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What was it like for the first Jews to arrive in the New World? How did a Bavarian immigrant’s crockery business expand into one of the nation’s top department stores? How did Yiddish theater and humor influence Hollywood and mainstream entertainment? How has Israel affected American Jewish identity? It would surely require a lavishly illustrated book, companion to a major PBS television documentary, to tell the history of Jews in America. We’re in luck.

When: Wednesday, October 24, 7:30 pm
Where: Jewish community Center Laikin Auditorium 6701 Hoover Rd., Indianapolis, IN 46260

Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America, by Beth Wenger, is a fascinating and often surprising look at the growth, difficulties, and accomplishments of the Jewish American community. The text and images trace more than three hundred years of American Jewish history— from the first arrival of Jews in colonial America in 1654 to the social movements of today—and everything in between. The book chronicles the mass immigration of Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the innovations of American Jewish culture, responses to anti-Semitism, and transition from immigrant to middle-class neighborhoods. It tells the story of the Jewish presence in sports and entertainment, the transformative watershed events of World War II and the Holocaust, the impact of the establishment of Israel, the emergence of new forms of American Jewish identity, and the responsibilities of the Jewish community today. The story is enhanced by intimate first-person accounts of several generations of American Jews. Activists, musicians, spiritual leaders, politicians, and so many others come to life through their photos, correspondence, and interviews. They lend faces and personal experiences to the movements and events they lived through, and they remind us that the story of Jews is the story of America. Carving out a life for themselves in the free and open society of the United States, Jews maintained their identity while becoming an integral part of American culture.

The companion piece to the book Jewish Americans is a six hour PBS documentary that will be shown January 2008. The October 24 program will include a 45 minute sneak peak at the highlights of the PBS Series.

Beth Wenger is the Katz Family Term Chair in American Jewish History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she serves as Director of the Jewish Studies Program. She is the author of New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise, which was awarded the Salo Baron Prize in Jewish History from the American Academy of Jewish Research. In addition to writing The Jewish Americans, Wenger serves on the board of distinguished scholars advising the PBS series. She is co-editor of Remembering the Lower East Side: American Jewish Reflections (Indiana University Press, 2000). As curator of a museum exhibition, in collaboration with Jeffrey Shandler, Wenger also co-authored the accompanying catalogue: “Holy Land:” Place, Past, and Future in American Jewish Culture (1997) that received honorable mention as one of the American Library Association’s Exhibition Catalogue Awards for Excellence. Princeton University Press will publish her forthcoming book, History Lessons: The Invention of American Jewish Heritage.

Know before you go … You can find a short and readable summary at Jim Kamp’s “Jewish Americans”

For more information after the event … You will of course purchase Beth Wenger’s book, and watch the PBS series. A few books that Provocate likes on the topic? Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers; Max Dimont, The Jews in America: The Roots, History, and Destiny of American Jews; Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America.

One of Provocate’s favorite books this summer was based on an utter false history of the Jews in America: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is by American author Michael Chabon, an alternate history noir-detective story based on the premise that after World War II, a temporary Yiddish-speaking settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Alaska in 1941. It also incorporates the (fictional) destruction of the State of Israel in 1948 after an unsuccessful struggle for independence. As some critics noted, in telling the story of Jews who never existed, Chabon best captured the story of real Jews in America.

If Beth Wenger’s talk sounds interesting, there are plenty of others you should check out this fall. Alvin Rosenfeld’s September talk, “The New Jewish Anti-Zionism,” plunges into one of the most contentious aspect of contemporary American Jewish identity: support for Israel and/or Israeli government policies. The story of Jews in America parallels and diverges in very interesting ways the history of Germans in America, so check out the conference on German migration “In and Out of the Pfalz” September 22, and Giles Hoyt’s talk on Hoosier Germans October 3. And compare Wenger’s book to the book the International Center of Indianapolis is releasing October 3: New Faces at the Crossroads: The World in Central Indiana.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Events, Religion, Crossing borders, Jews & Judaism, Hoosier history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.