The Menorah Journal

220 Pages·2006·8.01 MB·English

The American Jewish Archives Journal
Academic Advisory & Editorial Board
Jonathan D. Sarna, Chair
Brandeis University
Waltham, Mass.
Gary P. Zola, Co-Chair
Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion
Martin A. Cohen Michael A. Meyer
Hebrew Union College- Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion Jewish Institute of Religion
Norman J. Cohen Pamela S. Nadell
Hebrew Union College- American University,
Jewish Institute of Religion Washington, D. C.
Karla A. Goldman
Kevin Proffitt
Hebrew Union College-
ChiefArchivist,
Jewish Institute of Religion
American Jewish Archives
Frederic Krome
Lance J. Sussman
Managing Editor,
The American Jewish Archives Journal Binghamton university,
sum
Sara S. Lee
Ellen Umansky
Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion Fairfield University,
Fairfield, Calm.
The
American Jewish Archives
Journal
A Journal Devoted to the Preservation and Shrdy
of the American Jewish Experience
Published byThe Jacob Rader Marcus Center
of the American Jewish Archives
Gary P. Zola, Ph.D., Editor
Frederic Krome, Ph.D., Managing Editor
Ruth L. Kreimer, Editorial Associate
Jacob Rader Marcus, Ph.D., Founding Editor (1896-1995)
Located on the Cincinnati campus of the
Hebrew Union College-JewishI nstitute of Religion
Cincinnati NewYork Los Angeles Jerusalem
,
Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, Ptaident
Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, Chnmllor
The American Jewish Archives Journal is indexed
in the Index to Jewish Periodicals, Current Contents,
the American Historical Review, United States
Political Science Documents, and the Journal of
American Histo y.
Information for Conti+butors:
The American Jewish Archives Journal follows
generally the Chicago Manual of Style (13th
revised edition) and"Words into Type"(3rd Edition)
but issues its own style sheet, which may be obtained
by writing to: The Managing Editor,T neJ mbRader
Macw Center of theAmm'can Jewish Archives,
3 101 CliftonA venue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45220.
Patrons 1999:
The Neumann Memorial Publication Fund. This
publication is made possible, in part, by a gftfrom
Congregation Emanu-El of the city of NewYork.
Published by the Jacob Ruder Marcus Center of the
American Jewish Archives on the Cincinnati campus
of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
Religon.
ISSN 002-905X
02000 by the JmbRaderMacw Centerof the
American Jewish Archives
Contents
TO OUR READERS:
Gary P. Zola, Editor
pp. 7-9
THE WORK AND LEGACY OF JACOB RADER MARCUS:
"Historian of the Jewish People": A Historiographical Reevaluation of the
Writings of Jacob R. Marcus
Lance J. Sussman
pp. 10-21
Jacob Rader Marcus, Salo W. Baron, and the Public's Need to Know American
Jewish Histo ry
JeffreyG urock
pp. 22-27
Jacob Rader Marcus and the Revival of Early American History, 1930-1960
Jon Butler
pp. 28-39
These articles provide a historiographical assessment of the work of Jacob Rader
Marcus who, according to Lance Sussman, was both af'historian of the Jewish people"
and the"deannof American Jewish history. Sussman argues that Marcus's interest in
American Jewish history reflected a broader view of the history of the Jewish people,
characterized by a"Diaspora-centered" philosophy of Jewish history. Jeffrey Gurock
argues that by comparing Marcus with Salo W. Baron during the 1950s, when both
served as president of the American Jewish Historical Society during the now leg-
endary era of the tercentenary, one can gain a greater appreciation of Marcus the pub-
lic historian. Even as he made American Jewish scholarship his life's work, and
trained generations of students, he was also very concerned with personally educating
the American Jewish public. Examining Marcus's impact on the historiography of
colonial America, Jon Butler believes that it was not until historians shifted their em-
phasis from seventeenth-century Puritanism toward the eighteenth-century
provinces outside New England, where most colonial Jews lived, that Marcus's work
gained the recognition it deserved.
