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Jewish Life in Akron (Images of America)
by Beverly Magilavy Rose Arlene Cohen RossenIn the mid-1800s, many Jewish families joined the western expansion and emigrated from Germany to Akron, a canal town that also had an inviting countryside. They sought economic security and religious freedom--a new start in a new town. But it was not an easy life. They organized their Jewish community into cultural and religious groups, and by the 20th century, their efforts attracted Central and Eastern European Jews with differing lifestyles. In 1929, the Akron Jewish Center opened and provided a place for all of the diverse Jewish groups in Akron to gather. It also played an enormous role in raising awareness of the richness of Jewish life in the Akron community. Jewish Life in Akron celebrates 150 years of Jewish culture, family, business, and organizational life through vintage images, many never before published, and supporting history.
Jewish Life in Medieval Spain: A New History (Jewish Culture and Contexts)
by Jonathan RayJewish Life in Medieval Spain is a detailed exploration of the Jewish experience in medieval Spain from the dawn of Sephardic society in the ninth century to the expulsion of 1492. An important contribution of the book is the integration of the rise and fall of Jewish life in Muslim al-Andalus into the history of the Jews in medieval Christian Spain. It traces the collapse of Jewish life in Muslim Spain, the emigration of Andalusi Jewry to the lands of Christian Iberia, and the long and difficult confluence of these two distinct Jewish subcultures.Focusing on internal developments of Jewish society, it offers a narrative of Jewish history from the inside out, bringing to light the various divisions and rivalries within the Jewish community. This approach, in turn, allows for a deeper understanding of the complex relations between Spanish Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Jonathan Ray’s original perspective on the Jewish experience is particularly instructive when considering the widescale anti-Jewish riots of 1391. The combination of violence and mass conversion of the Jews irrevocably shifted the dynamics of inter-religious relations as well as those within the Jewish community itself. Yet even in the wake of these tragic events, the Jews of Spain continued to flourish, fostering a culture that they would carry into exile and that would preserve the memory of Jewish Spain for centuries to come.
Jewish Life in Small-Town America: A History
by Lee Shai WeissbachLee Shai Weissbach offers the first comprehensive portrait of small-town Jewish life in America. Exploring the history of communities of 100 to 1000 Jews, the book focuses on the years from the mid-nineteenth century to World War II. Weissbach examines the dynamics of 490 communities across the United States and reveals that smaller Jewish centers were not simply miniature versions of larger communities but were instead alternative kinds of communities in many respects. The book investigates topics ranging from migration patterns to occupational choices, from Jewish education and marriage strategies to congregational organization. The story of smaller Jewish communities attests to the richness and complexity of American Jewish history and also serves to remind us of the diversity of small-town society in times past.
Jewish Life in Twenty-First-Century Turkey
by Marcy Brink-DananTurkey is famed for a history of tolerance toward minorities, and there is a growing nostalgia for the "Ottoman mosaic." In this richly detailed study, Marcy Brink-Danan examines what it means for Jews to live as a tolerated minority in contemporary Istanbul. Often portrayed as the "good minority," Jews in Turkey celebrate their long history in the region, yet they are subject to discrimination and their institutions are regularly threatened and periodically attacked. Brink-Danan explores the contradictions and gaps in the popular ideology of Turkey as a land of tolerance, describing how Turkish Jews manage the tensions between cosmopolitanism and patriotism, difference as Jews and sameness as Turkish citizens, tolerance and violence.
Jewish Lives Under Communism: New Perspectives
by David Shneer Gennady Estraikh Anna Shternshis Diana Dumitru Katerina Capková Kamil Kijek Stephan Stach Valery Dymshits Anna Koch Agata Maksimowska Marcos Silber Galina Zelenina Kata BohusThis volume provides new, groundbreaking views of Jewish life in various countries of the pro-Soviet bloc from the end of the Second World War until the collapse of Communism in late 1989. The authors, twelve leading historians and anthropologists from Europe, Israel and the United States, look at the experience of Jews under Communism by digging beyond formal state policy and instead examining the ways in which Jews creatively seized opportunities to develop and express their identities, religious and secular, even under great duress. The volume shifts the focus from Jews being objects of Communist state policy (and from anti-Jewish prejudices in Communist societies) to the agency of Jews and their creativity in Communist Europe after the Holocaust. The examination of Jewish history from a transnational vantage point challenges a dominant strand in history writing today, by showing instead the wide variety of Jewish experiences in law, traditions and institutional frameworks as conceived from one Communist country to another and even within a single country, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. By focusing on networks across east-central Europe and beyond and on the forms of identity open to Jews in this important period, the volume begins a crucial rethinking of social and cultural life under Communist regimes.
