wesfiles.wesleyan.edu  · Web view2016. 9. 13. · They landed in the Dutch colony New Amsterdam—later, rechristened New York—in 1654. Despite hardships and prejudices, Jews

HIST 210/AMST 223/CJST 210 Office: PAC 306Fall 2016 Office hours: Tues 3-4pm, Wed 10:30-11:30a.m. Ronald Schatz (860) 685-2384, [email protected]

Jews & America, 1492-2001

“Everyone over there can find salvation his own way. . . . Even if Europe should become a single prison there is still another loophole of escape, namely America, and thank you! The loophole is after all larger than the prison itself.”

– Heinrich Heine, 1839

Jews accompanied Christopher Columbus on his explorations in 1492 and have been living in the western hemisphere ever since then. They landed in the Dutch colony New Amsterdam—later, rechristened New York—in 1654.

Despite hardships and prejudices, Jews thrived in the English colonies and the United States. Unlike almost other immigrants to the U.S., relatively few Jews returned to their original homelands. Moreover, although the large majority of American Jews eventually became enthusiastic supporters of Zionism, few moved to the Jewish settlements in Palestine or Israel. Instead, the great majority became proud citizens and ardent defenders of the U.S.

Starting from quite modest circumstances, Jewish immigrants or their children typically rose to middle-class status, some even higher. Jews frequently became prominent in a wide range of fields including commerce, manufacturing, medicine, science, literature, theater, music, film, newspapers, radio and television. In the 1920s and 1930s there were quite a few Jewish professional boxers and basketball players, including many champions, but also good number of Jewish racketeers. And many of the sharpest radical critics of America emerged from the Jewish community, which itself was extremely contentious.

Thus the history of Jews in America is complex and significant. The course will investigate why Jews came to America and how they and their children adapted to their new home. It will explore the diversity of the Jews’ lives, work, perspectives, religious beliefs, and political views, and also their relations with others including Irish Catholics, African Americans, elite Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and Jews in other parts of the world. Finally, it will consider how Jews have influenced the American economy, politics, society, and culture. Although it will begin with the colonial era, the course will focus primarily on the 19th and especially the 20th centuries.

The readings will include historical scholarship, primary documents, and literature.

OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE:

a) To help students acquire greater understanding of American Jewish history and, because the subjects are interconnected, the history of Jews in other parts of the world and U.S. history generally; b) to help students learn how to interpret and discuss primary documents and conduct research.

READINGS:

The following titles will be available on reserve at Olin Library and also can be purchased at Broad Street Books and other booksellers.

Hasia R. Diner, A New Promised Land: A History of Jews in America (2000, 2003)Philip Roth, The Plot against America (2004) Jack Salzman and Cornell West, eds., Struggles in the Promised Land: Toward a History of Black-Jewish Relations in the United States (1997)Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, vols. 1 & 2 (1997)Gary Phillip Zola and Marc Dollinger, ed., American Jewish History: A Primary Source Reader (2014)

Assignments not listed above will be available at Olin Library’s reserve desk or on electronic reserve. REQUIREMENTS:

● Conscientious reading and regular attendance. ● A 750-word essay interpreting a document which will be handed out in class on September

15th and will be due via email by 10 a.m., Friday, September 23rd. ● A 1,500-word essay, interpreting a document handed out in class on October 27th and due by

email Friday, November 4th at 1 p.m.● A final exam or 10-12-page research essay due Wednesday, December 1pm —student’s

choice. If you opt for the essay, you have to submit a two-page proposal no later than Friday, November 4th noon and discuss the proposal with me. The final exam will be on the date and time scheduled by the Registrar’s Office.

Course grade will be based on class participation (25%), first essay (15%), mid-term essay (25%); and the final essay or final exam (35%).

Grades will be lower for students who miss more than three classes or who do not contribute to the class discussions.

Please turn off laptops, tablets, cell phones, and all other electronic equipment before class begins. Please don’t bring food to class.

TEACHING APPRENTICE

Willa Schwarz will be serving as a Teaching Apprentice in the course. Willa will be directing the PowerPoint and working with me and the students in other ways. Her e-mail address is [email protected].

OFFICE HOURS, E-MAIL, TELEPHONE:I would be happy to talk with students after class, during office hours (Tuesday, 3-4pm, Wednesday, 10:30am-11:30am, and by appointment. My office is in the Public Affairs Center, room 306. My telephone number is (860) 685-2384; my e-mail address is [email protected].