American Jewish Archives Journal
ARTICLES:
Rabbi Samuel Freuder as a Christian Missionary: American Protestant
Premillennialism and an Apostate Returner, 1891-1924
Dana Evan Kaplan
pp. 41-74
Samuel Freuder was one of three nineteenth-century graduates of the Hebrew Union
College to convert to Christianity. As a new immigrant from a small town in Hungary,
he was taken in by Isaac Mayer Wise and later ordained by Wise. Much later, Freuder
came under the influence of Stephen Wise, thus becoming one of very few rabbis to be
a disciple of both Wises. Freuder's personal story gives the historian a view of the
Christian mission of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that is almost
unparalleled. The life story of Samuel Freuder sheds light on late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century Reform Judaism, American Christian premillennialism, mis-
sions to the Jews, and the sociology of the Jewish Eastern European immigrant experi-
ence in the United States.
The Menorah Journal:Y avneh in America, 1945-1950
Lewis Fried
pp. 76-108
From 1945 to 1950, Henry Hurwitz, the editor of the Menorah Journal, developed a
program for American Jewish life that he cal1ed"Zakkaian"Judaism. Hurwitz argued
that Judaism had achieved its moral strength through landlessness and its survival by
means of Torah. America marked the end of Jewish exile and the culmination of an
unbroken line of tradition stretching back toYavneh. In his view the rise of Zionism
and the establishment of the state of Israel were direct threats to the continuity of an
American Judaism.
DOCUMENTS:
An Account of the Jews and Judaism 34 Years Ago in New York (circa 1870)
by Zvi Hirsch Bernstein
Translated and Annotated by Gary P. Zola
pp. 110 -30
"We Speak and Write This Language Against Our Will": Jews, Hispanics,
and the Dilemma of Ladino-Speaking Sephardim in Early Twentieth-Centuy
New York
Translated and Annotated by Aviva Ben-Ur
pp. 131- 42
Contents
REVIEW ESSAYS:
Jews, Slavery, and the Slave Trade: A Historiographical Essay
Eli Faber, Jews, Slaves and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight
Saul R. Friedrnan, Jews and the American Slave Trade
James E. Westheider
pp. 143-48
The Celebrant and the Critic
Sanford Lakoff, Max Lemer: Pilgrim in the Promised Land
Edward Alexander, Irving Howe: Socialist, Critic, Jew
Stephen J. Whitfield
pp. 149-54
Jewish Immigrant Women and Their World
Kathie Friedman-Kasaba, Memories of Migration: Gender, Ethnicity, and
Work in the Lives of Jewish and Italian Women in New York, 1870-1924
Bonnie J. Morris, Lubavitcher Women in America: Identity and Activism in the
Poshoar Era
Caroline Light
pp. 155-58
Writing the History of an Institution of Jewish Higher Learning
Jack Wertheimer, ed., Tradition Renewed: A Histoy of the Jewish Theological
Semina y of America, 2 vols.
Charles S. Liebman
pp. 159-63
BOOK REVIEWS:
Howard Markel, Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the
New Ybrk City Epidemics of 1892, reviewed by Frederic J. Krome
pp. 165-67
Dianne Ashton, Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America,
reviewed byTerri Premo
pp. 168-70
Mark K. Bauman and Berkley Kalin, eds., The Quiet Voices: Southern Rabbis
and Black Civil Rights, 1880s to 1990s, reviewed by Hasia R. Diner
pp. 171-74
American Jewish Archives Journal
Heart of a Wife:T he Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman by Helen Jacobus
Apte, reviewed by Deborah R. Weiner
pp. 175-77
Eric L. Friedland, "Were Our Mouths Filled with Song": Studies in Liberal
Jewish Liturgy, reviewed by Lance J. Sussman
pp. 178-80
SHORT BOOK NOTICES
pp. 181-84
NEWS FROM THE JACOB RADER MARCUS CENTER OF
THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES
pp. 185-94
INDEX
pp. 198-212
..
To Our Readers.
