United States (Jewish Studies)

Introduction

Jewish communal life in North America began with the arrival of Jewish refugees in New Amsterdam in 1654. By the end of the colonial era, Jews—many of them Sephardic descendants of those expelled from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century—had formed communities in five port cities: Savannah, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Newport. The US Constitution (1787) and Bill of Rights (1791) granted Jews religious equality, but economic uncertainty kept the community small. No more than 3,000 Jews lived in America in 1820, and they had established a handful of synagogues and other basic religious institutions. Beginning in the 1820s, a larger stream of migrants from central Europe arrived. Many of them moved west seeking their fortune on the frontier. Soon, following the American religious pattern, unified synagogue communities broke down into communities of competing synagogues, and in the 1840s the first rabbis arrived in Baltimore to shepherd the burgeoning flock. By the start of the US Civil War, the community numbered about 150,000. Additional migration plus a substantial birth rate brought the population to 250,000 by 1880, by which time the community boasted schools, mutual aid associations, hospitals, Jewish newspapers, and a rabbinical seminary. The late 19th century witnessed heightened eastern European Jewish emigration to America’s shores, spurred by economic privation and anti-Jewish oppression, along with the promise of freedom and opportunity in the New World. Over two million east European Jews migrated to America’s shores before strict immigration quotas were imposed in 1924. By the eve of World War II, America had become the largest Jewish community in the world.

General Overviews

The study of American Jewish history dates back to the 19th century. The American Jewish Historical Society was established in 1892. However, rigorous academic study of the subject only began in earnest following World War II, spurred perhaps most profoundly by the scholarship and archival labors of Jacob Rader Marcus, who founded the American Jewish Archives (AJA) in 1948. Marcus 1989 is a multivolume survey of American Jewish history, making great use of the materials he collected for the AJA. The most recent scholarly overviews of American Jewish history, both of them occasioned by the celebration of the community’s 350th anniversary in 2004, are Diner 2004 and Sarna 2004, both published by major university presses. Diner’s work attempts to cover social, political, economic, cultural, and religious aspects of American Jewish history; Sarna shapes his narrative around religious history, broadly defined. State-of-the-field scholarship may also be found in collections such as Raphael 2008 and Nadell, et al. 2010 that bring together some of the field’s leading scholars. Nadell and Sarna 2001 contains important articles on gender and women.

Diner, Hasia R. The Jews of the United States, 1654–2000. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
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A wide-ranging survey of American Jewry that offers social, political, economic, cultural, and religious perspectives, and carefully incorporates the experiences of women. Diner discards the traditional periodization of American Jewish history, which focuses on different immigrant waves, and focuses instead on the era from 1820–1924, when the bulk of Jewish immigrants to the United States arrived, and the community’s major institutions, divisions, and characteristics took form.
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Marcus, Jacob Rader. United States Jewry, 1776–1985. 4 vols. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989.
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Marcus’s exhaustive, multivolume work, a compendium of his years of research in the field, contains data often overlooked by contemporary scholars.
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Nadell, Pamela S., and Jonathan D. Sarna, eds. Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2001.
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A collection of essays on women’s interaction with American Judaism, including articles by some of the leading scholars in the field today.
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Nadell, Pamela S., Jonathan D. Sarna, and Lance J. Sussman, eds. New Essays in American Jewish History: Commemorating the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives, 2010.
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An ambitious and creative collection of essays that treats a range of issues in the field, from the colonial period to the present.
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Raphael, Marc Lee, ed. The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
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Contains valuable survey articles by leading scholars. The book is divided into two sections: one that runs chronologically through American Jewish history, and another that features topical essays.
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Sarna, Jonathan D. The American Jewish Experience. 2d ed. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1997.
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This updated second edition collects previously published essays and chapters. Arranged chronologically, with guides to further reading, the textbook provides perspective on the historiography of American Jewish history.
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Sarna, Jonathan D. American Judaism: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
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A survey of American Jewish history that examines its subject through the lens of American religious history. Argues that American Judaism experiences cyclical revivals and declines.
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Reference Works

In 1951 the pioneering American Jewish historian Jacob Rader Marcus wrote of the dearth of reference works in the field of American Jewish history. “The basic tools,” he complained, “are still missing.” Since then, he and other scholar have produced those tools, many of which are indispensable. These include dictionaries (Marcus 1994), bibliographies (Singerman 1990) and encyclopedias (Marcus 1990, Norwood and Pollack, 2008, and Hyman and Moore 1998) that offer background on the people, data, institutions, and bibliography of the field. All of these volumes also provide references to earlier scholarship that remains valuable.

Hyman, Paula E., and Deborah Dash Moore, eds. Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. 2 vols. New York: Routledge, 1998.
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An important reference work that contains more than 800 biographies of American Jewish women, and 110 essays on Jewish women’s experiences and institutions. An updated version is available free of charge at the Jewish Women’s Archive’s website.
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Marcus, Jacob Rader. To Count A People: American Jewish Population Data, 1585–1984. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990.
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Presents in one volume all known estimates of local, state, and national Jewish population figures from the beginnings of Jewish settlement through 1984. Both careful estimates and wildly inaccurate ones are included.
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Marcus, Jacob Rader, ed. The Concise Dictionary of American Jewish Biography. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson, 1994.
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Marcus’s work summarizes key facts on almost 24,000 American Jews, based on twenty-six different reference sources. An excellent starting point for research, it may also be found online from the American Jewish Archives.
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Norwood, Stephen H., and Eunice G. Pollack, eds. Encyclopedia of American Jewish History. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
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A well-indexed multiauthored work that summarizes the state-of-field in many areas of American Jewish history, with notes for further reading.
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Singerman, Robert, ed. Judaica Americana: A Bibliography of Publications to 1900. 2 vols. New York: Greenwood, 1990.
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A critical reference work for those looking for published primary sources prior to 1900. Still relevant and accurate, Singerman identifies which libraries hold these published sources. An excellent index facilitates research.
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Documentary Collections

History relies upon primary sources, the fundamental building blocks from which the past can most accurately be re-created. These often lie buried in dusty archives or hard-to-read newspapers, but some have been collected, edited, and published by historians or by the primary actors themselves. Schappes 1950, Marcus 1959, Blau and Baron 1963, Marcus 1981, and Wenger 2007 are wide-ranging collections of edited primary sources that portray a particular time period. They reproduce contemporary documents, some of them representative of their era, while others are important precisely because they are extraordinary. Gelles 2004, by contrast, makes available a full collection of colonial-era correspondence: every known letter dispatched by Abigaill Levy Franks to her son in England. Green 1998 (cited under Labor) and Michels 2012 are also focused collections, centering on labor and migration during the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century. All of these primary sources, and the others listed below, can be studied in critical, diverse, and creative ways to shed fresh light on their meaning, their authors, their readers, and their times.

Blau, Joseph, and Salo W. Baron, eds. The Jews of the United States, 1790–1840: A Documentary History. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.
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The only published parts of a proposed multivolume documentary history of American Jewish life, these well-annotated primary sources portray social, political, economic, cultural, and religious aspects of Jewish life in the half-century following the American Revolution, organized thematically with an excellent index.
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Gelles, Edith B., ed. The Letters of Abigaill Levy Franks, 1733–1748. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
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These fascinating, brilliantly introduced, and well-edited letters from a cultured New York Jewish woman to her son in London shed important light on colonial Jewish life, including lived religion and the problem of intermarriage, and they are also critical sources for women’s history and for the political history of colonial New York.
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Marcus, Jacob Rader, ed. American Jewry: Documents; Eighteenth Century; Primarily Hitherto Unpublished Manuscripts. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1959.
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Marcus’s well-organized and amply annotated primary sources depict the colonial Jewish experience in all its variegation and complexity.
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Marcus, Jacob Rader, ed. The American Jewish Woman: A Documentary History. New York: Ktav, 1981.
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A collection of 177 documents revealing diverse aspects of the history of Jewish women in America from the early 18th century through 1980.
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Michels, Tony, ed. Jewish Radicals: A Documentary History. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
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An excellent collection of sixty-five well-introduced documents, many translated from other languages, covering diverse aspects of Jewish socialism, Marxism, and anarchism. The volume is divided into five sections: (1) Awakenings; (2) In Struggle; (3) Life of the Mind; (4) The Russian Revolution; and (5) The Question of Zionism.
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Schappes, Morris U. A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States, 1654–1875. New York: Citadel, 1950.
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A rich and well-annotated collection of primary sources covering the first 220 years of American Jewish life, with Marxist-inspired introductions.
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Wenger, Beth S. The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America. New York: Doubleday, 2007.
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Wenger’s collection, a companion to a fine Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary, is insightful for both its textual and visual sources.
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Memoirs

Memoirs are a special kind of primary source. They recount the past from the perspective of an individual, and generally reflect that individual’s biases and memory lapses. Nevertheless, memoirs open up windows on the past that no other type of primary source provides. Marcus 1955 is an indispensable resource for Jewish life during the formative years of the American Jewish community. Ribalow 1965 and Rubin 1991 bring the story forward. Wise 1901 and Antin 1912 are examples of memoirs written by historic personages looking back upon their past. Weinberger 1981 was written closer to the era it discusses and paints a vivid picture of Orthodoxy in the late 19th century.

Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912.
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Antin’s classic memoir describes her experiences emigrating from eastern Europe, acculturating, and fully embracing American culture, with help from Boston’s public schools.
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Marcus, Jacob Rader, ed. Memoirs of American Jews, 1775–1865. 3 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955.
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These memoirs of lesser known American Jewish women and men cover the era from the Early Republic through the Civil War and are important primary sources for the study of this period.
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Ribalow, Harold U., comp. Autobiographies of American Jews. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1965.
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A well-chosen selection of excerpts from twenty-five previously published memoirs of American Jews, focusing on the period from 1880 to 1920.
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Rubin, Steven J., ed. Writing Our Lives: Autobiographies of American Jews, 1890–1990. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1991.
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Excerpts from twenty-six previously published memoirs of American Jews, focused on the 20th century.
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Weinberger, Moses. People Walk on Their Heads: Moses Weinberger’s Jews and Judaism in New York. Translated by Jonathan D. Sarna. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981.
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An edited translation, with introduction, of an 1887 Hebrew volume portraying “Jews and Judaism in New York” by an immigrant Hungarian rabbi. Valuable for its portrayal of Jewish religious life on the Lower East Side.
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Wise, Isaac Mayer. Reminiscences. Translated by David Philipson. Cincinnati: L. Wise, 1901.
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Originally published in German as articles in Wise’s Die Deborah, Philipson’s translation of the memoir recounts the life and adventures of the architect of American Reform Judaism, one of American Judaism’s most important 19th-century figures.
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1654–1820

The early years in the history of a community, like the early years in the life of an individual, often play a disproportionately important role in shaping what comes later. This explains why so much attention has been lavished on the formative period in American Jewish life, even though so few Jews lived in the country at that time. Marcus 1970 synthesized earlier generations of scholarship and for many years defined the field. More recently, scholars trained in American colonial history have opened up new approaches to the study of colonial Jewish history, focusing on economic, social, and religious life. Faber 1992, Pencak 2005, and Hoberman 2011 offer broader histories and contexts of Jews in the colonial period. Snyder 2010 offers a perspective into religious history. Leibman 2012 is particularly innovative both in its subject matter and in its use of new historical methodologies.

Faber, Eli. A Time for Planting: The First Migration, 1654–1820. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
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A history of American Jews during the colonial and early national periods. The strength of Faber’s work lies in its ability to place the small American Jewish community in the context of the larger Diaspora community. Covers cultural, economic, and religious aspects of early American Jewish life.
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Hoberman, Michael. New Israel/New England: Jews and Puritans in Early America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.
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Examines the interaction of Puritans and Jews, especially in Boston and Newport, focusing on the importance of Jews to the Puritans and their world.
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Leibman, Laura A. Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life. Edgware, UK: Valentine Mitchell, 2012.
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This award-winning volume uncovers mystical components of Jewish life in the Caribbean and North American colonies. Key chapters deal with ritual baths (mikva’ot), synagogue architecture, cemeteries, slavery, dietary laws (kashrut), and a 1773 sermon by Isaac Carigal.
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Marcus, Jacob Rader. The Colonial American Jew, 1492–1776. 3 vols. Detroit: Wayne State University, 1970.
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The most extensive study of American Jewish life up to the American Revolution. Marcus’s studies rely on primary sources and summarize his decades of research.
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Pencak, William. Jews and Gentiles in Early America, 1654–1800. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
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Sensitive to the politics of different colonies, Pencak employs a wide range of primary sources to uncover relationships between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors and governments in New York, Newport, Charleston, Savannah, and Philadelphia.
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Snyder, Holly. “‘Under the Shado of Your Wings’: Religiosity in the Mental World of an 18th-Century Jewish Merchant.” Early American Studies 8 (Fall 2010): 581–622.
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In this methodologically important article, Snyder analyzes three Spanish-language prayers that throw light on colonial Jews’ struggle to balance economic pressures and religious observance.
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1820–1880

The growth and spread of the American Jewish community define this era; it burgeoned from 3,000 to 250,000 Jews during these years, and spread west all the way to the Pacific. Cohen 1984, Diner 1992, and Barkai 1994 offer strikingly different surveys of the material, disagreeing in their periodization, their focus, the kinds of sources they utilize, and in their historical interpretations. Wilhelm 2011 offers an exciting and fresh perspective on the religious nature of B’nai B’rith. This work, in addition to Goldman 2001, pays close attention to the changing roles of women in 19th-century American Judaism. Biographies such as Sussman 1995 and Ashton 1997 similarly point to the diversity of Jewish life during this era, when native Jews and immigrants, as well as Orthodox Jews and Reformers all sought to shape the community in their own image.

Alroey, Gur, ed. Bread to Eat and Clothes to Wear: Letters from Jewish Migrants in the Early Twentieth Century. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.
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Sixty-six early 20th-century letters, translated from Hebrew and Yiddish, portray the process of immigration, from the earliest preparations to leave Europe through successful arrival in America. Alroey’s excellent introduction sets the stage for these letters, recounting the different stages of the immigrant’s journey.
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Ashton, Dianne. Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997.
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A well-researched biography of the foremost woman in 19th­-century American Jewish history. Ashton’s work covers Gratz’s philanthropic endeavors and institutional leadership in Philadelphia and beyond, and sheds light on the general experiences of Jewish women in Gratz’s day.
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Barkai, Avraham. Branching Out: German-Jewish Immigration to the United States, 1820–1914. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1994.
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A critical study in the history of 19th-century Jewish migration to the United States. Using German sources and against the background of German-Jewish history, Barkai argues that German Jews moved to America in search of emancipation, and developed familial and communal ties to secure themselves in their new home.
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Cohen, Naomi W. Encounter with Emancipation: The German Jews in the United States, 1830–1914. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1984.
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One of Cohen’s most important monographs, this book argues that German Jews found a welcoming environment in America. Surveying a wide array of social, economic, political, and religious data, the author traces the rise and fall of a uniquely German-style of American Jewish community.
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Diner, Hasia R. A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration, 1820–1880. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
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This revisionist work challenges the dominant view of a uniquely “German” migration. Utilizing primary and secondary materials, Diner claims that one should view Jewish migration in the 19th century as part of a century-long transfer of Jews from all parts of Europe to the United States.
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Goldman, Karla. Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
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Goldman’s pathbreaking study traces the development of women’s activism in American Judaism. She details the transition from separate women’s galleries to mixed (family) pews in the middle of the 19th century, shows how women also gained greater roles in traditional synagogues, and concludes with women forming their own organizations by the end of the century.
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Sussman, Lance J. Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Jewry. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995.
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A well-researched biography of one of American Judaism’s pivotal figures. Sussman traces the large number of institutions that this synagogue leader and journalist formed during his lifetime. Leeser’s was a minority traditionalist voice during an era typified by religious reform.
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Wilhelm, Cornelia. The Independent Orders of B’nai B’rith and True Sisters: Pioneers of a New Jewish Identity, 1843–1914. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.
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Wilhelm rewrites the early history of B’nai B’rith and dismisses the notion that it functioned as a “secular synagogue.” Instead, she argues, B’nai B’rith and its hundreds of lodges helped foster reform in American Jewish religious life.
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Jews and the Civil War

The Civil War made more of an impact on Jews than Jews made on the Civil War, as the classic Korn 1951 makes clear. Sarna and Mendelsohn 2010 contains many articles that discuss Jewish involvement in the war and war issues that shaped the Jewish community, plus a comprehensive bibliography. Rosen 2000 is the best study of Jews in the Confederacy. Sarna 2012 focuses on General Grant’s infamous anti-Jewish order and its aftermath.

