scholar of American Jewish history</a>, I view Trump’s tweets as invoking one of the most glaring anti-Semitic tropes in the modern West. </p>
<h2>Zionism and American liberalism</h2>
<p>To understand the historical context of Trump’s tweets about the congresswomen and American Jewish “disloyalty,” let’s look back to the early 20th-century roots of American Zionism.</p>
<p>Zionism is the belief that Jews are a national group who have a right to a territorial homeland. <a href="http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/28430">This ideology presented a challenge</a> to American Jews during the first half of the 20th century. </p>
<p>As an immigrant group struggling for acceptance in the U.S., Jews worried that embracing a national identity with ties to a foreign homeland would lead to accusations of disloyalty.</p>
<p>To address this concern, early Zionist leaders equated Jewish nationalism with the spread of American political ideals of equality, <a href="http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/28430">justice and ethno-religious tolerance</a>. </p>
<p>For example, Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court justice and leader of the Zionist Organization of America from 1914 to 1916, argued that “Zionism is consistent with American patriotism” because “America’s fundamental law seeks to make real <a href="https://louisville.edu/law/library/special-collections/the-louis-d.-brandeis-collection/the-jewish-problem-how-to-solve-it-by-louis-d.-brandeis">the brotherhood of man</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289282/original/file-20190823-170927-1usda5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289282/original/file-20190823-170927-1usda5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289282/original/file-20190823-170927-1usda5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289282/original/file-20190823-170927-1usda5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289282/original/file-20190823-170927-1usda5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=671&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289282/original/file-20190823-170927-1usda5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=671&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289282/original/file-20190823-170927-1usda5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=671&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacob Blaustein, left, honorary president of the American Jewish Committee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/18987a5547e4da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once the state of Israel was established, American Jewish leaders held it accountable to American liberal political and religious sensibilities. American Jewish Committee President Jacob Blaustein, for example, articulated a clear precondition for American Jewish support in 1950. </p>
<p>“Israel has a responsibility,” Blaustein declared to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, “in terms of not affecting adversely the sensibilities of Jews who are citizens of other states by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-3QVAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Speech,+and+Its+Context:+Jacob+Blaustein%27s+Speech+the+Meaning+of+Palestine+Partition+to+American+Jews+Given+to+the&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjh-ZOR4pXkAhXDl54KHcYdBuMQ6wEwAHoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=The%20Speech%2C%20and%20Its%20Context%3A%20Jacob%20Blaustein's%20Speech%20the%20Meaning%20of%20Palestine%20Partition%20to%20American%20Jews%20Given%20to%20the&f=false">what it says or does</a>.” </p>
<p>A few years later, Joseph P. Sternstein, who served as president of the Zionist Organization of America from 1974 to 1978, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Zionism-Diagnosis-Joseph-Sternstein/dp/B0007GMWTO">put it more bluntly</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We will decide, and, if necessary, we shall have to tell them where they are wrong and where they are right.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the decades following the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel, most American Jews <a href="http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/28430">embraced Zionism as an extension of American liberalism. </a></p>
<h2>American Jewish politics</h2>
<p>In the mid-1970s, a competing understanding of the relationship between American Jews and the State of Israel emerged. The competition came from the response to the liberal politics of the era.</p>
<p>Some Jews involved with anti-Vietnam War protests and civil rights activism in the U.S. believed that they should apply the same anti-imperial and anti-racist political values to Israel’s role as <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/torn-at-the-roots/9780231123754">an occupying force</a> in the West Bank and Gaza, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/94906/j-streets-forerunner">Breira, the group they formed in 1973</a>, argued that Jews should challenge Israeli policy publicly as Zionists committed to a <a href="https://ajpeacearchive.org/initiatives/breira-a-project-of-concern-in-diaspora-israel-relations-1973-1978/">Jewish and democratic state</a>. </p>
<p>In 1977, a broad coalition of leading American Jewish communal organizations attacked Breira for their public criticism of Israeli policies and support for negotiations with Palestinian leadership. The tremendous communal pressure to silence Breira’s efforts to change Israeli policy in the West Bank contributed to the dissolution of the group <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/why-breira/">later that year</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289285/original/file-20190823-170906-eqqi3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289285/original/file-20190823-170906-eqqi3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289285/original/file-20190823-170906-eqqi3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289285/original/file-20190823-170906-eqqi3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289285/original/file-20190823-170906-eqqi3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289285/original/file-20190823-170906-eqqi3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289285/original/file-20190823-170906-eqqi3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Podhoretz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-APHS145395-Norman-Podhoretz/dfa2ecd59b6642518b88a441f6a2656a/5/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Breira incident marked an early example of a reorientation of American Jewish politics. Increasingly, some American Jewish leaders challenged the legitimacy of voicing dissenting opinions about Israel, especially those associated with <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/breira-pro-and-con/">progressive political movements</a>. </p>
<p>The influential founder of the neo-Conservative movement and editor of Commentary magazine, Norman Podhoretz, used the Breira incident to question the alignment between <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/why-breira/">American Jews, Zionism and liberalism</a>. </p>
<p>In July 1976, <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-abandonment-of-israel/">Podhoretz wrote in Commentary</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There is a reluctance among some of Israel’s friends to describe the hostility to Israel in certain circles as anti-Semitic … a reluctance based on the desire to see the Arab-Israeli conflict as a conventional international dispute amenable to resolution by conventional diplomatic means.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Podhoretz, left-leaning American Jews failed to recognize that anti-Semitism energized global hostility toward Israel.</p>
<p>Podhoretz feared American Jewish criticism of Israel fueled by the political left could provide ammunition for prejudiced attacks on the Jewish State’s legitimacy. </p>
<p>The safety of the American Jewish community thus rested on conservative defenders of the State of Israel against critics from the left side of the political spectrum attempting to <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-delegitimation-of-israel/">“delegitimize Israel.”</a> </p>
<p>Observers starting in the late 1970s, such as scholar <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479885855/jacob-neusner/">Jacob Neusner</a>, named this approach “Israelism” to emphasize the shift toward elevating Israel as the “central interpretative principle by which American Jews <a href="http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=365542">view Jewish realities</a>.” </p>
