The Politics of Nonassimilation: The American Jewish Left in the Twentieth Century PDF
Preview The Politics of Nonassimilation: The American Jewish Left in the Twentieth Century
THE POLITICS OF NONASSIMILATION T H E P O L I T I C S O F N O NA S S I M I L AT I O N The American Jewish Left in the Twentieth Century DAVID R. VERBEETEN NIU Press / DeKalb, IL Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb 60115 © 2017 by Northern Illinois University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5 978-0-87580-753-9 (paper) 978-1-60909-212-2 (e-book) Cover design by Yuni Dorr Composed by BookComp, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Verbeeten, David Randall, author. Title: The politics of nonassimilation : the American Jewish left in the twentieth century / David Randall Verbeeten. Description: DeKalb : Northern Illinois University Press, 2017 | Revised version of the author’s thesis (doctoral)—University of Cambridge, 2012. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2016021240 (print) | LCCN 2016021505 (ebook) | ISBN 9780875807539 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781609092122 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Jews, East European—United States—History—20th century. | Jews, East European—Cultural assimilation—United States. | Immigrants—United States. | United States—Ethnic relations. | Bittelman, Alex, 1890–1982. | American Jewish Congress. | New Jewish Agenda (Organization) Classification: LCC E184.353 .V47 2017 (print) | LCC E184.353 (ebook) | DDC 305.800973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021240 To my grandparents, Magda Fodor and Frank Fleischmann, Ruth Rotenberg and Mathijs Marinus Verbeeten— survivors all. And to my parents, Judy and Bernard, who helped me along this path. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. Alexander Bittelman, the Communist Party, and the First Generation 11 2. The American Jewish Congress and the Second Generation 67 3. New Jewish Agenda and the Third Generation 123 Conclusion 159 Notes 165 Bibliography 201 Index 227 Acknowledgments All the oversights in this work are mine, but all the credit is not. As this book is based on my doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge, I would like to thank Dr. Christopher Brooke and the late Dr. Emile Perreau- Saussine, who supervised my work, and I would like to recognize the financial assistance I received from Pembroke College and Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. I appreciate the time and efforts of the archivists who facil- itated my research, especially Jan Hilley of the Tamiment Library at New York University; of the former members of New Jewish Agenda who corresponded with me about their past activities; and of the staff, reviewers, and editors at NIU Press. I am grateful to Paul E. Gottfried for having recommended the original thesis for publication.
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