Why Is America Different?

Steven T. Katz

doi:10.5771/9780761847700

Summary

Does the American Jewish experience represent a singular communal circumstance, or does it repeat, with obvious and unavoidable variation, the older European pattern of Jewish existence? In 2004, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the establishment of the American Jewish community, this question seemed well worth revisiting. To explore it more fully, the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University brought together a distinguished group of expert scholars on the main areas of American Jewish life, stretching from the colonial Jewish experience to the image of Jews in contemporary films. The present volume represents the fruit of this collective reflection and interrogation.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2010
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7618-4768-7
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7618-4770-0
Publisher: Hamilton Books, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 354
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. Preface No access
In Place of an Introduction: Some Thoughts on American Jewish Exceptionalism No access Pages 1 - 17
Chapter 01. Enlightenment, Statesmen and the Jews in Europe and the United States, 1776–1820 No access Pages 18 - 27
Chapter 02. American Exceptionalism: The Case of the Jews, 1750–1850 No access Pages 28 - 53
Chapter 03. Why and How Are Americans Different? No access Pages 54 - 68
Chapter 04. Immigrant Jews and the Challenge of American Athleticism No access Pages 69 - 79
Chapter 05. America’s Most Memorable Zionist Leaders No access Pages 80 - 90
Chapter 06. Encountering Jewish Feminism No access Pages 91 - 104
Chapter 07. Judaism and the Pluralist Dynamic No access Pages 105 - 113
Chapter 08. From Treifene Medina to Goldene Medina: Changing Perspectives on the United States among American Haredim No access Pages 114 - 127
Chapter 09. From Many, One? Reflections on the Notion of American Jews No access Pages 128 - 145
Chapter 10. Superbowl Parties, Women Rabbis and Freedom Seders: Twenty-first Century Jewish American Synergy No access Pages 146 - 153
Chapter 11. American Anti-Semitism: The Myth and Reality of American Exceptionalism No access Pages 154 - 168
Chapter 12. To Make “a Jew”: Projecting Anti-Semitism in Post-War America No access Pages 169 - 197
Chapter 13. Jews in the United States: How Good It Has Been No access Pages 198 - 209
Chapter 14. Anti-Semitism Today No access Pages 210 - 212
Chapter 15. The NYT: The Newspaper American Jews Love to Hate No access Pages 213 - 216
Chapter 16. Confessions of a Jewish Journalist No access Pages 217 - 220
Chapter 17. Portraits of America in Jewish Culture No access Pages 221 - 240
Chapter 18. Yiddishkeit and the American Jewish Writer: The Break through Reconsidered No access Pages 241 - 253
Chapter 19. Cinema as a Lens on America’s Jews No access Pages 254 - 262
Chapter 20. What Makes America Different: Jewish Artists and Their Concerns in the Twentieth Century No access Pages 263 - 308
Chapter 21. Studies in Hysteria, or Jewish Comedy from Shtetlakh to Shticklakh No access Pages 309 - 326
Chapter 22. The Transformation of Traditional Jewish Music in Jewish America No access Pages 327 - 339
Chapter 23. America: Memories of Doubts and Hope No access Pages 340 - 354