<p>To these Jewish leaders, being an American Jew meant having a primary focus on defending the state of Israel. While there had always been a diversity of views about the role of Israel in American Jewish life, the organized communal efforts raised the safeguarding of Israel to a unifying priority. And it influenced commentators to give name to a new phenomenon. </p>
<p>Opponents of Israelism perceived themselves as continuing the American Jewish tradition of challenging Israeli policies that threatened to undermine the shared liberal ideals <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/torn-at-the-roots/9780231123754">of Zionism and Americanism.</a> </p>
<p>From their earliest confrontations in the 1970s, Zionism and Israelism mapped disagreements about American Jewish relationships with Israel roughly along the emerging political divide between liberalism and conservatism in post-Vietnam U.S. context. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, American Jewish leaders over the last three decades have focused on engendering a broad unified “apolitical” tent within the Jewish community. This broad frame has kept a fragile lid on the simmering tensions arising between these streams of Jewish, and American, <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-israel-turns-70-many-young-american-jews-turn-away-95271">political thought</a>. </p>
<h2>Resurfacing of an old trope</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289127/original/file-20190822-170910-13sfkz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289127/original/file-20190822-170910-13sfkz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289127/original/file-20190822-170910-13sfkz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289127/original/file-20190822-170910-13sfkz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289127/original/file-20190822-170910-13sfkz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289127/original/file-20190822-170910-13sfkz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289127/original/file-20190822-170910-13sfkz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who were denied entry during a recent visit to Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Israel-Netanyahu-s-Gambit/48e252ad80254bcf958298baf1dd6c19/2/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The president’s recent tweets have capitalized on the tension embedded within these two paradigms of the place of Israel in American Jewish life to create a partisan wedge issue.</p>
<p>Trump accomplishes this by pushing Israelism’s assumptions to extreme conclusions. </p>
<p>The accusation that Jews are “disloyal” for not supporting Israel corresponds to Israelism’s argument that American Jews elevate defending Israel to a primary communal political commitment.</p>
<p>The indictment that Omar and Tlaib hate Jews draws out the argument that anti-Semitism motivates progressive attacks on Israel’s legitimacy. </p>
<p>Therefore, Trump argues, American Jews loyal to Israel and their Jewish commitments should support the Republican party and repudiate the Democrats. Trump’s embrace of arguments Israelism introduced to protect Israel has thus generated a surprisingly new variation of an old anti-Semitic trope. </p>
<p>As so often has happened in the history of anti-Semitism, Jews, I believe, once again face accusations for their perceived leadership role on opposite sides of the political spectrum. </p>
<p>Jews can be attacked by progressive voices as disloyal Americans for supporting Israel against their democratic political priorities in the United States. Or, they can be attacked by Trump and his allies for supporting Democrats against their perceived monolithic communal support for Israel. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noam Pianko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
President Trump has said American Jews loyal to Israel should support the Republican Party. A scholar explains the historical tensions embedded in the anti-Semitic trope.
Noam Pianko, Professor, University of Washington
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/116941
2019-05-19T17:10:41Z
2019-05-19T17:10:41Z
There is more than one religious view on abortion - here’s what Jewish texts say
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275205/original/file-20190517-69199-pihxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey discusses a bill that would virtually outlaw abortion in the state.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Abortion-Alabama/750adb6ccd4940c8babeb6ec2986ac67/7/0">AP Photo/Blake Paterson</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on September 7, 2021. <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-does-life-begin-theres-more-than-one-religious-view-167241">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>Alabama’s governor signed a bill recently that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/politics/alabama-governor-signs-bill/index.html">criminalizes nearly all abortions</a>, threatening providers with a felony conviction and up to 99 years in prison. </p>
<p>It is one of numerous efforts across the United States to restrict access to abortion and challenge the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/">Roe v. Wade</a> that legalized abortion nationwide. </p>
<p>Six states <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/which-states-have-passed-six-week-abortion-bans.html">have recently passed legislation</a> that limit abortions to approximately six weeks after the end of a woman’s last period, before many know they are pregnant. Although the laws have not yet taken effect and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/26/health/heartbeat-bills-abortion-bans-history/index.html">several have been blocked</a> on constitutional grounds, if enacted they would prohibit most abortions once a doctor can hear rhythmic electrical impulses in the developing fetus.</p>
<p>Called “fetal heartbeat” bills, they generally refer to the fetus as an “<a href="http://f2a.org/images/Model_Heartbeat_Bill_Apr._2019_version.pdf">unborn human individual</a>.” It is a strategic choice, trying to establish <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-personhood-movement-timeline">fetal personhood</a>, but it also reveals assumptions about human life beginning at conception that are based on particular Christian teachings.</p>
<p><a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/04/when-does-life-begin-outside-the-christian-right-the-answer-is-over-time.html">Not all Christians agree</a>, and diverse religious traditions have a great deal to say about this question that gets lost in the polarized “pro-life” or “pro-choice” debate. As an advocate of reproductive rights, I have taken a side. Yet as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9KgEkVUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of Jewish Studies</a>, I appreciate how rabbinic sources grapple with the complexity of the issue and offer <a href="https://forward.com/life/faith/406465/what-youre-getting-wrong-about-abortion-and-judaism/">multiple perspectives</a>. </p>
<h2>What Jewish texts say</h2>
<p>Traditional Jewish practice is based on careful reading of biblical and rabbinic teachings. The process yields <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Halakha">“halakha,”</a> generally translated as “Jewish law” but deriving from the Hebrew root for walking a path.</p>
<p>Even though many Jews do not feel bound by “halakha,” the value it attaches to ongoing study and reasoned argument fundamentally shapes Jewish thought. </p>
<p>The majority of foundational Jewish texts assert that a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xh9vy_dvO6YC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=absence%20of%20the%20%22full%20person%22%20status&f=false">fetus does not attain the status of personhood until birth</a>.</p>
<p>Although the Hebrew Bible does not mention abortion, it does talk about miscarriage in Exodus <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/rsv/exodus/21.html">21:22-25</a>. It imagines the case of men fighting, injuring a pregnant woman in the process. If she miscarries but suffers no additional injury, the penalty is a fine. </p>
<p>Since the death of a person would be murder or manslaughter, and carry a different penalty, most rabbinic sources deduce from these verses that a fetus has a different status. </p>
<p>An early, authoritative rabbinic work, the Mishnah, discusses the question of a <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Oholot.7.6?lang=bi">woman in distress during labor</a>. If her life is at risk, the fetus must be destroyed to save her. Once its head starts to emerge from the birth canal, however, it becomes a human life, or “nefesh.” At that point, according to Jewish law, one must try to save both mother and child. It prohibits setting aside one life for the sake of another.</p>
<p>Although this passage reinforces the idea that a fetus is not yet a human life, <a href="http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2010/No.%202/Abortion%20in%20Halakhic.pdf">some orthodox authorities</a> allow abortion only when the mother’s life is at risk. </p>