This issue marks the fiftieth anniversary of the American Jewish
Archives Journal (Am and, quite properly, we note this milestone by
offering our readers three in-depth reflections on the scholarly
achievements of this publication's founding editor: Jacob Rader
Marcus (37 In light of his legendary productivity-both the quantity
and the quality of his academic achievements-it seems quite likely
that Dr. Marcus's life and work will continue to provoke comment and
thoughtful reflection in the years ahead. Like those who have pro-
vided us with biographical studies on the lives of other American
Jewish scholars of the twentieth century, it seems probable that
Marcus's life, too, will one day merit a full-scale biographical analysis.
The three interpretive essays published herein will undoubtedly ben-
efit those who will strive to provide us with a comprehensive history
of Marcus's life and career.
We are simultaneously celebrating Marcus's generative contribu-
tions as the founding editor of this journal. When the first issue
appeared back in 1948, Dr. Marcus described the new publication as a
"semi-annual bulletinUthatw ould provide readers with a listing of the
recent acquisitions of the American Jewish Archives (AJA). To get a
sense of the explosive rate of growth the AJA's collection experienced
during its incipiency, one needs merely to skim through the
"Acquisitions" sections that appeared in the journal's first several
issues. Yet the editor also promised his readers that "at least one ar-
ticle of scientific calibre"wou1d appear in each issue. As a down pay-
ment on this commitment, Marcus published Bertram W. Korn's often
cited essay entitled "Jewish Chaplains During the Civil War." Like so
many of the articles that this journal has published over the past half
century, Korn's essay has not tarnished with time. The AJAJ has made
good on the founding editor's pledge that every issue contain at least
one scholarly article. Indeed, most of the volumes carried two, three,
and sometimes four articles, many using the ever-growing holdings of
the American Jewish Archives. In fact, over the course of fifty years
this journal has published more than 150 articles ofnscientificc alibre"
(to use Marcus's language), and considered as a whole, many of these
articles were ground-breaking studies that have touched upon practi-
cally every aspect of the American Jewish experience.
The journal's distinctive practice of publishing historical documents
began with the appearance of the second issue. In the appendixes to
his own article entitled "Light on Early Connecticut Jewry," Marcus
published several letters that had been written during the last quarter
of the eighteenth century. These letters served as the metaphoric
building blocks with which Marcus assembled his article. Other
authors who published in the journal during those early years followed
suit. In 1951, the AJAJ published its first annotated document: Abram
Vossen Goodman's translation of Abraham Kohn's German memoir,
"A Jewish Peddler's Diary."
Actually, most all of the journal's structural components took
shape during those early years. Illustrations and photographs
appeared in the very first issue, and they have been a staple ever since.
A section describing the AJA's programmatic initiatives-its physical
expansion, its collaborations with the Hebrew Union College's museum,
and its traveling exhibitions-appeared in a 1949 edition under the
bannerMNewso f the Archives." The first book review, written by Dr.
Marcus himself, appeared in 1951, while the first listing of significant
anniversaries in American Jewish history appeared in 1952. The trade-
mark shield emblazoned with a menorah-the AJA's familiar logo-
first graced the publication's cover in 1954 in an issue that commem-
orated the tercentennial anniversary of the first Jewish community to
settle in North America.
Ironically, we deviate from AJAJ convention only in that we are
pausing to celebrate this milestone anniversary. Marcus, who
eschewed self-congratulatory rhetoric, customarily allowed the "big"
anniversaries to pass by with little, if any, notice. Only on the fifth
anniversary of the institution's founding did Marcus stop "to catch
[his] breath and to take inventof in the pages of hisnbulletin." He
expressed unmistakable satisfaction in the impressive achievements
that characterized those early years: the AJKs collection had grown
impressively, a significant number of students used its holdings to
write theses and dissertations, and some of their work had already
appeared in the journal. All in all, Marcus summarized, "we have
sought-and not without success-to further the knowledge of
American Jewish history as a part of the larger America and of the
even larger and older'Israe1.' "
Yet, in evaluating the institution's achievements during the first
five years of its existence, it was Rabbi Jacob Marcus who articulated a