Korn, Bertram W. American Jewry and the Civil War. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1951.
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The most comprehensive and balanced study of Jews during the Civil War, Korn’s book tackles issues of Judeophobia, slavery, and the response of individuals and institutions to the war.
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Rosen, Robert N. The Jewish Confederates. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000.
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A sympathetic, well-researched history of the Jews who lived in and fought for the Confederacy.
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Sarna, Jonathan D. When General Grant Expelled the Jews. New York: Nextbook/Schocken, 2012.
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An in-depth study of General Orders No. 11, Ulysses S. Grant’s 1862 order expelling “Jews as a class” from his war zone, including the order’s revocation and Grant’s subsequent apology and atonement.
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Sarna, Jonathan D., and Adam Mendelsohn, eds. Jews and the Civil War: A Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2010.
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A collection of previously published critical essays, with bibliography, that addresses the major themes of Jews during the Civil War, including the Confederacy. Mendelsohn’s introductory essay surveys the historiography on Jews and the Civil War.
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Eastern European Migration and Immigrant Life

Many of the first academic historians of American Jewish life were themselves the children of eastern European Jewish immigrants, and the story of that migration captivated them. Rischin 1962 is the best early work, and Howe 1976 synthesized the entire literature. More recent scholarship has filled in historical gaps, particularly concerning women immigrants (Hyman 1980 and Glenn 1990), immigrant associations, and Yiddish radicals (Michels 2005, cited under Labor). Soyer 2001 offers the first extensive treatment of immigrant societies and landsmanshaftn. Lederhendler 2009 challenges standard interpretations, based in part on new studies of Russian Jewry, and provides a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography.

Glenn, Susan A. Daughters of the Shtetl: Jewish Immigrant Women in America’s Garment Industry, 1880–1920. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
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This study investigates the role of women in shaping labor and industry during the years surrounding the turn of the 20th century. Glenn offers descriptions of different working environments, from small shops to large factories.
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Howe, Irving. World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976.
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Howe’s classic tome describes New York’s immigrant Jewish community and how its members uprooted themselves from Old World traditions and practices. His discussions of Jewish politics and culture, including Yiddish culture, still guide scholars.
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Hyman, Paula E. “Immigrant Women and Consumer Protest: The New York City Kosher Meat Boycott of 1902.” American Jewish History 70 (September 1980): 91–105.
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Situated in the first years of the 20th century, Hyman’s case study of a kosher meat boycott points to the emergence of political consciousness and agency among traditional Jewish women, most of whom were housewives.
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Lederhendler, Eli. Jewish Immigrants and American Capitalism, 1880–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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Lederhendler challenges the dominant view that immigrants’ social and political activism was drawn from their eastern European origins. Rather, he argues, most Jewish immigrants lacked both social and economic capital in Russia and developed class consciousness in the United States.
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Rischin, Moses. The Promised City: New York’s Jews, 1870–1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962.
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Rischin’s classic study remains the best-researched and most comprehensive survey of New York’s eastern European Jewish immigrant community. It examines migration and settlement from multiple perspectives.
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Soyer, Daniel. Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880–1939. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001.
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This award-winning study of landsmanshaftn, associations of immigrants from the same home town, is the best on the topic. It shows how immigrants exercised agency in actively molding their new communities.
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Twentieth Century

While earlier scholars focused on eastern European Jewish immigration, more recent ones have shifted their lens to examine diverse aspects of 20th-century American Jewish life. Goldstein 2006 and Berman 2009 focus on issues of identity among American Jews, showing how their perceptions of themselves vis-à-vis America changed over time. Schwartz 1991 recounts the story of the Jewish Encyclopedia to illustrate the early history of Jewish scholarship and culture. Cohen 1972 and Sanua 2007 recount the history of American Jews in the 20th century through the eyes of its primary defense agency, the American Jewish Committee.

Berman, Lila Corwin. Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
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Berman’s interrelated chapters serve as case studies in how 20th-century Jews represented their Jewishness to the broader society. She examines academic, religious, and popular examples of changing Jewish identities, and shows how conversions like that of Marilyn Monroe paved the way for a Judaism that was volitional rather than just inherited.
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Cohen, Naomi W. Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1906–1966. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1972.
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Cohen documents the formative history of the American Jewish Committee, one of American Jewry’s premier defense agencies. The AJC directed the Jewish campaign against anti-Semitism at home and abroad and was led by such notables as Louis Marshall, Jacob Schiff, Cyrus Adler, and Julian Mack.
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Goldstein, Eric L. The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
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Goldstein’s well-researched work, situated mostly in the 20th century, traces the changing perception and self-perception of Jews from being a separate “Jewish race” to their acceptance as part of “white” American culture.
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Sanua, Marianne R. Let Us Prove Strong: The American Jewish Committee, 1945–2006. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2007.
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Details the ongoing efforts of the American Jewish Committee in the postwar era, a sequel to Naomi W. Cohen’s history (Cohen 1972). Sanua shows how the AJC tried to balance its work for Jewish causes with its advocacy of civil rights for all Americans. She also traces AJC’s changing stance toward Zionism and the State of Israel.
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Schwartz, Shuly Rubin. The Emergence of Jewish Scholarship in America: The Publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1991.
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This study argues that the publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia in the first decade of the 20th century signaled American Jewry’s cultural emergence and intellectual independence from Europe. In the second section of the work, the author provides a thematic analysis of the encyclopedia, which summed up Jewish scholarship to that time.
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Svonkin, Stuart. Jews against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
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Set primarily in the 1940s and 1950s, Svonkin’s study demonstrates how American Jews sought stability after World War II by uniting with other liberal ethnic groups in defense of civil liberties for all. He focuses on three of the largest American Jewish defense agencies: the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League.
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Wertheimer, Jack. A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America. New York: Basic Books, 1993.
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Written under the backdrop of American religion, Wertheimer’s history documents the “privatization” of faith from the 1960s onward, along with the burgeoning tensions between American Judaism’s different religious movements.
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Local Histories

More American Jews lived in New York City than anywhere else, so it is no surprise that that city’s history has received disproportionate scholarly attention—so much so, that some confuse the history of the city with the history of American Jewry as a whole. Other Jewish communities, however, also boast significant histories, some of which differ markedly from that of New York. Hundreds of Jewish community histories have appeared, but the focus here is on cities that played major roles in the history of American Jewry. Philadelphia, for example, was for a long time a cultural and intellectual center. Charleston, South Carolina, for a few decades after the American Revolution, was the largest Jewish community in the new nation and the birthplace of American Reform Judaism. Boston, Los Angeles, and Miami emerged as Jewish hubs later on. Chicago and San Francisco, at different times, each held the distinction of being the second largest Jewish community in the country. Southern Jewish history, like Southern history generally, has been socially, culturally, and racially distinctive. To read local Jewish history is thus to gain a new appreciation for the diversity and complexity of American Jewish life, for each locale possesses a history and community culture of its own.

New York

Although its utility extends well past Gotham, Grinstein 1945 offers the most thorough depiction of New York’s Jews from settlement up to the Civil War. Many Jewish historians have focused on New York, owing to its place as a center of American Jewry. Gurock 1979 pays close attention to New York’s Jewish community just as the German Jewish community welcomed its eastern European co-religionists, while Goren 1982 and Moore 1981 treat the processes of organization and acculturation during the 20th century. Wenger 1996 (cited under Economics), on New York Jews and the Great Depression, is currently the only major treatment of the topic for any American Jewish community. Moore 2012 is the first major attempt to survey the entire history of New York’s Jews.

Goren, Arthur A. New York Jews and the Quest for Community. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
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Set in the early 20th century, this book explores the rise and fall of the Kehillah, a New York communal organization that attempted to unite all Jews, including recent immigrants from eastern Europe. This “quest for community,” though it failed, paved the way for Americanization and the development of Jewish ethnicity.
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Grinstein, Hyman B. The Rise of the Jewish Community of New York, 1654–1860. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1945.
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This classic work, based on extensive primary sources, documents two hundred years of religious and social development among New York’s Jews. It is replete with details found nowhere else concerning the growth of New York’s Jewish community.
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Gurock, Jeffrey S. When Harlem Was Jewish, 1870–1930. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.
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Documents the religious and political development of New York’s Jews as they migrated uptown, and the evolving response of central European Jews to eastern European Jewish immigrants.
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Moore, Deborah Dash. At Home in America: Second Generation New York Jews. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
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Explores the world of New York’s second-generation Jews, the children of eastern European immigrants, and the world that they created in the first half of the 20th century. Moore argues that these Jews experienced community through their densely concentrated Jewish neighborhoods, and felt at home where they lived.
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Moore, Deborah Dash, ed. City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York. 3 vols. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
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This comprehensive, multiauthored study of New York’s Jews, 1654 to the present, surveys social, political, religious, economic, and cultural developments within the broader history of New York City. Includes excellent photographic essays.
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Other Northeastern Cities

After New York, Philadelphia might be considered the most important Jewish center in America prior to the 20th century. Wolf and Whiteman 1957 and the essays included in Friedman 1983 and Friedman 2003 demonstrate this point. Other northeastern cities, such as Boston (Gamm 1999 and Sarna, et al. 2005), also played pivotal roles in American Jewish history later on.

Friedman, Murray, ed. Jewish Life in Philadelphia, 1830–1940. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1983.
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A collection of interrelated essays surveying cultural, religious, educational, and philanthropic life in one of America’s oldest and most significant communities. Meant as a sequel to Wolf and Whiteman 1957.
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Friedman, Murray, ed. Philadelphia Jewish Life, 1940–2000. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003.
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A sequel to Friedman 1983, the essays in this volume show how Jews and the city of Philadelphia helped shape one another in the postwar era.
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Gamm, Gerald H. Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
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Employing the methods of urban geography and comparative religion, Gamm’s book demonstrates that Jews began to abandon their Dorchester and Roxbury communities for the suburbs as early as the 1920s, while Catholics stayed put because of their loyalty to local parishes and their devotion to communal turf.
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Sarna, Jonathan D., Ellen Smith, and Scott-Martin Kosofsky, eds. The Jews of Boston. 2d ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
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A well-illustrated collection of essays that trace Boston Jewish history both chronologically and thematically. This second edition incorporates new essays bringing the community’s story up to date and surveying Jewish-Christian relations. First published in 1995 by the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.
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Wolf, Edwin, II, and Maxwell Whiteman. The History of the Jews of Philadelphia: From Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1957.
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An exhaustively researched history of the formative years of the Philadelphia Jewish community, which during the Revolutionary era was the foremost Jewish community in the new United States. It is replete with important information concerning the long-term impact of the American Revolution on Jewish life.
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Chicago and the Midwest

Chicago houses the largest and most important Jewish community in the American Midwest. Meites 1990, a reprint, comprehensively covers its early history with a focus on the male, communal elite. Cutler 1996 is a more modern readable survey. Other important Midwestern Jewish communities include Cincinnati (Sarna and Klein 1989), Cleveland (Gartner 1978), and St. Louis (Ehrlich 1997–2002).

Cutler, Irving. The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.
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A well-researched and well-written history of Chicago Jewry, with special emphasis on its changing urban geography.
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Ehrlich, Walter. Zion in the Valley: The Jewish Community of St. Louis. 2 vols. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997–2002.
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A comprehensive history, the first volume covering the 19th century, and the second the 20th century.
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Gartner, Lloyd P. History of the Jews of Cleveland. Cleveland, OH: Western Reserve Historical Society, 1978.
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A perceptive and well-researched survey by a leading Jewish historian.
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Meites, Hyman L. History of the Jews of Chicago. Introduction by James R. Grossman. Chicago: Chicago Jewish Historical Society and Wellington Publishing, 1990.
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Facsimile of the Original 1924 edition, with a new introduction. An exhaustive 900-page history of Chicago Jewry from its founding to the 1920s, with capsule biographies, rare illustrations, and primary documents.
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Sarna, Jonathan D., and Nancy H. Klein, eds. The Jews of Cincinnati. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1989.
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An interpretive historical introduction, selected primary sources, and numerous illustrations recount the history of one of America’s most influential Jewish communities, historically the center of the Reform movement in Judaism.
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The West

Jews came to California during the gold rush years, and for a brief time in the late 1870s, San Francisco was the second-largest Jewish community in the United States. Rosenbaum 2009 is a well-researched and lively history of that community. Moore 1994 focuses on the postwar migration to Los Angeles, which is the second-largest American Jewish community today. Rischin and Livingston 1991 and Eisenberg, et al. 2009 offer broader perspectives on the history of the Jews of the West, and what makes their experience distinctive.

Eisenberg, Ellen, Ava F. Kahn, and William Toll, eds. Jews of the Pacific Coast: Reinventing Community on America’s Edge. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.
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A comprehensive well-illustrated history of Pacific Coast Jews by leading scholars in the field.
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Moore, Deborah Dash. To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A. New York: Free Press, 1994.
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Moore tracks postwar Jewish migration to the Sunbelt cities of Los Angeles and Miami, and their implications for American Jewish life. In these cities, she shows, Judaism became largely a matter of choice, resulting in new forms of Jewish association, higher rates of disaffiliation, and new patterns of faith and identity.
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Rischin, Moses, and John Livingston, eds. Jews of the American West. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991.
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A pioneering collection of insightful essays on the western Jewish experience and what makes it distinctive.
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Rosenbaum, Fred. Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
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A lively and comprehensive history that captures the spirit of the Bay Area Jewish community, from its founding in the 19th century to the present, focusing on some of its most colorful, accomplished, and notorious members.
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The South

The scholarly periodical Southern Jewish History, launched in 1998, contains some of the best recent scholarship concerning Southern Jewish life. Older book-length histories of individual Southern Jewish communities include studies of Charleston (Reznikoff 1950, Hagy 1993), New Orleans (Korn 1969), and Richmond (Berman 1978). Rogoff 2010 is a pioneering study of North Carolina Jews. The articles in Bauman 2006 and Ferris and Greenberg 2006 contain some of the best monographic studies of southern Jewry, offering important interpretive insights.

Bauman, Mark K., ed. Dixie Diaspora: An Anthology of Southern Jewish History. Tuscaloosa: Alabama University Press, 2006.
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A collection of scholarly essays, reprinted from the journal Southern Jewish History, tracing the religious, social, and political experiences of Jews in the southern United States.
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Berman, Myron. Richmond’s Jewry, 1769–1976. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978.
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Uses a wide range of archival sources to tell the story of one of the earliest Jewish communities in the United States, dating to the American Revolution.
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Ferris, Marcy Cohen, and Mark I. Greenberg, eds. Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2006.
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A wide-ranging collection of essays that explores the Jewish experience in the southern parts of the United States from the colonial era to the present. Several essays focus on what distinguishes the southern Jewish experience from the experience of Jews in other sections of the country.
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Hagy, William James. This Happy Land: The Jews of Antebellum Charleston. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993.
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Hagy mined archival, census, and newspaper sources to offer a history of Charleston’s early Jewish community that draws heavily upon quantitative data, rather than just focusing on the communal elite.
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Korn, Bertram Wallace. The Early Jews of New Orleans. Waltham, MA: American Jewish Historical Society, 1969.
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A lively, well-researched history of one of America’s most distinctive Jewish communities, with special emphasis on its foremost Jews, such as Judah Touro.
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Reznikoff, Charles. The Jews of Charleston. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1950.
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A comprehensive history of Charleston’s Jews, emphasizing the community’s most important and culturally influential members.
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Rogoff, Leonard. Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
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A comprehensive state-wide history of North Carolina’s Jews, written from a broad perspective by the community’s foremost scholarly chronicler. Replete with insights into what makes North Carolina’s Jewish experience distinctive.
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American Jewish Religious Movements

American Judaism, like American Protestantism, is characterized by internal religious diversity. Earlier scholars imagined that immigrants brought these religious differences with them directly from Europe, but the contemporary view is far more complex. Meyer 1988 (cited under Reform), for example, highlights critical differences between Reform Judaism in America and Europe. Cohen 2012 (cited under Conservative) points to the American origins of Conservative Judaism, and dates those origins far later than earlier scholars did. Gurock 2009 (cited under Orthodox) demonstrates that Orthodoxy, too, had a distinctive career in America, influenced by European Orthodoxy but with a different historical trajectory. America’s Jewish religious movements, we now understand, were influenced both by developments in Europe and by religious conditions in the United States. This was true, as Myers 2007 (cited under Other Movements) demonstrates, even of new religious movements like the Kabbalah Centres.

Reform

Reform Judaism was the fastest-growing Jewish religious movement of the 19th century, and it is the largest American Jewish religious movement today. Meyer 1988 is the definitive history of the movement around the world, with significant chapters on the United States. Kaplan 2003 focuses more narrowly on Reform Judaism in the United States, with an emphasis on recent developments. Temkin 1992, Zola 1994, and Ruben 2011 provide biographies of key figures. Temkin draws much of his material from Wise 1901 (cited under Memoirs). Olitzky, et al. 1993 is a useful guide to key leaders and trends. Meyer and Plaut 2001 presents well-edited critical documents.