<p>Other Jewish scholars point to a different Mishnah passage that envisions the case of a pregnant woman <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Arakhin.1.4?lang=bi">sentenced to death</a>. The execution would not be delayed unless she has already gone into labor.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275207/original/file-20190517-69204-193eh8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jewish sources generally see the fetus as part of the mother.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Talmud_Set.png">User:Magister Scienta</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Talmud">Talmud</a>, an extensive collection of teachings building on the Mishnah, the rabbis suggest that the ruling is obvious: the fetus is <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Arakhin.7a?lang=bi">part of her body</a>. It also records an opinion that the fetus should be aborted before the sentence is carried out, so that the woman does <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Birth_Control_in_Jewish_Law/ZWQ0iIOUnaUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=precedent-narrative">not suffer further shame</a>.</p>
<p>Later commentators mention partial discharge of the fetus brought on by the execution as an example – but the passage’s focus on the needs of the mother can also broaden the circumstances for allowing abortion.</p>
<h2>Making space for divergent opinions</h2>
<p>These teachings represent only a small fraction of Jewish interpretations. To discover “what Judaism says” about abortion, the standard approach is to <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/58044.26?lang=bi">study a variety of contrasting texts</a> that explore diverse perspectives.</p>
<p>Over the centuries, rabbis have addressed cases related to potentially deformed fetuses, pregnancy as the result of rape or adultery, and other heart-wrenching decisions that women and families have faced. </p>
<p>In contemporary Jewish debate there are <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rIhh_Rx7utwC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=%22The+murder+of+an+unborn+child+is+classified+as+a+crime%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=GDVR3Ndm4V&sig=HIMz-n5TMbuAfO-joplDqYphCwc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjk5aCm5YDcAhVkrlkKHU7yAy0Q6AEIKTAA">stringent opinions</a> adopting the attitude that abortion is homicide – thus permissible only to save the mother’s life. And there are other <a href="http://rcrc.org/jewish/">lenient interpretations</a> broadly expanding justifications based on women’s well-being.</p>
<p>Yet the former usually cite contrary opinions, or even refer a questioner to inquire elsewhere. The latter still emphasize Judaism’s profound reverence for life.</p>
<p>According to the 2017 Pew survey, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/">83% of American Jews</a> believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abortion-in-jewish-thought/">All the non-orthodox movements</a> have statements supporting reproductive rights, and even <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abortion-in-jewish-thought/">ultra-orthodox leaders</a> have resisted anti-abortion measures that do not allow religious exceptions. </p>
<p>This broad support, I argue, reveals the <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/393168/why-are-jews-so-pro-choice/">Jewish commitment to the separation of religion and state</a> in the U.S., and a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-law-and-religion/article/her-pain-prevails-and-her-judgment-respectedabortion-in-judaism/A9C998BF0AFB20EDC9152B6342A539B7">reluctance to legislate</a> moral questions for everyone when there is much room for debate.</p>
<p>There is more than one religious view on abortion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Mikva has contributed to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Planned Parenthood.</span></em></p>
An expert explains that many of the foundational Jewish texts assert that a fetus does not attain the status of personhood until birth.
Rachel Mikva, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, Chicago Theological Seminary
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113326
2019-03-19T23:01:18Z
2019-03-19T23:01:18Z
Young, Canadian and Jewish: The shift from religious to cultural identity
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264728/original/file-20190319-60995-1cskztb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Particularly for young Canadian Jews, a holiday meal achieves conviviality in the family and solidarity with the Jewish community, but its religious significance is less important than in the past.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Makom/Facebook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Jewish” used to be considered a religious category. However, for many Jews, that is changing. Increasingly, people who live outside of Israel and identify as Jewish think of themselves as members of an ethnic or cultural group. </p>
<p>For years, researchers have expressed concern that Jewish communities would assimilate and dissipate as religious identification waned. They pointed to intermarriage as an indicator of declining community cohesiveness. For example, they found that in the U.S., <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/">half of Jews who are married or in a common law relationship are partnered with non-Jews</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.environicsinstitute.org/">recent survey</a> reveals that something different is happening in Canada.</p>
<p>A shift from religious identification toward ethnic and cultural identification is taking place. However, the expected assimilation and dissipation of the community is less evident. The intermarriage rate in Canada is less than half that in the United States.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263243/original/file-20190311-86707-1jj8llx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263243/original/file-20190311-86707-1jj8llx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263243/original/file-20190311-86707-1jj8llx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263243/original/file-20190311-86707-1jj8llx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263243/original/file-20190311-86707-1jj8llx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263243/original/file-20190311-86707-1jj8llx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263243/original/file-20190311-86707-1jj8llx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The authors on their wedding day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our family certainly did not follow the path that many researchers anticipated. We got married in 1987. Rhonda converted to Judaism. Our three girls attended full-time Jewish schools. They became fluent in Hebrew to varying degrees. All of them partnered with Jewish men.</p>
<p>While we are both secular in orientation, Rhonda insists that we attend synagogue on occasion. She is the major force behind the organisation of activities and preparation of family meals to celebrate Jewish holidays.</p>
<p>We often wondered how common our story is. As senior sociologists in neighbouring Canadian universities, we decided to find out.</p>
<p>Last year we <a href="https://www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/project-documents/2018-survey-of-jews-in-canada/2018-survey-of-jews-in-canada---final-report.pdf?sfvrsn=2994ef6_2">conducted a survey</a> based on a representative sample of 2,335 Canadian Jewish adults in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver — home to 84 per cent of the Canadian Jewish population of about 392,000. Several surprises awaited us.</p>
<h2>A strong community</h2>
<p>The biggest news coming out of the survey is that the Canadian Jewish community remains highly cohesive. A much higher percentage of Canadian Jews than American Jews make financial donations to the Jewish community, send their children to full-time Jewish school, belong to a synagogue or other type of Jewish organisation and are strongly emotionally attached to Israel. Yet a smaller percentage of Canadian Jews than American Jews believes in God or a higher spirit and thinks that Jewishness is solely a matter of religion.</p>
<iframe title="Assimilation Indicators: Canadian and American Jews" aria-label="Long Table" id="datawrapper-chart-KounG" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KounG/3/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important;" height="468" width="100%"></iframe>
<p>It is especially among young adults that the religious basis of Jewishness seems to be weakening.</p>