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DISABILITY RESOURCES:

Wesleyan University is committed to ensuring that all qualified students with disabilities are afforded an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from its programs and services.  To receive accommodations, a student must have a documented disability as defined by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, and provide documentation of the disability. Since accommodations may require early planning and generally are not provided retroactively, please contact Disability Resources as soon as possible.

If you believe that you need accommodations for a disability, please contact Dean Patey in Disability Resources, located in North College, Room 021, or call (860) 685-5581 for an appointment to discuss your needs and the process for requesting accommodations.

TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS

September 6 Jews and American Liberty Reading: Gary Phillip Zola and Marc Dollinger, ed., American Jewish History: A Primary Source Reader (2014), 1.01 to 1.05 (pp. 9-12)

September 8 Jews in the New Republic, 1776-1820 Reading: Diner, The New Promised Land, preface, ch. 1. Zola and Dollinger, ed., American Jewish History: A Primary Source Reader, 2.04 to 2.06, 2.08-2.09, 2.15-2.16, 2.23-2.24 (pp. 37-39, 41-43, 49-51, 58-63) September 13 Arrival of Jews from Central Europe and the Market Revolution Reading: Hasia R. Diner, Road Taken: The Great Jewish Migration to the New World and the Peddlers Who Forged the Way (2015), ch. 2

Zola and Dollinger, ed., American Jewish History: A Primary Source Reader (2014), 3.07 (pp. 76-77).

September 15 Southern Jews, the Civil War, and Race Relations in the 19th Century Reading: David Brion Davis, “Jews in the Slave Trade,” Struggles in the Promised Land, pp. 65-72.

Zola and Dollinger, American Jewish History: A Primary Source Reader (2014), 4.03-4.04, 4.19-4.20 (pp. 97-101, 118-123).

Robert N. Rosen, “Jewish Confederates,” and Eric L. Goldstein, “‘Now Is the Time to Show Your True Colors’: Southern Jews, Whiteness, and the Rise of Jim Crow,” in Jewish Roots in Southern Soil, pp. 109-55.

September 20 Judaism in Nineteenth-Century America Reading: Diner, The New Promised Land, ch. 2

Zola and Dollinger, ed., 5.18-5.23 (pp. 153-158)

September 22 Transformation in the Pale and Early Emigration Reading: “Awaiting a Pogrom in Vilna,” 1882; N. Tchaykovsky, “The Massacre of the

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Jews at Kishinev,” 1903; Haim Naham Bialik, “The City of Slaughter,” 1903; “The Beilis Trial,” 1913, and “To America or to the Land of Israel,” 1881, in The Jew in the Modern World, 3rd ed., pp. 388-94. I. L. Peretz, “The Dead Town,” and Lamed Shapiro, “Eating Days,” in A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, ed. Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg (1953, 1990). Rec’d: Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures of S. An-sky’s Ethnographical

Expeditions, ed. Eugene M. Avrutin, et al. (2009)

Abraham Cahan

September 27 The Goldene Medine Reading: Diner, A New Promised Land, ch. 3 Zola and Dollinger, ed., 5.01-5.08 (pp. 131-39) Abraham Cahan, “A Ghetto Wedding,” Morris Rosenfeld, “Corner of Pain and Anguish” and “My Little Son,” and Michael Gold, excerpts from Jews Without Money,” Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, pp. 123-33, 134-136, 357-362.

September 29 Socialism and Radical Culture Reading: Zola and Dollinger, ed., 5.12 and 5.27 (pp. 144-45, 162)

Tony Michels, A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (2005), ch. 2 Arthur Liebman, “The Ties That Bind: Jewish Support for the Left in the United

States,” Essential Papers on Jews and the Left, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn (1997), pp. 322-57.

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October 4 Increasing Nativism Reading: Adolf Stoecker, “What We Demand of Modern Jewry,” 1878; Houston Steward Chamberlain, “The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century,” 1899; “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” 1902; “The Manhattan Beach Affair” (1879); Henry Adams, “The Jews Make Me Creep,” 1896; “Leo Frank Lynched,” “Jewish Immigration into the U.S., 1881-1948,” reprinted in The Jew in the Modern World, pp. 317-19, 333-36, 339-42, 527-33.

October 6 Uptown Jews in the Early 20th Century Reading: Israel Friedlaender, “The Division between German and Russian Jews,” 1915; Louis Marshall, “The American Jewish Committee,” January 12, 1906; Jacob H. Schiff, “The Galveston Project,” 1907, reprinted in The Jew in the Modern World, 3rd ed., pp. 545-49;

Leon Harris, Merchant Princes (1994), ch. 2.