Kaplan, Dana Evan. American Reform Judaism: An Introduction. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003.
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A concise readable overview of Reform Judaism in America from its formation to today. Kaplan suggests that America’s cultural changes have shaped Reform Judaism’s recent ideological turns.
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Meyer, Michael A. Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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A definitive history of Reform Judaism by its most distinguished historian. Meyer portrays Reform Judaism as a response to modernity, describes its formation in Europe, traces it move to the United States, and shows how Reform Judaism evolved in different countries.
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Meyer, Michael A., and W. Gunther Plaut. The Reform Judaism Reader: North American Documents. New York: UAHC Press, 2001.
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A documentary history of North American Reform Judaism, covering the heritage of German Progressive Judaism, major institutions, theology, liturgy, the calendar, life cycle events, approaches to Jewish law, Zionism, Israel, social justice, outreach, education, and the movement’s five American platforms.
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Olitzky, Kerry M., Lance J. Sussman, and Malcolm H. Stern, eds. Reform Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993.
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A biographical dictionary of Reform Jewish leaders, with articles on leading Reform Jewish institutions, listings of its lay leadership, and a comprehensive bibliography.
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Ruben, Bruce L. Max Lilienthal: The Making of the American Rabbinate. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.
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Ruben’s biography is the fullest treatment of one of American Reform’s founders. Special attention is paid to Lilienthal’s European origin and his evolving liberal theology.
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Temkin, Sefton D. Isaac Mayer Wise: Shaping American Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
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Temkin’s is the latest and best of several biographies of Isaac Mayer Wise, known as the “architect” of 19th-century American Reform Judaism. Other primary and secondary sources on Wise may be found in the Isaac Mayer Wise Digital Archive .
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Zola, Gary Phillip. Isaac Harby of Charleston, 1788–1828: Jewish Reformer and Intellectual. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994.
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This is the most comprehensive work on Harby, an early American journalist, playwright, and educator who played a central role in Charleston’s Reformed Society of Israelites, the first Reform congregation in the United States.
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Orthodox

Sussman 1995 (cited under 1820–1880), a biography of Isaac Leeser, tells the story of 19th-century American Orthodoxy’s foremost leader. Gurock 2009 is the first full scale treatment of Orthodox Judaism in America. A social history, it complements more focused works such as Joselit 1990 and Caplan 2002. Blondheim 1998 offers a fresh approach to the study of immigrant rabbis at the turn of the 20th century. Mintz 1992 and Fishkoff 2003 engage the histories of America’s Hasidic Jews. Finally, the oft-quoted article Soloveitchik 1994 forms the starting point for any discussion of Orthodoxy in the post-Holocaust era.

Blondheim, Menahem. “Divine Comedy: the Jewish Orthodox Sermon in America, 1881–1939.” In Multilingual America: Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and the Languages of American Literature. Edited by Werner Sollors, 191–214. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
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An illuminating study of Yiddish sermons (and their republications, primarily written in Hebrew) delivered by immigrant eastern European rabbis in the United States.
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Caplan, Kimmy. Orthodox Judaism in the New World: Immigrant Rabbis and Preaching in America, 1881–1924. Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2002.
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Caplan’s work, written in Hebrew, profiles more than a dozen immigrant Orthodox rabbis, focusing on the social transitions that took place as these men left Europe and settled in cities across the United States.
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Fishkoff, Sue. The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch. New York: Schocken, 2003.
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Fishkoff introduces readers to the world of Chabad-Lubavitch “shluhim,” or rabbinic emissaries. Most of the study is dedicated to the Rebbe, the movement’s last grand rabbi, Menahem Mendel Schneerson, but Fishkoff also discusses the Chabad-Lubavitch movement under his predecessor and father-in-law, Joseph Isaac Schneersohn.
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Gurock, Jeffrey S. Orthodox Jews in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
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A synthetic social history of American Orthodox Judaism by its premier historian. The work is particularly strong on the 20th century and is replete with insights concerning contemporary Orthodox Judaism in the United States.
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Joselit, Jenna Weissman. New York’s Jewish Jews: The Orthodox Community in the Interwar Years. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.
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A lively social history of Americanization and Orthodoxy during the interwar years, focusing on two elite synagogues on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of Manhattan.
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Mintz, Jerome R. Hasidic People: A Place in the New World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
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A comprehensive historical and anthropological study describing the development of Hasidic communities in their new American environs, with special emphasis on Satmar and Lubavitch.
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Sherman, Moshe D. Orthodox Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996.
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An important reference guide that provides biographical and bibliographical information on central figures and institutions in the history of American Orthodoxy.
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Soloveitchik, Haym. “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodox Society.” Tradition 28 (Summer 1994): 64–130.
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A penetrating and influential essay concerning the transition from a mimetic to a textual culture in postwar American Orthodox Judaism.
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Conservative

Although influenced by earlier European models, Conservative Judaism was far more of an American creation than was Orthodoxy or Reform. How the movement emerged is debated in Sklare 1955, Davis 1963, and, more recently, Cohen 2012. Karp 1998 and Wertheimer 1997 present key articles on the history of Conservative Judaism and its adherents. Nadell 1988 and Wertheimer 2000 are important reference works. Finally, Waxman 1958 sets forth primary documents related to Conservative Judaism from its origins to the 1950s.

Cohen, Michael R. The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter’s Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
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A revisionist history of the early Conservative movement. Cohen argues that it began in earnest not in the 19th century, but during the 20th, led by disciples of Solomon Schechter, the influential president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
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Davis, Moshe. The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1963.
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This is the classic history of Conservative Judaism’s emergence. Though its central thesis has been severely challenged, most recently by Michael R. Cohen (see Cohen 2012), the volume’s close and detailed analysis of 19th-century American Judaism repays careful study.
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Karp, Abraham J. Jewish Continuity in America: Creative Survival in a Free Society. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998.
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A compilation of eight essays by one of the most influential American Jewish historians of the mid-20th century, himself a Conservative rabbi. The essays deal with the history of Orthodox and Conservative Judaism in the United States, including classic studies on Solomon Schechter, Jacob Joseph, Simon Tuska, and Congregation Beth Israel in Rochester.
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Nadell, Pamela S., ed. Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook. New York: Greenwood, 1988.
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A biographical dictionary of Conservative Jewish leaders, with articles on leading Conservative Jewish institutions, listings of its lay leadership, and a comprehensive bibliography.
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Sklare, Marshall. Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1955.
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This pathbreaking study of Conservative Judaism, by the “father” of American Jewish sociology, argues that the Conservative movement largely developed in areas of “third settlement,” among upwardly mobile eastern European Jews in the United States. While analyzing the movement’s unprecedented growth, Sklare also uncovered significant tensions between Conservative rabbis and their laity.
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Waxman, Mordecai, ed. Tradition and Change: The Development of Conservative Judaism. New York: Burning Bush, 1958.
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A compilation of key documents and addresses that helped shape Conservative Judaism and the Jewish Theological Seminary during its first decades.
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Wertheimer, Jack, ed. Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1997.
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A hefty two-volume collection of carefully researched essays that examine the Jewish Theological Seminary, Conservative Judaism’s flagship institution, from diverse angles and under a range of lenses.
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Wertheimer, Jack, ed. Jews in the Center: Conservative Synagogues and their Members. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
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Wertheimer and his team of scholars examine the culture and religious identity of Conservative Jews and their synagogues at the turn of the millennium. Filled with illuminating insights, the volume is a model study that sheds light on Conservative Judaism’s past, present, and future.
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Other Movements

American Judaism embraces several smaller movements apart from its three major wings discussed above. Kraut 1979, Umansky 2005, and Myers 2007 offer histories of some of the more radical Jewish religious movements. Prell 1989, an ethnography of the havurah movement, is important for its methodology and treatment of that relatively recent lay-driven movement. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (Scult 1993), one of the most important Jewish thinkers of the 20th century, was the founder of the Reconstructionist movement in Judaism.

Kraut, Benny. From Reform Judaism to Ethical Culture: The Religious Evolution of Felix Adler. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1979.
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The best treatment of Adler, one of most complex figures in 19th-century American Judaism. Kraut demonstrates the impact of Adler’s Ethical Culture movement on Reform Judaism.
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Myers, Jody E. Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Centre in America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007.
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Myers’ work, a combination of history and ethnography, examines the roots and ideology of the Kabbalah Centre, its growth and activities, and the motivations of those who join its ranks.
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Prell, Riv-Ellen. Prayer and Community: The Havurah in American Judaism. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989.
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Prell’s award-winning ethnography of a California-based havurah (prayer fellowship) explains the late-20th-century havurah movement and serves as a revealing case study of how young people in America redefine Judaism in the face of cultural change.
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Scult, Mel. Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century: A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993.
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The best-researched and most comprehensive biography of Kaplan by the Reconstructionist movement’s foremost historian. Scult, who also has edited Kaplan’s diaries and other writings, makes use of these primary sources to understand Reconstructionist Judaism’s founder and leader.
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Umansky, Ellen M. From Christian Science to Jewish Science: Spiritual Healing and American Jews. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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The only scholarly study of “Jewish Science,” this volume shows how that movement, related to Christian Science, influenced pastoral counseling, and produced the first female “rabbinic” leader in America, Tehilla Lichtenstein.
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History of the American Synagogue

The synagogue, the central institution of Jewish religious life, has both shaped and reflected changes in American Judaism over time. Korros and Sarna 1988 offers interpretive essays and a bibliography of synagogue histories. Wischnitzer 1955 is a pioneering history of synagogue architecture. Jick 1976, Kaufman 1999, Raphael 2011, and the articles in Wertheimer 1987 build upon individual congregational histories in an attempt to fashion a “bottom up” history of the American synagogue. Heilman 1976 is a pathbreaking sociological study of an Orthodox synagogue.

Heilman, Samuel C. Synagogue Life: A Study of Symbolic Interaction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
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This pioneering ethnography of a suburban Orthodox congregation is a methodologically significant and illuminating close-up view of the life of an Orthodox synagogue.
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Jick, Leon A. The Americanization of the Synagogue, 1820–1870. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1976.
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Jick draws on archival sources to trace the Americanization of central European immigrants and their 19th-century synagogues.
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Kaufman, David. Shul with a Pool: The “Synagogue Center” in American Jewish History. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999.
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Kaufman’s ambitious study describes the rise and fall of two American Jewish institutions: the synagogue center and the Jewish community center. Both institutions, he shows, played major roles in the lives of middle-class Jews beginning in the late 19th century.
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Korros, Alexandra Shecket, and Jonathan D. Sarna. American Synagogue History: A Bibliography and State-of-the-Field Survey. New York: M. Weiner, 1988.
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A bibliographic listing of synagogue and Jewish community histories, along with articles on the American synagogue and sources on synagogue architecture.
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Raphael, Marc Lee. The Synagogue in America: A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
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Utilizes synagogue histories, archival sources, oral histories, and more to provide a brief overview of the history, life, and ritual practices of America’s synagogues.
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Wertheimer, Jack, ed. The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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This pathbreaking volume contains some of the most influential essays ever written on the history of the American synagogue, including denominational and thematic essays.
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Wischnitzer, Rachel. Synagogue Architecture in the United States: History and Interpretation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955.
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The first comprehensive study of American synagogue architecture from the colonial era to World War II, with illustrations and significant interpretations.
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Local Synagogue Histories

American religion, like American politics, is essentially local. It plays out, for Jews, in the local synagogue, which is almost always independently governed by the congregation itself. Synagogue histories, as a result, are critical sources concerning lived religion. When done well, they demonstrate how individual congregations navigated between the high-minded ideology of their movements and the practical need to keep and attract members. They shed light on how Judaism was enacted and maintained on the ground. Among the hundreds of synagogue histories that have been written, Pool and Pool 1955 recounts, based on painstaking archival research, the history of Shearith Israel, the first synagogue founded in America. There are also fine recent histories of East Coast synagogues (Gurock 2004, Dwyer-Ryan 2009, Polland 2009), midwestern synagogues (Sarna and Goldman 1994, Brinkmann 2012) and western synagogues (Rosenbaum 2000).

Adler, Frank J. Roots in a Moving Stream: A Centennial History of Congregation B’nai Jehudah of Kansas City, 1870–1970. Kansas City, MO: The Temple Congregation B’nai Jehudah, 1972.
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One of the most detailed and best researched of all synagogue histories, Adler’s comprehensive work traces the development of B’nai Jehudah, its embrace of the Reform movement, and its 20th-century growth.
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Brinkmann, Tobias. Sundays at Sinai: A Jewish Congregation in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
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A pathbreaking history of Chicago’s Sinai Congregation and its longtime radical rabbi, Emil G. Hirsch. Brinkmann’s work is a model synagogue history as well as a critical study of American Reform Judaism from the mid-19th century until the first decades of the 20th.
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Dwyer-Ryan, Meaghan. Becoming American Jews: Temple Israel of Boston. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2009.
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The author charts Temple Israel’s history from its founding in 1854. Contains valuable information on its rabbinic and lay leaders, as well as on its women members.
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Gurock, Jeffrey S. Orthodoxy in Charleston: Brith Sholom Beth Israel and American Jewish History. Charleston, SC: College of Charleston Library, 2004.
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Gurock’s history focuses on Charleston Jews who remained Orthodox during the 19th and 20th centuries, in the face of Reform’s hegemony, while they simultaneously grappled with nonobservance.
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Polland, Annie. Landmark of the Spirit: The Eldridge Street Synagogue. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
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Polland’s well-researched history recounts the story of the first grand synagogue erected on New York’s Lower East Side by eastern European Jews. Marvelous illustrations illuminate the material history of the now refurbished synagogue.
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Pool, David de Sola, and Tamar de Sola Pool. An Old Faith in the New World: Portrait of Shearith Israel, 1654–1954. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.
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Utilizes abundant archival data to reconstruct the history of North America’s oldest Jewish congregation, which followed the Western Sephardic ritual. Includes valuable illustrations and appendices, along with important information concerning the first three hundred years of New York Jewish life.
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Rosenbaum, Fred. Visions of Reform: Congregation Emanu-El and the Jews of San Francisco, 1849–1999. Berkeley: Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2000.
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Updated from the author’s Architects of Reform, published in 1980, this history of Congregation Emanue-El in San Francisco, founded as a Reform temple during the gold rush, is a full-scale, objective history focusing on the congregation’s rabbis.
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Sarna, Jonathan D., and Karla Goldman. “From Synagogue-Community to Citadel of Reform: Phases in the History of K.K. Bene Israel (Rockdale Temple) in Cincinnati, Ohio.” In American Congregations. Vol. 1. Edited by James P. Wind and James W. Lewis, 159–220. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
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An archivally based independent history of Rockdale Temple in Cincinnati that employs the methods of congregational history to place this Reform congregation within the context of Cincinnati history and the history of its competitor, Bene Yeshurun (Isaac M. Wise Temple).
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Thematic Topics

Many of the most perceptive works in American Jewish history cover particular themes rather than epochs. Some of these themes, like anti-Semitism, have been written about for years; others, like Jewish economic life, have only emerged recently.

America as Part of Diaspora History

The recent transnational trend in American history has shaped an effort to examine American Jewish history within the context of Diaspora history as a whole. Sarna 2006 represents an initial attempt to bring America into the discussion of “port Jews” in modern Jewish history. Two later studies, Mendelsohn 2007 for the 19th century and Kobrin 2010 for the 20th century, frame the American Jewish experience within the broader context of modern Jewish history.

Kobrin, Rebecca. Jewish Bialystok and its Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
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Examines communities in the United States, Israel, Australia, and Argentina that identify with one another through their common Bialystok origin. This transnational work provides new ways of conceptualizing Diaspora communities.
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Mendelsohn, Adam. “Tongue Ties: The Emergence of the Anglophone Jewish Diaspora in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.” American Jewish History 93 (June 2007): 177–209.
DOI: 10.1353/ajh.2007.0039Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A pathbreaking essay that explores the transnational network of English-speaking communities across the world that developed in the 19th century.
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Sarna, Jonathan D. “Port Jews in the Atlantic: Further Thoughts.” Jewish History 20 (June 2006): 213–219.
DOI: 10.1007/s10835-005-9004-xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Adapts the European concept of the “port Jew” to the study of the New World, with emphasis on their importance to the economic and social development of their communities.
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Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism emerged as a central theme in American Jewish history in the wake of broader studies of prejudice and discrimination in American life. The fullest treatment, summing up the author’s life’s work, is found in Dinnerstein 1994. Dinnerstein 1966 and Oney 2003 examine the Leo Frank case, a notorious anti-Semitic episode from 1915. Woeste 2012 is the most extensive treatment of Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic campaign following World War I. Seltzer 1972 offers an important documentary history that spans multiple eras of American Jewish history.

Dinnerstein, Leonard. The Leo Frank Case. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1966.
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A pioneering study of the 1915 wrongful conviction and lynching of Leo Frank in Atlanta, a key episode in the history of American anti-Semitism.
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Dinnerstein, Leonard. Antisemitism in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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The standard history of American anti-Semitism, employing a wide range of sources. Dinnerstein emphasizes the rise of anti-Semitism in the post–Civil War era.
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Oney, Steve. And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. New York: Pantheon, 2003.
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The most comprehensive study of the Atlanta murder for which Leo Frank was wrongly convicted and lynched, based on the author’s lifetime of research.
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Seltzer, Michael, ed. “Kike!”: A Documentary History of Anti-Semitism in America. New York: Meridian, 1972.
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A unique primary source reader, containing a rich selection of anti-Semitic writings and images.
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Woeste, Victoria Saker. Henry Ford’s War on Jews and the Legal Battle against Hate Speech. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012.
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The most detailed account of Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic crusade during the early 20th century. Woeste examines Ford’s involvement with the Dearborn Independent, his anti-Semitic newspaper, and his legal battles with the Jewish community, including the Jewish leader Louis Marshall.
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Economics

Only recently have historians begun to take a critical look at the economic lives of American Jews. Mendelsohn 2012 focuses on the clothing trade to show the impact of the Civil War on American Jewry. Davis 2012 and Wenger 1996 treat Jews during Prohibition and the Great Depression. Kobrin 2012 is a pioneering collection of articles that place economics at the center of American Jewish history.

Davis, Marni. Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
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Traces the history of Jews and the liquor trade from the 19th century through Prohibition. While alcohol aided many Jews in their process of Americanization, prohibitionists challenged them with a different vision of acculturation.
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Kobrin, Rebecca, ed. Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.
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A pioneering collection of essays that focus on the economic history of American Jews, including studies of the clothing, scrap metal, music, and curio industries; case studies of how capitalism reshaped religion; and responses to capitalism.
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Mendelsohn, Adam. “Beyond the Battlefield: Reevaluating the Legacy of the Civil War for American Jews.” American Jewish Archives Journal 64 (2012): 82–111.
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Explores how entrepreneurial Jews exploited the economic potential of the Civil War to generate wealth, and how these newly affluent Jews then helped to facilitate the social and economic transformation of the American Jewish community.
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Wenger, Beth S. New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.
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The basic study of Jews during the Great Depression, in which Wenger explores its economic and social impact on New York Jews.
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Education

Beginning in earnest with Sunday school education in the Antebellum period (See Ashton 1997, cited under 1820–1880), American Jews have sought to preserve Jewish identity through education. Gartner 1976 is an important study that engages Jewish interest in public schooling during the 19th century. Klapper 2005 looks at the education of Jewish women. Dushkin 1918 and Brumberg 1986 examine the education of Jewish immigrants around the turn of the 20th century. Schiff considers the rise of Jewish day schools, particularly in the postwar era. Ritterband and Wechsler 1994 looks at the rise of Jewish studies at American universities. Krasner 2011, a study of the important Jewish educator Samson Benderly and his legacy, sets a new standard in the study of American Jewish education. Graff 2008 provides a concise survey of American Jewish education that synthesizes much of the previously published literature.

Brumberg, Stephan F. Going to America, Going to School: The Jewish Immigrant Public School Encounter in Turn-of-the-Century New York City. New York: Praeger, 1986.
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Shows how German Jews and non-Jewish educators on the Lower East Side fashioned educational programming to Americanize eastern European Jewish immigrants and their families.
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Dushkin, Alexander M. Jewish Education in New York City. New York: Bureau of Jewish Education, 1918.
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A classic study containing invaluable data, primary material, and analyses concerning Jewish education in New York during the era of mass immigration.
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Gartner, Lloyd P. “‘Temples of Liberty Unpolluted’: American Jews and the Public Schools, 1840–1875.” In A Bicentennial Festschrift for Jacob Rader Marcus. Edited by Bertram Wallace Korn, 157–189. New York: Ktav, 1976.
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A pioneering study of the Jewish communal debate surrounding public schooling in mid-19th-century America, when Jewish attitudes toward America’s public schools were formed.
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Graff, Gil. “And You Shall Teach Them Diligently”: A Concise History of Jewish Education in the United States 1776–2000. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2008.
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A brief but thorough introduction to Jewish education in America that makes extensive use of the secondary literature on the topic.
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Klapper, Melissa R. Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860–1920. New York: New York University Press, 2005.
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Argues that by acculturating to American conceptions of education and leisure, Jewish girls—many of them children of immigrants—showed their families how to socialize to American norms.
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Krasner, Jonathan. The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011.
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An award-winning study that explores the influence of Samson Benderly and his disciples on formal and informal Jewish education in 20th-century America.
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Ritterband, Paul, and Harold S. Wechsler. Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
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Explores the Jewish experience teaching and studying at American universities. Particularly important are the chapters dealing with the appointments of Salo W. Baron at Columbia University and Harry A. Wolfson at Harvard University.
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Schiff, Alvin. The Jewish Day School in America. New York: Jewish Education Committee Press, 1966.
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A pioneering study that includes valuable quantitative and qualitative data on the “day school movement” in Jewish education from the 1940s until the mid-1960s.
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Holocaust

The Holocaust looms large in the historiography of 20th-century American Jewish history. Much of this literature (Feingold 1995, Novick 1999) deals with American Jewish responses to the Holocaust as well as American political (Wyman 1984 and Feingold 1995) and media involvement (Leff 2005) in saving Jews from the Shoah. Diner 2009 offers a revisionist account of Holocaust memorialization, rebutting earlier works, particularly Novick 1999.

Diner, Hasia R. We Remember with Reverence and Love. New York: New York University Press, 2009.
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A well-researched revisionist account that challenges the view that American Jews were reluctant to speak about the Holocaust in the immediate post–World War II era by showing when and where they did speak out.
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Feingold, Henry L. Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
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Essays that seek to demonstrate, contrary to Wyman 1984, that America, American Jews, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt mostly did what they could to save Jews, albeit with only limited success.
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Leff, Laurel. Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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Demonstrates that New York’s leading newspaper avoided reporting on the Holocaust, and explains why. When the New York Times did include news, it was typically buried on back pages and rarely mentioned Jews by name.
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Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
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A well-researched and controversial study that documents the methods employed by American Jewish leaders to remember the Holocaust, not only as part of Jewish history, but also within American culture.
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Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust. New York: Pantheon, 1984.
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A best-selling indictment showing that the American government might have done much more to prevent the mass extermination of Jews by the Nazis.
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Jewish-Black Relations

While many Jews participated in the black civil rights movement, recent scholarship shows that other Jews were ambivalent. The relationship between blacks and Jews was more complex than once believed. Diner 1977 tackles the beginning of this relationship. The articles in Bauman and Kalin 1997 look at rabbis who assumed different positions on the issue. Webb 2001 is the most sophisticated and complex treatment of southern Jews and the civil rights movement. Pritchett 2002 is a local Brooklyn history that documents the rise and fall of Jewish-black relations in that New York borough.

Bauman, Mark K., and Berkeley Kalin, eds. The Quiet Voices: Southern Rabbis and Black Civil Rights, 1880s to 1990s. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.
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A collection of well-researched essays on the activism of southern, mostly Reform rabbis during the long civil rights movement. The volume also includes memoirs of activist rabbis.
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Diner, Hasia R. In the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks, 1915–1935. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977.
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A pioneering study of black-Jewish relations in the United States prior to the civil rights movement, based on Jewish and black newspaper sources.
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Pritchett, Wendell E. Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
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A study that charts the transition of Brownsville from a neighborhood dominated by Jews to one with a large population of underprivileged African Americans. Shows how, in the 1960s, the relationship between these two groups disintegrated despite earlier efforts at cooperation.
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Webb, Clive. Fight against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2001.
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A well-researched study that sensitively examines the position of southern Jews on the question of civil rights, and shows why, as a small minority, many of them resisted offering help to their African American neighbors.
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Labor

Jewish immigrants played a significant role in the development of the labor movement in America, and many Jewish workers also saw themselves as members of a specifically “Jewish labor movement,” that conducted its affairs in the Yiddish language. Michels 2005 is the best work that connects Jewish socialists with Yiddish culture. Green 1998 offers many documents that connect American Jewish labor movements to others in Europe and includes valuable introductions and commentaries. Epstein 1969 is the classic study of this subject, replete with valuable data. Antonovsky and Tcherikower 1961 presents, in translation, important articles that had earlier appeared in Yiddish.

Antonovsky, Aaron, and Elias Tcherikower. The Early Jewish Labor Movement in the United States. New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1961.
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Drawn from two hefty volumes in Yiddish, the articles in this volume focus on the Jewish labor movement in the last two decades of the 19th century.
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Epstein, Melech. Jewish Labor in U.S.A.: An Industrial, Political and Cultural History of the Jewish Labor Movement, 1882–1914. New York: Ktav. 1969.
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First published in two volumes (1950, 1953), this one-volume edition contains an important new preface by the author and is the most comprehensive study of the Jewish labor movement prior to World War I.
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Green, Nancy L., ed. Jewish Workers in the Modern Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
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A collection of documents comparing Jewish workers in New York, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Germany, and Amsterdam, focusing on four broad themes: (1) daily life and work; (2) societies, organizations, and schools; (3) politics and ideology; and (4) culture and identities.
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Michels, Tony. A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
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Michels’s work is the finest so far on the emergence of eastern European Jewish radicalism on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The author demonstrates the importance of Yiddish socialists’ American surroundings, as opposed to their European roots.
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Politics

A majority of American Jews has voted for Democratic candidates in every American Presidential election since 1928. Nevertheless, Jews have also contributed in important ways to Republican politics, especially the neoconservative turn of the late 20th century (Friedman 2005). The relationship of Jews to America’s presidents is traced in Dalin and Kolatch 2000. The rise of Jewish liberalism, a perennial subject of interest, is closely studied in Dollinger 2000. Sorin 1985 examines the more radical Jewish politics of an earlier era, and Mendelsohn 2004 looks at cultural aspects of the Jewish flirtation with communism. Maisel and Forman 2001 is the best introduction to myriad aspect of Jews and American politics. Stone 2011 is a biographical dictionary of all Jews who served in Congress, with invaluable charts on the history of Jews in the legislative branch of the federal government.

Dalin, David G., and Alfred J. Kolatch. The Presidents of the United States and the Jews. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 2000.
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Documents the relationships between America’s presidents, influential Jews, and the Jewish community as a whole.
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Dollinger, Marc. Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
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This well-researched study of Jewish liberalism from the 1930s to the 1970s relates Jewish political behavior to the Jewish quest for inclusion in American life.
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Friedman, Murray. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511818721Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces the rise of neoconservatism in American Jewish life, especially on the part of Jews who formerly advocated liberalism.
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Maisel, Sandy L., and Ira N. Forman, eds. Jews in American Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
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A collection of thoughtful essays concerning the Jewish vote, the political identity of American Jews, Jewish liberalism and conservatism, and the power of Jewish women in American politics; with biographical and bibliographical data, listings of Jews in public office, and selected data on the Jewish vote in national, state, and local elections.
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Mendelsohn, Ezra. “Jews, Communism, and Art in Interwar America.” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 20 (2004): 99–132.
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A well-illustrated pioneering study of left-wing Jewish artists, their politics, and their relationship with the Communist Party during the interwar years.
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Sorin, Gerald. The Prophetic Minority: American Jewish Immigrant Radicals, 1880–1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
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A collective biography of Jewish socialists during the era of mass eastern European Jewish immigration. Sorin traces Jewish radicalism to eastern Europe and beyond that to the Hebrew prophets.
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Stone, Kurt F. The Jews of Capitol Hill: A Compendium of Jewish Congressional Members. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2011.
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Profiles every Jew who has ever served in the US Senate and House of Representatives, with information on the Jewish make-up of each Congress from the 27th Congress in 1841 (one Jewish member) to the 111th Congress in 2009 (forty-six Jewish members).
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Sephardic Jews in America

Sephardic Jews, who trace their roots back to the Iberian Peninsula, emigrated to American in multiple waves. The earliest Sephardim, now known as Western Sephardim, had lived as Crypto Jews (Conversos) and arrived during the colonial era from the Iberian Peninsula, Holland, and western Europe. They are treated in studies of colonial Jewry. Later Sephardim, known as Eastern Sephardim, left the Iberian Peninsula for the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 15th century and began to immigrate to the United States when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated beginning in the late 19th century. Papo 1987 and Ben-Ur 2009 examine this immigrant group, utilizing sources in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), which these immigrants spoke. Ben-Ur 2009 looks at women as well as men and places the immigrants in a Hispanic context. An earlier work, Angel 1982, utilizes the Ladino newspaper La America to shed light on the experience of these immigrants.

Angel, Marc. La America: The Sephardic Experience in the United States. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982.
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Angel traces the migration of Levantine Sephardim to America from 1899 to 1925, making use of the Judeo-Spanish newspaper La America from that period.
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Ben-Ur, Aviva. Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History. New York: New York University Press, 2009.
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Ben-Ur’s is the first lengthy treatment of Ladino-speaking Eastern Sephardic immigrants from the Ottoman Empire. Her chapters address the construction of community and co-ethnicity among Sephardim, and show how their emerging identity shaped Ashkenazic Jews as well.
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Papo, Joseph M. Sephardim in Twentieth Century America: In Search of Unity. San Jose, CA: Pele Yoetz, 1987.
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A comprehensive survey of 20th-century Sephardic immigration and Americanization. The author makes use of little-known Ladino and Arabic sources.
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Zionism

Calls to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, partly as a haven for persecuted Jews and partly as a means of revitalizing Jewish life around the world, began to gather momentum in America during the last third of the 19th century. They gained strength amid the anti-Jewish persecutions of World War I and World War II, leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Urofsky 1975 is a standard history, focusing on political events; Cohen 1975 covers some of the same ground focusing on Zionist ideas. Klieman and Klieman 1990 makes available a wide range of primary documents concerning the movement. Reinharz and Raider 2005 focuses on the important role that women played in Zionism. The best book on early Zionism in America is Friesel 1970 (in Hebrew). Halpern 1979 and Reinharz 1988 show how the movement was transformed by Louis Brandeis and the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Raider 1998 focuses on Labor Zionism, a major movement within American Zionism, while Medoff 2002 tells the history of right-wing Zionism in America and the followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky. Meyer 1983, a classic article, surveys the complex relationship of Reform Judaism to Zionism, while the essays in Almog, et al. 1998 trace the broader story of Zionism and religion. Kolsky 1990 examines the opposition to political Zionism on the part of the American Council for Judaism.

Almog, Shmuel, Jehuda Reinharz, and Anita Shapiro, eds. Zionism and Religion. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998.
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Includes valuable essays on the development of Zionism in the United States and its engagement with different wings of American Judaism.
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Cohen, Naomi W. American Jews and the Zionist Idea. New York: Ktav, 1975.
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Details the difficulties that Zionists had in rallying support in America during the first decades of the 20th century, and how, thanks to Louis Brandeis, American Zionism surged in membership, reaching out to eastern European Jews.
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Friesel, Evyatar. The Zionist Movement in the United States during the Years 1897–1914. Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibutz Ha-Me’uhad, 1970.
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The most important and best-researched study of early American Zionism, prior to Louis Brandeis’s conversion to the cause. In Hebrew.
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Halpern, Ben. “The Americanization of Zionism, 1880–1930.” American Jewish History 69 (September 1979): 15–33.
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A study by one of Zionism’s foremost historians of how Zionism in America, led by Louis Brandeis, became distinctive from European Zionism and was able to win widespread communal support.
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Klieman, Aaron S., and Adrian L. Klieman, eds. American Zionism: A Documentary History. 15 vols. New York: Garland, 1990.
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A mammoth collection of invaluable primary sources spanning issues within American Zionism from the late 19th century until the Six-Day War in 1967.
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Kolsky, Thomas A. Jews against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942–1948. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
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Tells the story of the American Council for Judaism, established by Reform rabbis and lay leaders in 1942, in response to their movement’s endorsement of Zionism and a Jewish state in Palestine.
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Medoff, Raphael. Militant Zionism in America: The Rise and Impact of the Jabotinsky Movement in the United States, 1926–1948. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
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Recounts the history of Revisionist Zionists in America, supporters of Vladimir Jabotinsky, whose agitation and political activism proved instrumental in Britain’s decision to leave Palestine, paving the way for the establishment of the State of Israel.
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Meyer, Michael A. “American Reform Judaism and Zionism: Early Efforts at Ideological Rapprochement.” Studies in Zionism 7 (Spring 1983): 49–64.
DOI: 10.1080/13531048308575836Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces the little-known history of pro-Zionist rabbis in the American Reform movement and reevaluates the relationship of Reform Judaism to the Zionism movement as a whole, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel.
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Raider, Mark A. The Emergence of American Zionism. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
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A well-researched study of Labor Zionism and how it shaped the history of Zionism in the United States.
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Reinharz, Jehuda. “Zionism in the USA on the Eve of the Balfour Declaration.” Studies in Zionism 9 (1988): 131–145.
DOI: 10.1080/13531048808575933Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A perceptive study of American Zionism at a pivotal moment when it began to play a leading role in the world Zionist movement, previously centered in Europe.
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Reinharz, Shulamit, and Mark A. Raider, eds. American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2005.
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A well-edited collection of primary and secondary sources portraying the central role played by Jewish women and Jewish women’s organizations in the history of American Zionism. Includes a valuable timeline on American Jewish women and Zionism, 1848–1948, and eight memoirs by women Zionists.
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Urofsky, Melvin I. American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975.
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An influential narrative history of American Zionism, emphasizing the role of Louis Brandeis and his supporters in accommodating Zionism to the ideals of American Progressivism.
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