<p>When asked to report whether being Jewish is, for them, mainly a matter of religion, culture or ancestry, young adults are less likely than older adults to choose religion alone.</p>
<p>For these young people, Jewishness is often expressed in their community involvement. Younger Jews are about as active as older Jews on most indicators of community involvement. They are more likely to belong to a Jewish organisation other than a synagogue, light Sabbath candles weekly and donate to Jewish causes.</p>
<p>However, for them, such practices seem to be chiefly a means of achieving conviviality in the family and, beyond that, solidarity with the larger Jewish community. </p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/millennials-abandon-hope-for-religion-but-revere-human-rights-90537">Millennials abandon hope for religion but revere human rights</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>One interpretation of these findings is that Canadian Jews, particularly young adults, are finding ways of remaining Jewish that are not principally religious. A shift away from religious identification is taking place in other Jewish diaspora communities too, but its replacement by community involvement does not seem to be happening to the same extent.</p>
<h2>Canadian exceptionalism?</h2>
<p>There are three main reasons why community involvement is substantially stronger in Canada than in the United States.</p>
<p>First, immigration has been proportionately stronger in Canada than in the U.S. since the Second World War. Consequently, 30 per cent of Canadian Jews are immigrants compared to just 14 per cent of American Jews. Canadians therefore tend to have stronger ties to “old country” traditions and languages than do American Jews.</p>
<p>Second, Americans Jews developed a stronger national identity than Canadians did, partly because the U.S. was settled earlier and therefore had more time for a national identity to crystallize. In addition, American national identity was forged in an anti-colonial war (always a great unifier), while Canadian national identity emerged gradually with the peaceful evolution of independence from Great Britain. </p>
<p>Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish homeland, appeared on the scene in the late 19th century. It conflicted with American patriotism, particularly for Reform Jews, members of the country’s largest Jewish denomination. Most Reform Jews thought Jewishness should be based on religion, not a national movement. </p>
<p>Not so in Canada, where the Reform movement was weak. By the beginning of the First World War, Zionism was a core element of Jewish identity for the great majority of Canadian Jews. It thus helped to keep the forces of assimilation at bay. It did so by providing a new basis for Jewish identification that became even more compelling after the Holocaust.</p>
<p>The third main reason for Canadian-Jewish exceptionalism is that, out of political necessity, fostering the growth of ethnic institutions has been Canadian public policy since the British conquest of New France in 1760. </p>
<p>Part of the British strategy for dominating the French population was not to quash French Catholic culture, but to help the conservative Catholic Church maintain religious, educational and cultural control.</p>
<p>Two centuries later, shortly after Canada was proclaimed a bilingual and bicultural country, numerous ethnic groups objected that they, too, deserve official recognition and funding. The era of <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-18.7/page-1.html">multiculturalism</a> had arrived. For the past half century, strong state support for ethnic institutions has helped all Canadians, Jews among them, to ward off assimilation.</p>
<p>American and Canadian Jews do not differ in all respects. One similarity is the tendency for older Jews in both countries to be more likely than younger Jews to say that caring for Israel is an essential part of being Jewish. </p>
<p>A similar difference between young and old shows up in both countries when Jews are asked about the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Younger Jews are more likely to regard them as illegal by international law. If younger North American Jews are less emotionally attached to Israel than are older members of the community, that may be because they are more likely to disagree with Israel’s policy on the construction of West Bank settlements.</p>
<h2>One in three often experience discrimination</h2>
<p>Finally, we note a discontinuity of outlook between Canadian Jews and non-Jews. </p>
<p>One in three Canadian Jews believe that Jews often experience discrimination in Canada. In contrast, just one in eight members of the Canadian population at large shares that opinion. </p>
<p>This difference may be due largely to the tendency of non-Jewish Canadians to think of discrimination as mainly a socio-economic phenomenon, while Jewish Canadians tend to think of anti-Jewish discrimination as an ideological matter.</p>
<p>Canadian Jews are not underprivileged. About 80 per cent of Jewish adults between the ages of 25 and 64 have at least a bachelor’s degree. That compares to about 30 per cent of people in that age cohort in the population at large.</p>
<p>However, when Jews think of anti-Jewish discrimination, they have in mind being called offensive names, being snubbed in social settings or being criticised for supporting the existence of a Jewish state.</p>
<p>Of course, we cannot be completely certain of the validity of our findings.</p>
<p>For example, although our generalizations about the relationship between age and community involvement apply across the entire age range, we found it comparatively difficult to recruit 18-to-29-year-old respondents.</p>
<p>It is therefore possible that the youngest cohort in our sample overrepresents highly involved individuals. In that case, the most important relationship we discovered may be a bit weaker than we report. Only more research can discover whether that is the case.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Brym receives funding from the UJA Federation of Toronto, Federation CJA (Montreal), the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, and the Anne Tannenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhonda Lenton receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>
A new survey of Canadian Jew suggests young adults are finding ways of remaining Jewish that are not principally religious.
Robert Brym, SD Clark Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
Rhonda Lenton, Professor of Sociology, President and Vice-Chancellor, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107676
2018-12-05T11:41:35Z
2018-12-05T11:41:35Z
What Hanukkah’s portrayal in pop culture means to American Jews
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248842/original/file-20181204-34157-jbguce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hanukkah demands fewer religious rituals than most other Jewish observances.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/three-generation-jewish-family-lighting-chanukah-61230784?src=-i6Vd57GC-Gl7WVXZ1Nksw-1-53">Golden Pixels LLC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I was growing up in suburban New York, Hanukkah was not grounded in religious observance. Having no clue that there are traditional Hebrew blessings that accompany the kindling of the Hanukkah candles, we invented our own wishes, awkwardly voiced out loud, for happiness and peace.</p>
<p>Then again, the festival of Hanukkah demands the performance of fewer religious rituals than most other Jewish observances. Even the most pious Jews do not take off from work during the eight-day festival. After all, the holiday is never mentioned in the Bible, since the events that it commemorates occurred hundreds of years after the Bible was written. </p>
<p>Today, this minor festival of Hanukkah has become supersized into a Jewish version of Christmas – a time for family gatherings, gift-giving and festivity. But it is through pop culture that Jews have found their own identity, in which they can take pride.</p>
<h2>Hanukkah in America</h2>
<p>The true story of Hanukkah is of a conflict <a href="https://jps.org/books/jerusalem/">between two different groups of Jews</a> – those who were eager to become part of the Hellenistic culture represented by the Syrian-Greeks against a band of zealots called the Maccabees, who sought to maintain Jewish rites. </p>
<p>Today, in the U.S., however, <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/">only 15 percent of American Jews</a> view their Jewish identity as rooted in religion. And for many American Jews, aspects of Hanukkah that are most attractive tend to be those that mirror what many other Americans are doing at this time of year – <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">such as celebrating Christmas</a>. </p>
<p>As some economists have pointed out, Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that is <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Eleinav/pubs/EJ2010.pdf">celebrated much more widely</a> among American Jews who have children. Notably, Jews who live in Christian majority areas, end up spending more on Hanukkah gifts than those who reside in mostly Jewish neighborhoods. By contrast, Hanukkah in Israel <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Eleinav/pubs/EJ2010.pdf">is not as significant.</a> </p>
<h2>Hanukkah in pop culture</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, American Jews have carved out a place for Hanukkah in pop culture. </p>
<p>Seeing their own group depicted in pop culture has been an important source of pride for American Jews throughout the last century, as I observed in my book on <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/in-their-own-image/9780813538099">Jewish vaudeville, theater and film</a>.</p>
<p>Jewish comedians over the last few decades <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/a-kosher-christmas/9780813553801">have mined humor</a> from the need that Jews have to feel that their minority identity is still a meaningful and salient one, even while poking gentle fun at Christmas.</p>
<p>An example is that of comedian Jon Lovitz’s Hanukkah Harry premiered on “Saturday Night Live” in 1989. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MXtGYwY_D7o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hanukkah Harry.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a gray-bearded, ultra-Orthodox Jewish character, Hanukkah Harry fills in for an ailing Santa to deliver presents on Christmas Eve only to face disappointment from Christian children when they receive chocolate coins and dreidels, a Hanukkah spinning top, which seem paltry and foreign to them.</p>
<p>And another comedian, Adam Sandler, whose <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUCNAnp2QAI">“Hanukkah Song”</a> was first performed on “Saturday Night Live” in 1994, reminds Jews that they have their own holiday in which they can take pride. “When you feel like the only kid in town without a Christmas tree,” the song starts off, “here’s a list of people who are Jewish just like you and me,” and then provides a humorous list of celebrities who are at least partly Jewish in ancestry, from Kirk Douglas to Dinah Shore. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qUCNAnp2QAI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The song has been watched almost 5 million times on YouTube.</p>
<h2>Jewish role in secularizing Christmas</h2>
<p>Some scholars suggest that before making Hanukkah into an essentially non-religious celebration, Jews had already “secularized” Christmas. </p>
<p>Music scholar <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/99513/a-fine-romance-by-david-lehman/9780805242713">David Lehman</a>, for example, writes that Christmas “became a secular holiday” thanks to the efforts of composer Irving Berlin, a Russian Jewish immigrant whose “White Christmas” unified Americans during the Second World War. Its lyrics about “sleigh bells in the snow” appealed to common feelings of nostalgia toward hearth and home.</p>
<p>Indeed, a <a href="http://riddlefilms.com/portfolio-item/the-jews-who-wrote-christmas/">new documentary</a> from Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein also shows the role of Jewish songwriters in recreating Christmas as a secular holiday. The majority of iconic Christmas carols, from “The Christmas Song,” about chestnuts roasting on an open fire, to “Silver Bells,” were written by Jews. These songs de-emphasized the religious aspects of the holiday and turned it into a celebration of cold weather, family and simple pleasures. </p>
<p>Even “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” can be seen as a song about an outsider who, without losing what what makes him distinct, manages to join the in-crowd, just as Jews themselves did in America. </p>
<h2>Connecting to other Jews</h2>
<p>In the end, the contemporary celebration of Hanukkah does not tend to hinge on the need to reclaim a distinctive religious practice. Instead, it centers on recapturing a sense of connection to other Jews.</p>
<p>This Hanukkah, I will celebrate the holiday with my wife and children by lighting the menorah and chanting the Hebrew blessings – which I finally learned.</p>
<p>The real highlight, however, will not be the religious aspects, which are pretty thin, but the gustatory pleasure of the thick, sizzling potato latkes, waiting to be covered with sour cream or apple sauce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Merwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Despite the primacy of Christmas in American culture, the visibility of Hanukkah in pop culture reminds Jews that they have their own holiday in which they can take pride.
Ted Merwin, Part-Time Associate Professor of Religion, Dickinson College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106426
2018-12-02T15:29:11Z
2018-12-02T15:29:11Z
How Hanukkah came to America
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248046/original/file-20181129-170253-111de2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the United States, Hanukkah has gained much significance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/grandmother-grandfather-grandparents-embrace-their-grandson-543199741?src=-i6Vd57GC-Gl7WVXZ1Nksw-1-75">Tercer Ojo Photography/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hanukkah may be the best known Jewish holiday in the United States. But despite its popularity in the U.S., Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, and nowhere else does it garner such attention. The holiday is mostly a domestic celebration, although special holiday prayers also expand synagogue worship.</p>
<p>So how did Hanukkah attain its special place in America?</p>
<h2>Hanukkah’s back story</h2>
<p>The word “Hanukkah” means dedication. It commemorates the rededicating of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C. when Jews – led by a band of brothers called the Maccabees – <a href="https://jps.org/books/jerusalem">tossed out statues of Hellenic gods</a> that had been placed there by King Antiochus IV when he conquered Judea. Antiochus aimed to plant Hellenic culture throughout his kingdom, and that included worshipping its gods. </p>
<p>Legend has it that during the dedication, as people prepared to light the Temple’s large oil lamps to signify the presence of God, only a tiny bit of holy oil could be found. Yet, that little bit of oil remained alight for eight days until more could be prepared. Thus, each Hanukkah evening, for eight nights, Jews light a candle, adding an additional one as the holiday progresses throughout the festival. </p>
<h2>Hanukkah’s American story</h2>
<p>Today, America is home to <a href="http://ajpp.brandeis.edu">almost 7 million Jews</a>. But Jews did not always find it easy to be Jewish in America. Until the late 19th century, America’s Jewish population was very small and grew to only as many as 250,000 in 1880. The basic goods of Jewish religious life – such as kosher meat and candles, Torah scrolls, and Jewish calendars – were often hard to find.</p>
<p>In those early days, major Jewish religious events took special planning and effort, and minor festivals like Hanukkah <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/search/node/american%20judaism">often slipped by unnoticed</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">My own study of American Jewish history</a> has recently focused on Hanukkah’s development. </p>
<p>It <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Isaac-Harby-of-Charleston-1788-1828,621.aspx">began with a simple holiday hymn</a> written in 1840 by Penina Moise, a Jewish Sunday school teacher in Charleston, South Carolina. Her evangelical Christian neighbors worked hard to bring the local Jews into the Christian fold. They urged Jews to agree that only by becoming Christian could they attain God’s love and ultimately reach Heaven. </p>
<p>Moise, a famed poet, saw the holiday celebrating dedication to Judaism as an occasion to inspire Jewish dedication despite Christian challenges. Her congregation, Beth Elohim, publicized the hymn by including it in their hymnbook. </p>
<p>This English language hymn expressed a feeling common <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Isaac-Harby-of-Charleston-1788-1828,621.aspx">to many American Jews</a> living as a tiny minority. “Great Arbiter of human fate whose glory ne'er decays,” <a href="https://hymnary.org/hymn/HAJW1887/118">Moise began the hymn</a>, “To Thee alone we dedicate the song and soul of praise.” </p>
<p>It became a favorite among American Jews and could be heard in congregations around the country for another century. </p>
<p>Shortly after the Civil War, Cincinnati Rabbi Max Lilienthal <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/max-lilienthal">learned about special Christmas events for children</a> held in some local churches. To adapt them for children in his own congregation, he created a Hanukkah assembly where the holiday’s story was told, blessings and hymns were sung, candles were lighted and sweets were distributed to the children. </p>
<p>His friend, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, created a similar event for his own congregation. Wise and Lilienthal edited national Jewish magazines where they publicized these innovative Hanukkah assemblies, encouraging other congregations to establish their own. </p>
<p>Lilienthal and Wise also aimed to reform Judaism, streamlining it and emphasizing the rabbi’s role as teacher. Because they felt their changes would help Judaism survive in the modern age, they called themselves <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">“Modern Maccabees</a>.” Through their efforts, special Hanukkah events for children became standard in American synagogues. </p>
<h2>20th-century expansion</h2>
<p>By 1900, industrial America produced the abundance of goods exchanged each Dec. 25. Christmas’ domestic celebrations and gifts to children <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/search?cc=us&lang=en&q=restad,%20penne">provided a shared religious experience to American Christians</a> otherwise separated by denominational divisions. As a home celebration, it sidestepped the theological and institutional loyalties voiced in churches. </p>
<p>For the 2.3 million Jewish immigrants who entered the U.S. between 1881 and 1924, providing their children with gifts in December proved they were <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/adapting-to-abundance/9780231068536">becoming American and obtaining a better life</a>. </p>
<p>But by giving those gifts at Hanukkah, instead of adopting Christmas, they also expressed their own ideals of American religious freedom, as well as their own dedication to Judaism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Hanukkah religious service and party in 1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/center_for_jewish_history/8232639754/">Center for Jewish History, NYC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After World War II, many Jews relocated from urban centers. Suburban Jewish children often comprised small minorities in public schools and found themselves <a href="http://www.adathjeshurun.info/Perspectives/Rabbinical_Perspective-12.2011-01.2012.pdf">coerced to participate in Christmas assemblies</a>. Teachers, administrators and peers often pressured them to sing Christian hymns and assert statements of Christian faith. </p>
<p>From the 1950s through the 1980s, as Jewish parents argued for their children’s right to freedom from religious coercion, they also <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">embellished Hanukkah</a>. Suburban synagogues expanded their Hanukkah programming. </p>
<p>As I detail in my book, Jewish families embellished domestic Hanukkah celebrations with decorations, nightly gifts and holiday parties to enhance Hanukkah’s impact. In suburbia, Hanukkah’s theme of dedication to Judaism shone with special meaning. Rabbinical associations, national Jewish clubs and advertisers of Hanukkah goods carried the ideas for expanded Hanukkah festivities nationwide. </p>
<p>In the 21st century, Hanukkah accomplishes many tasks. Amid Christmas, it reminds Jews of Jewish dedication. Its domestic celebration enhances Jewish family life. In its similarity to Christmas domestic gift-giving, Hanukkah makes Judaism attractive to children and – according to my college students – relatable to Jews’ Christian neighbors. In many interfaith families, this shared festivity furthers domestic tranquility. </p>
<p>In America, this minor festival has attained major significance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106426/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dianne Ashton received funding for her research on Hanukkah from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the American Jewish Archives, and Rowan University.</span></em></p>
Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, but its popularity in the US has a lot to do with America’s Jews trying to fight assimilation into a culture that welcomed them.
Dianne Ashton, Professor of Religion, Rowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106292
2018-11-29T11:38:34Z
2018-11-29T11:38:34Z
America’s dark history of organized anti-Semitism re-emerges in today’s far-right groups
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247822/original/file-20181128-32185-10asigc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue on Oct. 29, 2018, erected after a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the temple.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Shooting-Synagogue/fe959b47270c4213b8dc41e18b8c6daa/19/0">AP/Gene J. Puskar)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hours after Robert Bowers allegedly walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 people, investigators told the media that Bowers appeared to have acted alone and fit what experts call the “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/lonely-lone-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-suspects-apparently-isolated/story?id=58872568">lone mass shooter profile</a>.” </p>
<p>Weeks later, FBI agents arrested a Washington D.C. man who followed Bowers on social media. He had told relatives he wanted to pursue the same path and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/man-tied-to-synagogue-shooting-suspect-arrested/2018/11/14/56bc3c62-e821-11e8-8449-1ff263609a31_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b626a0c8cf5d">start “a race revolution</a>.” </p>
<p>Bowers may well have lived a solitary life, beyond his frequent presence on social media. Yet the fact that his violent act triggered a would-be emulator highlights an essential facet of prejudice – especially anti-Semitism. </p>
<p>As I show in my book, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250148957">“Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States,”</a> anti-Semitic violence is never solely the product of a single deluded mind, as the United States’ dark history of organized prejudice reveals. Instead, it is the product of a unique culture of hatred that originated in the mid-20th century and persists to this day. </p>
<p>This aspect of history is rarely found in textbooks. Yet it is critical to understand the continuing influence that homegrown, modern American anti-Semitism has had on the country’s history and continues to exert today.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pDJzAAicPfs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In 1939, Fritz Kuhn addressed 20,000 people at a Madison Square Garden rally celebrating Nazism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Local discrimination</h2>
<p>Some forms of American anti-Semitism have been examined and confronted. Many existed at the local level and had a major impact on Jewish communities all over the U.S. </p>
<p>For decades, restrictive covenants in home deeds <a href="https://www.mappingprejudice.org/what-are-covenants/">forbade Jews from buying homes in certain neighborhoods</a>. Some country clubs <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-08-12/news/vw-646_1_country-club">excluded Jews from membership</a> or <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/node/149688">even playing their courses as guests</a>. Some Ivy League universities set quotas <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12">limiting the number of Jewish students they would admit</a>.</p>
<p>These forms of personal, localized discrimination date back to the <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2012/07/01/The-Jews-of-early-America/stories/201207010164">earliest days of the American Republic</a> and persisted until relatively recently. Their decline can largely be traced to the passage and enforcement of anti-discrimination laws such as the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-act-of-1964.html">Civil Rights Act of 1964</a> and the <a href="https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/aboutfheo/history">Fair Housing Act of 1968</a>. </p>
<p>Other forms of anti-Semitism, however, have not disappeared as rapidly or completely. This is where the dark American history of organized anti-Semitism has particular relevance to the present day. </p>
<h2>Group prejudice</h2>
<p>A good starting point for understanding this past can be found in Donald S. Strong’s 1941 book <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000007962">“Organized Anti-Semitism in America: The Rise of Group Prejudice During the Decade 1930-40.”</a></p>