Jewish Lives and Jewish Education in the UK: School, Family and Society
by Alex Pomson Helena MillerThe book explores the evolving relationships between parents and children, the significance of the Jewish school in their lives, how young people think about religious practices, and their lives in the UK. It addresses issues related to families and schooling and pays special attention to the transitions to secondary school and then to life opportunities in the following years. It also uncovers the effect of these transitions on the family, and of the family on those transitions. The book views these phenomena through the prism of a ten-year period from when research participants were eleven years old until they were twenty-one, drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks to help make sense of what was observed. The data help clarify how Jewish schools function as both public and community-based institutions, and what they do and do not contribute to the lives of young people. The research reported includes large scale survey data sets as well as repeated in-depth interviewswith parents and their children. The findings have multiple implications for practitioners, policy makers and researchers as they seek ways to understand and engage with families and schools. This book also appeals to researchers who are interested in the development of religious and cultural identity in the context of minority groups within multicultural societies.
Jewish Mad Men: Advertising and the Design of the American Jewish Experience
by Professor Kerri P. SteinbergIt is easy to dismiss advertising as simply the background chatter of modern life, often annoying, sometimes hilarious, and ultimately meaningless. But Kerri P. Steinberg argues that a careful study of the history of advertising can reveal a wealth of insight into a culture. In Jewish Mad Men, Steinberg looks specifically at how advertising helped shape the evolution of American Jewish life and culture over the past one hundred years. Drawing on case studies of famous advertising campaigns--from Levy's Rye Bread ("You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's") to Hebrew National hot dogs ("We answer to a higher authority")--Steinberg examines advertisements from the late nineteenth-century in New York, the center of advertising in the United States, to trace changes in Jewish life there and across the entire country. She looks at ads aimed at the immigrant population, at suburbanites in midcentury, and at hipster and post-denominational Jews today. In addition to discussing campaigns for everything from Manischewitz wine to matzoh, Jewish Mad Men also portrays the legendary Jewish figures in advertising--like Albert Lasker and Bill Bernbach--and lesser known "Mad Men" like Joseph Jacobs, whose pioneering agency created the brilliantly successful Maxwell House Coffee Haggadah. Throughout, Steinberg uses the lens of advertising to illuminate the Jewish trajectory from outsider to insider, and the related arc of immigration, acculturation, upward mobility, and suburbanization.Anchored in the illustrations, photographs, jingles, and taglines of advertising, Jewish Mad Men features a dozen color advertisements and many black-and-white images. Lively and insightful, this book offers a unique look at both advertising and Jewish life in the United States.
Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah (Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology)
by Yuval Harari“Magic culture is certainly fascinating. But what is it? What, in fact, are magic writings, magic artifacts?” Originally published in Hebrew in 2010, Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah is a comprehensive study of early Jewish magic focusing on three major topics: Jewish magic inventiveness, the conflict with the culture it reflects, and the scientific study of both. The first part of the book analyzes the essence of magic in general and Jewish magic in particular. The book begins with theories addressing the relationship of magic and religion in fields like comparative study of religion, sociology of religion, history, and cultural anthropology, and considers the implications of the paradigm shift in the interdisciplinary understanding of magic for the study of Jewish magic. The second part of the book focuses on Jewish magic culture in late antiquity and in the early Islamic period. This section highlights the artifacts left behind by the magic practitioners—amulets, bowls, precious stones, and human skulls—as well as manuals that include hundreds of recipes. Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah also reports on the culture that is reflected in the magic evidence from the perspective of external non-magic contemporary Jewish sources. Issues of magic and religion, magical mysticism, and magic and social power are dealt with in length in this thorough investigation. Scholars interested in early Jewish history and comparative religions will find great value in this text.
Jewish Masculinities: German Jews, Gender, and History
by Benjamin Maria Baader, Sharon Gillerman, and Paul LernerStudies exploring the history of the German-Jewish male identity from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, across a myriad of societal occupations.Stereotyped as delicate and feeble intellectuals, Jewish men in German-speaking lands in fact developed a rich and complex spectrum of male norms, models, and behaviors. Jewish Masculinities explores conceptions and experiences of masculinity among Jews in Germany from the sixteenth through the late twentieth century as well as emigrants to North America, Palestine, and Israel. The volume examines the different worlds of students, businessmen, mohels, ritual slaughterers, rabbis, performers, and others, shedding new light on the challenge for Jewish men of balancing German citizenship and cultural affiliation with Jewish communal solidarity, religious practice, and identity.“A valuable addition to the growing field of Jewish gender history.” —Derek Penslar, University of Toronto“[This book] assembles innovative, vivid, and inspiring inquiries into the intersection of Jewish history, German history, and gender history. By focusing on the male side of Jewish gender history . . . [this] book establishes a new field, profiting from a broad range of never (or rarely) before used primary sources, such as memoirs, letters, interviews, and obscure tabloids.” —German Studies Review, May 2014“[A]n excellent introduction to the Zionist remasculinization of the Jewish male.” —H-Judaic, February 2015“[I]nsightful, innovative and largely entertaining. . . . [T]his volume makes a very valuable and original contribution to German-Jewish history.” —German History“Historians of central Europe will be enriched by the interrogations of “theory” along with excavations of little-known yet critical avenues of Jewish history in this excellent volume.” —Central European History
Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s
by Eliyahu SternA paradigm-shifting account of the modern Jewish experience, from one of the most creative young historians of his generationTo understand the organizing framework of modern Judaism, Eliyahu Stern believes that we should look deeper and farther than the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the influence and affluence of American Jewry. Against the revolutionary backdrop of mid-nineteenth-century Europe, Stern unearths the path that led a group of rabbis, scientists, communal leaders, and political upstarts to reconstruct the core tenets of Judaism and join the vanguard of twentieth-century revolutionary politics. In the face of dire poverty and rampant anti-Semitism, they mobilized Judaism for projects directed at ensuring the fair and equal distribution of resources in society. Their program drew as much from the universalism of Karl Marx and Charles Darwin as from the messianism and utopianism of biblical and Kabbalistic works. Once described as a religion consisting of rituals, reason, and rabbinics, Judaism was now also rooted in land, labor, and bodies. Exhaustively researched, this original, revisionist account challenges our standard narratives of nationalism, secularization, and de-Judaization.
Jewish Moroccan Folk Narratives from Israel (Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology)
by Haya Bar-Itzhak Aliza ShenharJewish Moroccan Folk Narratives focuses on two central elements: textual research to examine the aesthetic qualities of the narrative, their division into genres, the various versions and their parallels, and acculturation in Israel, as well as contextual research to examine the performance art of the narrator and the role of the narrative as a communicative process in the narrating society. The collection includes twenty-one narratives by twelve storytellers; an account of the narrators' lives and a commentary have been applied to each. In contrast to most anthologies of Jewish folktales, the texts in this book were recorded in the natural context of narration and in the language of origin (Judaeo-Arabic), meeting the most vigorous standards of current folklore scholarship.
Jewish Mothers Tell Their Stories: Acts of Love and Courage
by Ellen Cole Rachel J Siegel Susan Steinberg OrenWinner of the Women in Psychology Jewish Caucus Award for 2000!Jewish Mothers Tell Their Stories: Acts of Love and Courage contains touching and personal essays written by contemporary Jewish mothers from different parts of the globe. Their stories reveal the choices that Jewish mothers make in our post-Holocaust, non-Jewish world--the many ways of being Jewish, the acts of loving, of preserving and celebrating Jewish traditions and spirituality, and of transmitting them to their children and families. The firsthand stories in this compelling book raises questions and provides you with insight into a variety of topics, including: The 'Jewish mother’stereotype and its impact on real Jewish mothers ethnic/historical connections between mothers and daughters moving acts of love, courage, and sacrifice in response to illness, war, or conflicting ideologies motherhood as a catalyst for personal evolutions of Jewish identity and values Orthodox to secular expressions of spirituality The impact of the 'Jewish motherhood imperative’ positive experiences of conversion and interfaith families conveying Jewish history and tradition in a Christian worldJewish Mothers Tell Their Stories will draw you into an appreciation of the cultural, ethnic, and spiritual aspects of mothering. This remarkable collection explores the different meanings of today's concept of “Jewish mother” and “Jewish family.”
Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy
by David M. FreidenreichUncovering the hidden history of Islamophobia and its surprising connections to the long-standing hatred of Jews. Hatred of Jews and hatred of Muslims have been intertwined in Christian thought since the rise of Islam. In Jewish Muslims, David M. Freidenreich explores the history of this complex, perplexing, and emotionally fraught phenomenon. He makes the compelling case that, then and now, hate-mongers target "them" in an effort to define "us." Analyzing anti-Muslim sentiment in texts and images produced across Europe and the Middle East over a thousand years, the author shows how Christians intentionally distorted reality by alleging that Muslims were just like Jews. They did so not only to justify assaults against Muslims on theological grounds but also to motivate fellow believers to live as "good" Christians. The disdain premodern polemicists expressed for Islam and Judaism was never really about these religions. Rather, they sought to promote their own visions of Christianity—a dynamic that similarly animates portrayals of Muslims and Jews today.
Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: New Insights and Scholarship (Jewish Studies in the 21st Century #2)
by Frederick E GreenspahnInformative and accessible essays exploring contemporary scholarship in Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah.“This carefully edited collection of essays on Jewish mysticism effectively delivers on its promise to be accessible to broad audiences. The volume amounts to a thoughtful and lucid conversation among leading scholars. . . . The literate lay reader as well as faculty and students in a wide range of university courses will find this to be a most useful gateway to Jewish mysticism as well as an illumining account of current trends in scholarship.” —Jeremy Zwelling, Wesleyan UniversityOver the past generation, scholars have devoted increasing attention to the diverse forms that Jewish mysticism has taken both in the past and today: what was once called “nonsense” by Jewish scholars has generated important research and attention both within the academy and beyond, as demonstrated by the popular fascination with figures such as Madonna and Demi Moore and the growing interest in spirituality.In Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah, leading experts introduce the history of this scholarship as well as the most recent insights and debates that currently animate the field in a way that is accessible to a broad audience. From mystical outpourings in ancient Palestine to the Kabbalah Centre, and from attitudes towards gender to mystical contributions to Jewish messianic movements, this volume explores the various expressions of Jewish mysticism from antiquity to the present day in an engaging style appropriate for students and non-specialists alike.“Refreshingly summarizes much of the current thinking about mysticism in general and Kabbalah in particular. The essays are thoughtful, provocative, and frequently even inspiring.” —Lawrence Kushner, author of I’m God, You’re Not“This is an excellent book for general readers who wish to learn about this fascinating area of Jewish life and literature, as the jargon of scholar-speak is kept to a minimum.” —Jewish Book Council
Jewish Mysticism and Magic: An Anthropological Perspective (Routledge Jewish Studies Series)
by Maureen BloomProviding a unique anthropological perspective on Jewish mysticism and magic, this book is a study of Jewish rites and rituals and how the analysis of early literature provides the roots for understanding religious practices. It includes analysis on the importance of sacrifice, amulets, and names, and their underlying cultural constructs and the persistence of their symbolic significance.
Jewish Odesa: Negotiating Identities and Traditions in Contemporary Ukraine (The Modern Jewish Experience)
by Marina Sapritsky-NahumJewish Odesa: Negotiating Identities and Traditions in Contemporary Ukraine explores the rich Jewish history in Ukraine's port city of Odesa. Long considered both a uniquely cosmopolitan and Jewish place, Odesa's Jewish character has shifted since the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine gained its independence.Drawing on extensive field research, Marina Sapritsky-Nahum examines how the role of Russian language and culture, memories of the Soviet political project, and Odesan's place in a Ukrainian national project have all been questioned in recent years.Jewish Odesa reveals how a city once famous for its progressive Jewish traditions has become dominated by Orthodox Judaism and framed by the agendas of international Jewish organizations embedded in a religiosity that is foreign to the city. Russia's war in Ukraine has forced Jewish identities with ties to Odesa to change still further.
Jewish Options: Pluralistic Identities in 21st Century America (Studies of Jews in Society #8)
by Arnold Dashefsky Ira M. Sheskin J.Alan WinterThis book offers an examination of an expanding set of options for being Jewish in contemporary American society. It examines the evolution of Jewish identity across five epochs of Jewish civilization as well as the transformation of the American Jewish experience across four centuries. In addition, an institutional history and a geographic, demographic, and religious profile of American Jews are presented, including an outline of contemporary Jewish options to express Jewish identity in twenty-first century America. Readers will gain an understanding of how these options developed via the provision of a socio-historical and a social scientific analysis of each option in one integrated volume. The book also discusses contemporary challenges to the continuity of American Jewish community and identity including the issues of education, interfaith marriage, and philanthropy.
Jewish Peoplehood
by Noam PiankoAlthough fewer American Jews today describe themselves as religious, they overwhelmingly report a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. Indeed, Jewish peoplehood has eclipsed religion--as well as ethnicity and nationality--as the essence of what binds Jews around the globe to one another. In Jewish Peoplehood, Noam Pianko highlights the current significance and future relevance of "peoplehood" by tracing the rise, transformation, and return of this novel term. The book tells the surprising story of peoplehood. Though it evokes a sense of timelessness, the term actually emerged in the United States in the 1930s, where it was introduced by American Jewish leaders, most notably Rabbi Stephen Wise and Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, with close ties to the Zionist movement. It engendered a sense of unity that transcended religious differences, cultural practices, geographic distance, economic disparity, and political divides, fostering solidarity with other Jews facing common existential threats, including the Holocaust, and establishing a closer connection to the Jewish homeland. But today, Pianko points out, as globalization erodes the dominance of nationalism in shaping collective identity, Jewish peoplehood risks becoming an outdated paradigm. He explains why popular models of peoplehood fail to address emerging conceptions of ethnicity, nationalism, and race, and he concludes with a much-needed roadmap for a radical reconfiguration of Jewish collectivity in an increasingly global era. Innovative and provocative, Jewish Peoplehood provides fascinating insight into a term that assumes an increasingly important position at the heart of American Jewish and Israeli life.
Jewish Perspectives on Theology and the Human Experience of Disability
by Judith Z. Abrams William C. GaventaFew people are untouched by the issue of disability, whether personally or through a friend or relative. Jewish Perspectives on Theology and the Human Experience of Disability shares moving insights from around the world and across the broad spectrum of Judaism on how and why the Jewish community is incomplete without the presence and participation of the disabled. Authors representing each of the three main movements of Judaism--Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform--examine theology, scripture, ethics, practical theology, religious education, and personal experience to understand and apply the lessons and wisdom of the past to issues of the present.
Jewish Pittsburgh (Images of America)
by Barbara BurstinBy the mid-19th century, Jews from German lands began settling in Pittsburgh, later to be followed by Jews from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires and Romania. They founded businesses and organizations such as Giant Eagle, Kaufmann's Department Store, Montefiore Hospital, the Pittsburgh Playhouse, the Civic Light Opera, and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sophie Masloff became the first woman and the first Jew to serve as mayor, and civic reformer and lawyer A. Leo Weil, philanthropist Leon Falk Jr., and social justice crusader Florence Reizenstein all had schools named after them. From Allegheny City and "the Hill" to Squirrel Hill and the East End, the Jewish population preserved its distinct core community and contributed to its adopted city in multiple ways. Today, it numbers more than 40,000, and their story is one of grit, determination, risk taking, hard knocks, and no small measure of success.
Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism In Unquiet Places (New Anthropologies of Europe)
by Erica T. LehrerSince the end of Communism, Jews from around the world have visited Poland to tour Holocaust-related sites. A few venture further, seeking to learn about their own Polish roots and connect with contemporary Poles. For their part, a growing number of Poles are fascinated by all things Jewish. Erica T. Lehrer explores the intersection of Polish and Jewish memory projects in the historically Jewish neighborhood of Kazimierz in Krakow. Her own journey becomes part of the story as she demonstrates that Jews and Poles use spaces, institutions, interpersonal exchanges, and cultural representations to make sense of their historical inheritances.
Jewish Poland—Legends of Origin: Ethnopoetics and Legendary Chronicles (Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology)
by Haya Bar-ItzhakThe first appearance of Jews in Poland and their adventures during their early years of settlement in the country are concealed in undocumented shadows of history. What survived are legends of origin that early chroniclers, historians, writers, and folklore scholars transcribed, thus contributing to their preservation. According to the legendary chronicles Jews resided in Poland for a millennium and developed a vibrant community. <P><P> Haya Bar-Itzhak examines the legends of origin of the Jews of Poland and discloses how the community creates its own chronicle, how it structures and consolidates its identity through stories about its founding, and how this identity varies from age to age. Bar-Itzhak also examines what happened to these legends after the extermination of Polish Jewry during the Holocaust, when the human space they describe no longer exists except in memory. For the Polish Jews after the Holocaust, the legends of origin undergo a fascinating transformation into legends of destruction. <P><P> Jewish Poland-Legends of Origin brings to light the more obscure legends of origin as well as those already well known. This book will be of interest to scholars in folklore studies as well as to scholars of Judaic history and culture.
Jewish Population and Identity: Concept and Reality (Studies of Jews in Society #1)
by Uzi Rebhun Sergio DellaPergolaThis book examines the fundamentals of Jewish demography and sociology around the world. It is not only concerned with documenting patterns of population change but also with an intriguing and ever-present issue like "Who is a Jew?" The latter transcends the limits of quantitative assessment and deeply delves into the nature, boundaries, and quality of group identification. A growing challenge is how to bridge between concept – related to ideals and theory – and reality – reflecting field research. Divided into six sections, the book discusses historical demography, immigration and settlement, population dynamics, social stratification and economy, family and Jewish identity in the U.S., and Jewish identity in Israel. The volume represents the dynamic and diverse nature of the study of world and local Jewish populations. It shows how that field of study provides an important contribution to the broader and now rapidly expanding study of religious and ethnic groups. Scholars in disciplines such as history, geography, sociology, economics, political science, and especially demography follow and analyze the social and cultural patterns of Jews in different places around the globe, at various times, and from complementary perspectives. They make use of historical sources that have recently become accessible, utilize new censuses and surveys, and adopt advanced analytical methods. While some of their observations attest to consistency in the Jews’ demographic and identificational patterns, others evolve and ramify in new directions that reflect general processes in the areas and societies that Jews inhabit, internal changes within Jewish communities, and intergenerational trends in personal preferences of religious and ethnic orientations. This volume brings together contributions from scholars around the world and presents new and updated research and insights.
Jewish Power in America: Myth and Reality
by Henry FeingoldJewish political power exists as a separate agency in the American polity, but before it can be determined whether it is inordinate, historian Henry L. Feingold declares that it first needs to be identified and defined. Jewish power is not associated with military armaments as with a sovereign state like Israel. Nor is it personal power. There are many influential Jews today who have raised huge sums for office seekers, but there are none whose use of financial resources was inordinate. With the exception of an abiding concern with the security of Israel, there are no overriding public policy concerns that differentiate Jewish voters from the informed, educated segment of the American electorate.Feingold acknowledges that American Jews do have political power. But what kind is it, and how does it compare to the power exercised by other ethnic and interest groups that thrive in the American polity? The basic charge of those who have raised the alarm about Jewish power—that it is used conspiratorially against the national interest—is addressed and repudiated. This book addresses the question of Jewish power by examining five recent major instances, beginning with the New Deal, when the play of Jewish power, or power exercised by Jews, was evident.The engagement of American Jewry in the political process is amply documented by survey research and evidenced by the disproportionate number of Jewish office holders on all levels of government. It can be traced in some measure to its relationship to European Jewish migration and to the inherent activism of the political left. The work presents the reader with a broadly comprehensive and highly informative picture of American Jewish participation in the American polity.
Jewish Pride
by Michael SteinhardtMichael Steinhardt left a stellar career on Wall Street and spent the next three decades launching revolutionary philanthropic programs like Birthright Israel and OneTable that offer a proud, rich future for the next generation of secular American Jews.What are the keys to a proud Jewish life? Part memoir, part manifesto, Michael Steinhardt&’s Jewish Pride offers a compelling vision for a rich, rewarding future for Jews in America and around the world. From his middle class beginnings in Brooklyn to a spectacular Wall Street career, Steinhardt understood that apathy and assimilation were threatening the Jewish future in America. Meanwhile established Jewish institutions were failing in the urgent task of strengthening secular Jewish identity. Using his own capital and the wisdom and connections he&’d gained in his successful business career, Steinhardt recruited partners, focused on data and results, and even got the Israeli government to help launch the revolutionary Birthright program. By turns provocative, inspiring, revealing, and outright hilarious, Jewish Pride captures its author&’s unique personality and outlook and offers honest talk about the Jewish world today, along with a bold prescription for revitalizing Jewish life in the future.