Posted By richards on May 14, 2014
By Robert Gluck/JNS.org
Dr. Gary P. Zola sees an inextricable connection between American Jewish history, American history, and global Jewish history.
The study of the Jewish experience in the context of the American nation sheds light on the story of the nation itself, Zola, executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, told JNS.org. Jews played an inordinately large role in shaping the character of American culture and heritage. The opportunities Jews had to contribute to and participate in the American experiment constitute a unique phenomenon in all of Jewish life in Diaspora.In this way, the study of the American Jewish experience represents a remarkable chapter in the history of world Jewry itself.
May is Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM). In 2006, President George W. Bush following the efforts of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), the Jewish Museum of Florida, and others in South Floridas Jewish community proclaimed the months 31 days as an official recognition of more than 350 years of Jewish American achievements and contributions to the United States.
JAHMs theme this year is American Jews and tikkun olam (repairing the world), andalong those lines, its 2014 iteration honors the 100th anniversary of a humanitarian group the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).
JAHM is pleased to partner in this milestone year with JDC, which remains the essential Jewish international humanitarian organization, putting into action the precept that all Jews are responsible for one another and for all humankind, said Abby Schwartz, national coordinator for JAHM. Since JDCs founding in 1914 at the outset of World War I, the organizations 10 decades of rescue, poverty alleviation, Jewish community development, leadership training, social innovation, anddisaster relief work has benefited millions of people and transformed countless lives in Israel and more than 90 countries.
OnAugust 18, 2010, the2006 proclamation from President George W. Bush that created Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) is presented by NASA astronaut Dr. Garrett E. Reisman to Marcia Jo Zerivitz , founding executive director of the Jewish Museum of Florida, at a ceremony at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. In May 2010, the JAHM proclamation traveled4,879,978 miles with 186 orbits of the earth aboard the U.S. space shuttleAtlantis. Credit: Courtesy Marcia Jo Zerivitz and Garrett Reisman.
Marcia Jo Zerivitz, founding executive director of the Jewish Museum of Florida, has been involved in JAHM since the inception of the idea. She was the one who originally spoke to Wasserman Schultz about getting the national month officially designated.
Zerivitz noted that more than 100 years ago, famed American author Mark Twain, in an essay titled Concerning the Jews, suggested that Jews ought hardly to be heard of because of their minimal numbers. Yet Jews have always been heard of, Twain wrote.
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Each May, Jewish history and American history collide
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