<p>Strong demonstrated that both anti-Semitic sentiment and the number of explicitly anti-Semitic groups increased rapidly during the Depression. Organized anti-Semitism, Strong argued, appeared in the U.S. only after World War I. Previous forms of the prejudice, he claimed, “had expressed itself primarily in terms of social discrimination” rather than through the creation of specifically anti-Semitic groups. </p>
<p>In other words, organized anti-Semitism in the United States was a purely 20th-century phenomenon. Strong claimed that between 1933 and 1941, a dozen new anti-Semitic organizations had been founded each year. </p>
<p>“The anti-semitic movement in the United States,” he presciently concluded, “can no longer be treated as if it were a transient phenomenon.” </p>
<p>The two most important groups Strong examined were the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-american-bund">German American Bund</a> and the <a href="http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS1.PDF">Silver Legion, also known as the Silver Shirts</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247824/original/file-20181128-32230-1aisrl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">German-American Bund parade in New York City in 1939.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/96520973/">New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Symbol was the swastika</h2>
<p>The Bund, founded in 1936, was theoretically a German-American heritage organization. In reality, its leader – a German immigrant and naturalized American named <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/jan/12/fritz-kuhn-fbi/">Fritz Kuhn</a> – chose the swastika as its symbol and insisted members, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/">including children in summer camps</a>, wear Nazi-style uniforms. </p>
<p>The group’s motto <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/23/nazi-german-american-bund-rally-madison-square-garden-215522">was “Free America,”</a> which its followers understood to be an America freed from supposed Jewish oppression. The Bund had dozens of local chapters and a following that Kuhn claimed <a href="http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/6-things-may-known-nazis-america/">exceeded 200,000</a> nationwide. Other contemporary estimates put it considerably lower.</p>
<p>Kuhn’s time as an aspiring American Hitler ended after a raucous mass <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/23/nazi-german-american-bund-rally-madison-square-garden-215522">rally in Madison Square Garden</a> in February 1939.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.albany.edu/talkinghistory/archivalaudio/nara-rg131-71-parts33-36-bund-fritz-kuhn-2-20-1939-(selection).mp3">Addressing the rally</a>, Kuhn declared that if George Washington had still been alive, he would be a Nazi. </p>
<p>Outraged at what he was hearing, a Jewish hotel worker, Isadore Greenbaum, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/17/when-american-nazis-rallied-in-manhattan-one-working-class-jewish-man-from-brooklyn-took-them-on/">rushed the stage</a> during Kuhn’s address and was badly beaten by Kuhn’s bodyguards. Outside the Garden, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/23/nazi-german-american-bund-rally-madison-square-garden-215522">Bund supporters clashed</a> with anti-Nazi demonstrators and police officers. </p>
<p>A post-rally investigation revealed that Kuhn’s interests lay beyond emulating Hitler. He had been skimming money from the Bund’s accounts for personal use. Kuhn was <a href="http://www.wfmz.com/features/historys-headlines/american-fuhrer-arrested-in-lehigh-valley-76-years-ago_2016053005443130/20862210">subsequently prosecuted, convicted</a> and <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=L48LAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GVUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5799,1832986&dq=fritz+kuhn&hl=en">eventually deported to West Germany</a> after the war. </p>
<h2>From screenwriter to anti-Semite</h2>
<p>Kuhn was not the only leader of organized anti-Semitism in this era. The Silver Legion was similar to the Bund and commanded a nationwide following. Its “Chief,” <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-screenwriting-mystic-who-wanted-be-american-fuhrer-180970449/">William Dudley Pelley</a>, was a former screenwriter who shared Kuhn’s dictatorial aspirations. </p>
<p>Like the Bund, the Legion was explicitly anti-Semitic and called for the <a href="http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS2.PDF">segregation of Jews into ghettos</a>. Silver Shirts across the country armed themselves, <a href="http://oddculture.com/silver-shirts-murphy-ranch-and-william-dudley-pelley/">trained for a race war</a> and encouraged Americans to “Buy Gentile.” </p>
<p>Also like Kuhn, Pelley was brought down by his own corruption. He had defrauded investors in a previous business venture to help fund the Legion. He was later indicted for sedition and would spend World War II <a href="http://digital-library.csun.edu/Backyard/sedition1.html">fighting a series of legal cases from behind bars</a>. </p>
<p>The movements both men built did not disappear with their incarceration, as <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/fritz-julius-kuhn">declassified FBI files show</a>. Certainly, their members did not simply cease to hold anti-Semitic views when their leaders were imprisoned. </p>
<h2>Where did they go?</h2>
<p>Historians know little about what happened to former Bund members and Silver Shirts after World War II. But <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/charles-e-coughlin">media figures of the Depression era like Father Charles Coughlin</a> – who had a radio audience in the tens of millions – also did much to popularize anti-Semitism. Recordings of Coughlin’s anti-Semitic radio broadcasts, along with Pelley’s writings, remain popular on far-right social media today.</p>
<p>As Strong recognized, the 20th century saw the emergence of a new and potentially violent anti-Semitism fundamentally based in Nazi-esque ideas and, in the 1930s, Hitler worship. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247831/original/file-20181128-32233-b8fu1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Dudley Pelley and members of the Silver Legion of America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The only recorded instance of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1983/12/20/leo-frank-and-the-winds-of-hate/cd999778-f44f-4f40-a483-8fbea9ec84c6/?utm_term=.1deb1fac6db3">Ku Klux Klan lynching a Jewish person – Leo Frank</a> – took place in 1915, as World War I raged in Europe. While the Klan had previously focused its ire on African-Americans and Catholics, the move to anti-Semitism updated its appeal to racists facing the changing world of the 20th century. </p>
<p>Frank’s lynching is generally considered <a href="https://timeline.com/when-a-jewish-man-was-lynched-for-murdering-a-little-girl-the-klan-was-reborn-a48d30374942">to have galvanized support for the previously declining group</a>. In other words, violent and organized anti-Semitism became one of the ideological underpinnings of this leading American radical right group. </p>
<p>It continues to underpin the ideology of radical right groups today. Like Robert Bowers, the anti-Semites of the 21st century prepare for racial warfare and rant about Jews “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/28/victims-expected-be-named-after-killed-deadliest-attack-jews-us-history/?utm_term=.5aee0b4dc907">committing genocide to my people</a>.” They are following directly in the footsteps of America’s 20th-century leaders of organized anti-Semitism. </p>
<h2>Past as prologue</h2>
<p>American anti-Semitism doesn’t just hurt Jews. Racial and religious prejudice of various sorts have proven corrosive to the American social fabric in the past, for instance, in the Jim Crow-era South, where racist laws denied African-Americans their civil rights. And the United States’s geopolitical rivals – Russia, for instance – view the inflammation of these tensions on social media as a means to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989">undermine the American political system</a>.</p>
<p>Historians and educators can ensure that this dark aspect of U.S. history is included in textbooks and wider cultural memory. By confronting America’s dark past of organized anti-Semitism, it may be possible to recognize it in the present and see it as a more common part of our culture than most Americans would like to acknowledge.</p>
<p>That recognition can lead, possibly, to escaping the shadow that the 1930s still cast over the country today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bradley W. Hart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
American anti-Semitism took an organized form in the 20th century. The German American Bund and the Silver Legion developed a unique culture of hatred for Jews that persists today in alt-right groups.
