Since Peter Stuyvesant greeted with enmity the first group of Jews to arrive on the docks of New Amsterdam in 1654; Jews have entwined their fate and fortunes with that of the United States—a project marked by great struggle and great promise. What this interconnected destiny has meant for American Jews and how it has defined their experience among the world's Jews is fully chronicled in this work; a comprehensive and finely nuanced history of Jews in the United States from 1654 through the end of the past century. Hasia R. Diner traces Jewish participation in American history—from the communities that sent formal letters of greeting to George Washington; to the three thousand Jewish men who fought for the Confederacy and the ten thousand who fought in the Union army; to the Jewish activists who devoted themselves to the labor movement and the civil rights movement.Diner portrays this history as a constant process of negotiation; undertaken by ordinary Jews who wanted at one and the same time to be Jews and full Americans. Accordingly; Diner draws on both American and Jewish sources to explain the chronology of American Jewish history; the structure of its communal institutions; and the inner dynamism that propelled it. Her work documents the major developments of American Judaism—he economic; social; cultural; and political activities of the Jews who immigrated to and settled in America; as well as their descendants—and shows how these grew out of both a Jewish and an American context. She also demonstrates how the equally compelling urges to maintain Jewishness and to assimilate gave American Jewry the particular character that it retains to this day in all its subtlety and complexity.
#816976 in Books 2002-09-02 2002-09-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .50 x 6.00l; .66 #File Name: 0520235177212 pages
Review
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Profound and distinctBy Konrad RiggenmannIntrigued by the reports about surviving crypto Judaism published around the 500-year-anniversary of Columbus embarking for India in 1492; as well as by her father having told her that his mother was a Spanish Jew; Janet Liebman Jacobs around 1995 embarked on her own long research trip; differing in tools and viewpoint from other leading works about the subject and resulting in a very sensitive and profound investigation of the crypto-Jewish phenomenon: Profound and different not only since she includes the cross-fixed psychological reasons of Christian anti-Judaism; but also by her feminist view on “Woman and the Persistence of Culture†(chapter 2) and by the well selected personal statements of descendants who experienced that “their roots began to pull†(p.107).Is Jewish ancestry “in the bonesâ€? Without settling this question definitely (who could?) the author; based on self-in-relation-theory (chapter 3) gives sober hints about syncretism and faith-blending†(chapter 4); “Conversion and the Rekindling of the Jewish Soul†(chapter 5); the “Social Construction of Ethnic Identity†(chapter 6) and the “reinvention of the ethnic and religious self†as precious values to be found in one’s roots; be they African or Jewish. As one descendant (p.95) resumes: “I hate the symbol of the cross. To me it represents death. I hate that image of Jesus hanging on a piece of wood above the altar. To me; Jesus is like a family member; part of the tribe of Judah; like a cousin. That’s how I look at it; that I am related to the rabbi of Nazareth; that he is Jewish; and so I am.â€Janet Liebman Jacobs’ book is highly recommendable; not only for the following reason (p.139) giving by a New-Mexican descendant of fugitives from Spanish inquisition: “I went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington; and I kept thinking; if there had been something like this for the Inquisition; if we had remembered the Inquisition in this way; the Holocaust might never have happened.â€6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Hidden HeritageBy Lisa MThis book is a must read for anyone researching the inquisition ; hidden or secret/crypto Jews. Many first hand accounts (of the secret Jewish customs and traditions) passed down from generation to generation ;while the person often doing these customs is unaware that they are Jewish customs and traditions. This often sets a powder keg for the person; because when they find out what they are doing they are floored! Remarkable ; fascinating and exciting!9 of 9 people found the following review helpful. informativeBy Kenneth P. Carlsona well- written; erudite and informative work. Excellent insite to the motivation of the families of those coerced into a religion that was not of their choosing. Fascinated by the personal storiesand choives make by current descendants. Helped me to think through the processes of previous generations of those who chose marranism.