Louis Brandeis October 11 Brandeis, Progressivism & Zionism Reading: Louis Brandeis, “The Jewish Problem and How to Solve It,” reprinted in

The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader, ed. Arthur Hertzberg (1997), pp. 514-17 David Levy, “Brandeis and the Progressive Movement,” Brandeis and America, Ed. Nelson L. Dawson (1989), pp. 38-64.

October 13 The Garment Workers’ Unions, 1909-1921 Reading: Irving Howe with Kenneth Libo, World of Our Fathers (1976, 1994), ch. 9. Alice Kessler-Harris, “Organizing the Unorganized: Three Jewish Women and Their Union,” Labor History, vol. 17, no. 1 (Jan. 1976), pp. 5-23. Zola and Dollinger, 5.14-5.17 (pp. 146-152)

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October 18 Horace Kallen and Cultural Pluralism Reading: Horace Kallen, “Democracy versus the Melting Pot,” 1915, excerpts in Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology (2001), pp. 206-17.

October 20 From Class Struggle to the Struggle for Class Reading: Diner, A New Promised Land, ch. 4 Zola and Dollinger, 6.20-6.22, 6.25 (pp. 217-220, 222-223)

Anzia Yezierska, "Children of Loneliness (1923)," in Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology (2001), pp. 233-45.

Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont

October 27 Jews & the New Deal Reading: Daniel Soyer, “Making Peace with Capitalism? Jewish Socialism Enters the Mainstream, 1933-1944,” Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism, ed. Rebecca Kobrin (2012), pp. 215-33.

November 1 Prof. Hasia Diner’s visit – 1:20 class meeting and 4:30 pm lecture

November 3 Father Coughlin, Nazis in America, and America First Reading: Zola and Dollinger, 6.27-6.30 (pp. 224-229) Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (2004), pp. 1-121. Rec’d: Adolf Hitler, excerpt from Mein Kampf (1923); Decrees excluding Jews from German cultural and public life, 1933-42; Hitler, “Why the Nuremberg Laws,” “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor”; “The Reich Citizenship Law,” September 15, 1935, from The Jew in the Modern World, 3rd ed., pp. 716-19, 723-26, 729-31

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November 8-9 Individual meetings to discuss research papers November 10 American Jews & the Second World War Reading: Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (2004), pp. 122-391. Zola and Dollinger, 7.08-7.14, 7.16, 7.21-7.23 (pp. 253-260, 262-267, 272-274)

November 15 The Triumph of Zionism & Revelation in Europe Reading: Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, “Toward American Jewish Unity (1943),” and “American Jewry in War and After (1944),” in The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader, ed. Arthur Hertzberg (1997), pp. 590-602

“The Columbus Platform,” 1937; American Council for Judaism, “A Statement of Policy,” Feb. 1944, from The Jew in the Modern World, 3rd ed., pp. 575-76, 580-81.

Karl Shapiro, “Israel,” Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology (2001), p. 556. November 17 “The Golden Decade” Reading: Diner, A New Promised Land, ch. 5

Philip Roth, “Eli, the Fanatic,” from Goodbye, Columbus (1959)

Bess Myerson, Miss America 1945

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November 22 Black-Jewish Relations, the Civil Rights Movement, and Southern Jewry Reading: Claybourne Carson, “Black-Jewish Universalism in the Era of Identity Politics” and Deborah Dash Moore, “Separate Paths: Blacks and Jews in the Twentieth-Century South,” Struggles in the Promised Land, 177-96, 275-94

November 29 American Jews & the State of Israel Reading: Arthur Hertzberg, “Israel and American Jewry,” Commentary, 44:2 (August 1967), pp. 69-73.

Chaim Waxman, “All in the Family: American Jewish Attachment to Israel,” A New Jewry? America Since the Second World War, ed. Peter Y. Medding (1992), pp. 134-149. Diner, A New Promised Land, ch. 6

December 1 Feminist American Jews Reading: Elinor Lerner, “Jewish Involvement in the New York City Woman Suffrage Movement,” American Jewish History, vol. 70, no. 4 (June 1981), pp. 442-461.

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963), ch. 1 Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist

Revolution (1970), TBA

Ruth Ginsburg being sworn in as an Associate Justice of the U.S Supreme Court

December 6 After the Holocaust Reading: Spiegelman, Maus, vol. 2 (rec’d vol. 1)

December 8 From Sweatshops and Peddling to Wealth and Influence Reading: David Hollinger, Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity: Studies in the Ethnoracial, Religious, and Professional Affiliation in America (2006), ch. 7-8

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Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor's Tale