Bradley W. Hart, Assistant Professor of Media, Communications and Journalism, California State University, Fresno
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102146
2018-11-15T11:45:06Z
2018-11-15T11:45:06Z
Why are some Americans changing their names?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245384/original/file-20181113-194516-ugciht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For decades, native-born American Jews changed their names to improve their job prospects.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blue-hello-my-name-tag-1192768264?src=Cf8G7gyS1DirSsR7ws36FQ-1-37">Billion Photos/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2008, Newsweek published an article on then-presidential candidate Barack Obama titled “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/when-barry-became-barack-84255">From Barry to Barack</a>.”</p>
<p>The story explained how Obama’s Kenyan father, Barack Obama Sr., chose Barry as a nickname for himself in 1959 in order “to fit in.” But the younger Barack – who had been called Barry since he was a child – chose to revert to his given name, Barack, in 1980 as a college student coming to terms with his identity. </p>
<p>Newsweek’s story reflects a typical view of name changing: Immigrants in an earlier era changed their names to assimilate, while in our contemporary era of ethnic pride, immigrants and their children are more likely to retain or reclaim ethnic names. </p>
<p>However, my research on name changing suggests a more complicated narrative. For the past 10 years, I’ve studied thousands of name-changing petitions deposited at the New York City Civil Court from 1887 through today. </p>
<p>Those petitions suggest that name changing has changed significantly over time: While it was primarily Jews in the early to mid-20th century who altered their names to avoid discrimination, today it’s a more diverse group of people changing their names for a range of reasons, from qualifying for government benefits to keeping their families unified.</p>
<h2>Jews hope to improve their job prospects</h2>
<p>From the 1910s through the 1960s, the overwhelming majority of people petitioning to change their names weren’t immigrants seeking to have their names Americanized. </p>
<p>Instead, they were native-born American Jews who faced significant institutional discrimination. </p>
<p>In the 1910s and 1920s, many employers wouldn’t hire Jews, and universities began establishing quotas on Jewish applicants. One way to tell if someone was Jewish was his or her name, so it made sense that Jews would want to get rid of names that “sounded” Jewish. </p>
<p>As Dora Sarietzky, a stenographer and typist, <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479867202/">explained in her 1937 petition</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My name proved to be a great handicap in securing a position. … In order to facilitate securing work, I assumed the name Doris Watson.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since most petitioners were native-born Americans, this wasn’t about fitting in. It was a direct response to racism. </p>
<h2>The changing face of name changing</h2>
<p>While 80 percent of petitioners in 1946 sought to erase their ethnic names and replace them with more generic “American-sounding” ones, <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479867202/">only 25 percent of petitioners in 2002 did the same</a>. Meanwhile, few name changers in the past 50 years have actually made a decision like Barack Obama’s: Only about 5 percent of all name change petitions in 2002 sought a name more ethnically identifiable.</p>
<p>So why, in the 21st century, are people feeling compelled to change their names?</p>
<p>The demographics of name change petitioners today – and the reasons that they give – suggest a complicated story of race, class and culture. </p>
<p>Jewish names disappeared in the petitions over the last two decades of the 20th century. At the same time, the numbers of African-American, Asian and Latino petitioners rose dramatically after 2001. </p>
<p>On the one hand, this reflected the changing demographics of the city. But there was also a marked shift in the class of petitioners. While only 1 percent of petitioners in 1946 lived in a neighborhood with a median income below the poverty line, by 2012, 52 percent of petitioners lived in such a neighborhood. </p>
<h2>Navigating the bureaucracy</h2>
<p>These new petitioners aren’t seeking to improve their educational and job prospects in large numbers, like the Jews of the 1930s and 1940s.</p>
<p>Instead, today’s petitioners seem to be trying to match their names with those of other family members after a divorce, adoption or abandonment. Or they’re looking to fix bureaucratic errors in their records – the misspelled or mistaken names that were long ignored, but have increasingly become major problems in the 21st century.</p>
<p>In the wake of Sept. 11, the nation’s obsession with security translated to <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail/etc/fake.html">an increased anxiety surrounding identity documents</a>. This anxiety seems to have particularly burdened the poor, who now need the names on their birth certificates to match drivers’ licenses and other documents in order to get jobs or government benefits.</p>
<p>Roughly 21 percent of petitioners in 2002 sought to correct errors on their vital documents, while in 1942, only about 4 percent of petitions had been submitted to change a mistake on an identification document. </p>
<p>“When I apply for Medicare premium payment program,” <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479867202/">one petitioner explained in 2007</a>, “they denied it because my name doesn’t match my social security card.” </p>
<h2>Why change your name if it won’t help?</h2>
<p>There’s also another key difference between today and the early 20th century: limited upward mobility. </p>
<p>Even though <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873">multiple studies have shown</a> that people with African-American-sounding names are more likely to face job discrimination, poor African Americans in Brooklyn and the Bronx aren’t getting rid of their African-American-sounding names.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is because poor or working class people in 21st-century America <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/04/21/science.aan3264.full">have fewer possibilities for upward mobility</a> than there were for Jews in the 1940s working as clerks, salesmen and secretaries. </p>
<p>So even if having an ethnic-sounding name might hinder middle-class African Americans’ ability to find a better job, there’s less of an incentive for poor people of color to change their names.</p>
<h2>Racism against Arab-Americans</h2>
<p>There is one striking exception, and it demonstrates the powerful role discrimination continues to play in American society.</p>
<p>After Sept. 11, there was a surge of petitions from people with Arabic-sounding names. </p>
<p>Their petitions were achingly similar to those of Jews in the 1940s, though many of these newer petitioners were more open about the hatred they faced:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Prevailing attitudes and prejudices against persons of Arabic descendancy have been adversely affected as a direct result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,” one petitioner wrote. “Petitioner wishes to change his name to a less demonstratively Muslim/Arabic first name.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By 2012, however, petitioners with Muslim or Arabic names had stopped changing their names in large numbers. That probably doesn’t have anything to do with a more tolerant society. Instead, in 2009, the New York City Police Department <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-secret-files-muslims-change-names-sound-american-report-article-1.968327">began conducting surveillance</a> into New York’s Muslim and Arab communities using Civil Court name change petitions, sending the message that the act of changing your name might make you as much of a suspect as keeping it. </p>
<p>Although there has been substantial change in the name change petitions over the past 125 years, there’s one lasting lesson: Name changing is not a simple story. It hasn’t moved smoothly from an era in which immigrants simply wanted to fit in, to an era in which diversity is welcome.</p>
<p>Instead, name changing illustrates that racial hatred and suspicion have been a lasting presence in American history, and that intertwined definitions of race and class are hardening – and limiting – the opportunities of people of color.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsten Fermaglich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The demographics of name change petitioners today – and the reasons that they give – tell a complicated story of race, class and culture.
Kirsten Fermaglich, Associate Professor, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.