Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 25, 2020

Girls march against child labor in a May Day parade, New York City, 1909Photo Library of Congress

Black History Month was announced in 1969. Womens History Month came about in 1987. Irish-American Heritage Month was created in 1990. Compared to its predecessors, Mays designation as Jewish American Heritage Month found recognition relatively late when President George W. Bush announced it in 2006 on the heels of national celebrations marking the 350th anniversary of Jews arriving on these shores.

Its purpose is to both commemorate the contribution that American Jews have made to the fabric of our American culture, society and history and also to mark the gratefulness of American Jews to America, said Misha Galperin, interim CEO of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and a former CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

Galperin, whose museum leads a coalition that observes Jewish American Heritage Month each year, said the month can be thought of as part of the philo-semitism being promoted by the State Departments special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism, Elan Carr.

Telling stories about what American Jews and Jewish people Jewish culture has contributed to this country is a way to combat anti-Semitism in a positive way rather than just a defensive way, said Galperin.

While celebrations include events hosted by Jewish institutions, Galperins framing underscores the extent to which the month is meant for a non-Jewish audience. In addition to a presidential proclamation, federally designated months often include instruction that government agencies provide relevant education to their employees.

American University history professor Pamela Nadell said she once delivered a lecture to a group of federal workers as part of one agencys recognition of the month.

This isnt really meant for the Jewish community, Nadell said. Its meant for America to learn more about Jews.

The external audience and desire to promote American Jews throughout history in a favorable light may explain how the month got its name, emphasizing heritage over history. The distinction might seem trivial, but holds weight in academia.

I have to say that I actually prefer the word history, said Jonathan Sarna, Brandeis University professor and author of American Judaism.

Sarna said that heritage is generally thought of as a fixed part of ones past to be admired from a distance.

People do genealogy and say, Oh its part of my heritage, Sarna said. But you have no intention of raising your own children within that culture, you dont see a need to internalize it Its part of my heritage, I just want to know something about it.

Heritage is also often used to describe favorable stories that communities tell themselves about their shared past, said Nadell, noting that these stories are often used to make particular claims.

One example is that of 18th-century financier Haym Solomon. Solomon helped finance the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War and was arrested repeatedly by the British, dying penniless possibly due to his extensive purchases of government debt.

His story really got elevated as a way of showing how Jews were patriots during the Revolutionary War, said Nadell. For a long time you would have heard a lot about him.

No longer particularly concerned with overt displays of communal patriotism, Solomons story has largely faded from contemporary American consciousness.

Regardless of which word you use, many scholars believe that American Jewry was significantly shaped by the nations early separation of church and state. That division not only allowed Jews to immigrate to the United States for much of its history and worship freely, but meant that the Jewish community and religious practice is far more diffuse than in many other countries with significant Jewish populations.

The absence of a chief rabbi or formal relationships between Jewish community leaders and government officials spawned an unprecedented diversity of denominations in the United States, Sarna said.

Just as there were infinite ways of being a Protestant in America, so it seems natural that there should be many ways of being a Jew in America, Sarna said. We have a kind of free market in religion and that is enormously important in understanding the distinctiveness of the entire Jewish American experience.

Sarna added that while Jews were often the most prominent minority group in European nations, that wasnt the case in America. Catholics, Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Asian-Americans and many other groups faced periodic discrimination starting early in American history, and African Americans faced the brunt of sustained persecution.

Jews have been one of many, many, many people over the course of American history to suffer prejudice and opprobrium, Sarna said. Thats very unfortunate, but it does mean that it wasnt all focused on one out group the Jews as was common in many other countries where Jews previously lived.

The freedom that diffusion of bigotry provided may have made American Jews more comfortable engaging in the political system. Rabbi Sarah Krinsky of Washingtons Adas Israel Congregation said that civic engagement is a part of American Jewish identity in a way that is not found elsewhere.

Theres a particular version of how civic engagement is married to Jewish peoplehood and identity in the United States, Krinsky said. Part of that is because American has such a strong sense in its founding principles of civic participation and service that its only natural the Judaism born here would be responsive to that.

Krinsky said that the American Jewish community has distinguished itself in other ways as well, with many American Jews developing more progressive attitudes on, for example, women and gay rights.

An embrace of individual rights and identity fits well within the American Jewish story, said Nadell, the American University professor whose recent book Americas Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, won the 2019 National Jewish Book Award.

Women but this is true for men as well saw themselves as Americans and as Jews and those identities informed one another, Nadell said. They were inspired by both their Jewish traditions and by Americas freedoms to think in very strikingly different ways.

Nadell offered the example of Grace Nathan, a colonial-era woman who wrote an ethical will calling for her son to trim his beard seven days after her death, rather than keeping it for the 30 days or even full year that Jewish custom calls for.

Even though she was a typical wife and mother she was also changing Judaism and adapting it to America, Nadell said.

Nathans great-granddaughter was Emma Lazarus, the Jewish activist and poet who wrote the sonnet New Colossus inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Krinsky is skeptical of the premise that the defining traits of American Jews are exceptional.

What the American Jewish community has done is what every Jewish community has always done, Krinsky said. American Judaism has taken particular forms, but in the broadest strokes thats not so different from whats happened in other places at other moments.

But she understands why celebrations of Jewish heritage can be so meaningful, with a sense of the past often helping ground Jews in a larger identity. Krinsky first moved to Washington immediately following college for a year-long job, and found the city to be largely transient.

She didnt return until taking the job at Adas Israel, one of the citys original congregations,and has developed an appreciation for that history.

This institution is not transient. Its rooted and grounded and has a sense of a bigger expanse of time, she said. Its the sense of something that existed before us and will exist after us and it provides a sense of home in a city that lacks a lot of those things.

Galperin, the museum CEO, said that the months focus on heritage can provide a similar resource to American Jews who are proud to be Jewish but struggle to articulate why or tie their pride to a specific history.

It gives American Jews the tools and information to understand what theyre proud of and what they can identify with.

Arno Rosenfeld is a Washington writer.

See more here:
What is the Jewish American heritage? - Washington Jewish Week

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
Tags: