Series Information:
American Jewish History

Part of an eight-volume set which collates articles written on the history of the Jewish people in America. This first volume considers Jewish involvement in the War of Independence and in the American Revolution, the New York Jewish community of the time and Dutch and English Jews of the period.

Jews in Gotham follows the Jewish saga in ever-changing New York City from the end of the First World War into the first decade of the new millennium. This lively portrait details the complex dynamics that caused Jews to persist, abandon, or be left behind in their neighborhoods during critical moments of the past century. It shows convincingly that New York retained its preeminence as the capital of American Jews because of deep roots in local worlds.

Sixteen senior scholars of American Jewish history-among the men and women whose work and advocacy have moved their discipline into the mainstream of academia-converse on the intellectual and personal roads they have traveled in becoming leaders in their areas of expertise. Through their thoughtful and candid recollections of the challenges they faced in becoming accepted academics, they retell the story of how the study of the Jews and Judaism in the United States rose from being long dismissed as an amateurish enterprise not worthy of serious consideration in the world of ideas to its position today as a respected field in communication with all humanities scholars. They also imagine and chart the direction the writing on American Jews will take in the coming era.

Sixteen senior scholars of American Jewish history- among the men and women whose work and advocacy have moved their discipline into the mainstream of academia - converse on the intellectual and personal roads they have traveled in becoming leaders in their areas of expertise. Through their thoughtful and candid recollections of the challenges they faced in becoming accepted academics, they retell the story of how the study of the Jews and Judaism in the United States rose from being long dismissed as an amateurish enterprise not worthy of serious consideration in the world of ideas to its position today as a respected field in communication with all humanities scholars. They also imagine and chart the direction the writing on American Jews will take in the coming era.

The definitive history of Jews in New York and how they transformed the city Jewish New York reveals the multifaceted world of one of the city’s most important ethnic and religious groups. Jewish immigrants changed New York. They built its clothing industry and constructed huge swaths of apartment buildings. New York Jews helped to make the city the center of the nation’s publishing industry and shaped popular culture in music, theater, and the arts. With a strong sense of social justice, a dedication to civil rights and civil liberties, and a belief in the duty of government to provide social welfare for all its citizens, New York Jews influenced the city, state, and nation with a new wave of social activism. In turn, New York transformed Judaism and stimulated religious pluralism, Jewish denominationalism, and contemporary feminism. The city’s neighborhoods hosted unbelievably diverse types of Jews, from Communists to Hasidim. Jewish New York not only describes Jews’ many positive influences on New York, but also exposes their struggles with poverty and anti-Semitism. These injustices reinforced an exemplary commitment to remaking New York into a model multiethnic, multiracial, and multireligious world city. Based on the acclaimed multi-volume set City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York winner of the National Jewish Book Council 2012 Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award, Jewish New York spans three centuries, tracing the earliest arrival of Jews in New Amsterdam to the recent immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union.

The complete story of Jewish Harlem and its significance in American Jewish history New York Times columnist David W. Dunlap wrote a decade ago that "on the map of the Jewish Diaspora, Harlem Is Atlantis. . . . A vibrant hub of industry, artistry and wealth is all but forgotten. It is as if Jewish Harlem sank 70 years ago beneath waves of memory beyond recall." During World War I, Harlem was the home of the second largest Jewish community in America. But in the 1920s Jewish residents began to scatter to other parts of Manhattan, to the outer boroughs, and to other cities. Now nearly a century later, Jews are returning uptown to a gentrified Harlem. The Jews of Harlem follows Jews into, out of, and back into this renowned metropolitan neighborhood over the course of a century and a half. It analyzes the complex set of forces that brought several generations of central European, East European, and Sephardic Jews to settle there. It explains the dynamics that led Jews to exit this part of Gotham as well as exploring the enduring Jewish presence uptown after it became overwhelmingly black and decidedly poor. And it looks at the beginnings of Jewish return as part of the transformation of New York City in our present era. The Jews of Harlem contributes much to our understanding of Jewish and African American history in the metropolis as it highlights the ever-changing story of America's largest city. With The Jews of Harlem, the beginning of Dunlap's hoped-for resurfacing of this neighborhood's history is underway. Its contemporary story merits telling even as the memories of what Jewish Harlem once was warrants recall.

The first comprehensive biography of the preeminent voice of New York sports For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, the Knicks’ Walt Frazier, or the Jets’ Joe Namath. His vocabulary and method of broadcasting left an indelible mark on the industry, and many of today’s most famous sportscasters were Glickman disciples. To this very day, many fans who grew up listening to his coverage of Knicks basketball and Giants football games, among the myriad of events that Glickman covered, recall fondly, and can still recite, his descriptions of actions in arenas and stadiums. In Marty Glickman, Jeffrey S. Gurock showcases the life of this important contributor to American popular culture. In addition to the stories of how he became a master of American sports airwaves, Marty Glickman has also been remembered as a Jewish athlete who, a decade before he sat in front of a microphone, was cynically barred from running in a signature track event in the 1936 Olympics by anti-Semitic American Olympic officials. This lively biography details this traumatic event and explores not only how he coped for decades with that painful rejection but also examines how he dealt with other anti-Semitic and cultural obstacles that threatened to stymie his career. Glickman’s story underscores the complexities that faced his generation of American Jews as these children of immigrants emerged from their ethnic cocoons and strove to succeed in America amid challenges to their professional and social advancement. Marty Glickman is a story of adversity and triumph, of sports and minority group struggles, told within the context of the prejudicial barriers that were common to thousands, if not millions, of fellow Jews of his generation as they aimed to make it in America.

The complete story of Jewish Harlem and its significance in American Jewish history New York Times columnist David W. Dunlap wrote a decade ago that "on the map of the Jewish Diaspora, Harlem Is Atlantis. . . . A vibrant hub of industry, artistry and wealth is all but forgotten. It is as if Jewish Harlem sank 70 years ago beneath waves of memory beyond recall." During World War I, Harlem was the home of the second largest Jewish community in America. But in the 1920s Jewish residents began to scatter to other parts of Manhattan, to the outer boroughs, and to other cities. Now nearly a century later, Jews are returning uptown to a gentrified Harlem. The Jews of Harlem follows Jews into, out of, and back into this renowned metropolitan neighborhood over the course of a century and a half. It analyzes the complex set of forces that brought several generations of central European, East European, and Sephardic Jews to settle there. It explains the dynamics that led Jews to exit this part of Gotham as well as exploring the enduring Jewish presence uptown after it became overwhelmingly black and decidedly poor. And it looks at the beginnings of Jewish return as part of the transformation of New York City in our present era. The Jews of Harlem contributes much to our understanding of Jewish and African American history in the metropolis as it highlights the ever-changing story of America's largest city. With The Jews of Harlem, the beginning of Dunlap's hoped-for resurfacing of this neighborhood's history is underway. Its contemporary story merits telling even as the memories of what Jewish Harlem once was warrants recall.

New York Jews, so visible and integral to the culture, economy and politics of America's greatest city, has eluded the grasp of historians for decades. Surprisingly, no comprehensive history of New York Jews has ever been written. City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, a three volume set of original research, pioneers a path-breaking interpretation of a Jewish urban community at once the largest in Jewish history and most important in the modern world. Volume III, Jews in Gotham, by historian Jeffrey S. Gurock, highlights neighborhood life as the city's distinctive feature. New York retained its preeminence as the capital of American Jews because of deep roots in local worlds that supported vigorous political, religious, and economic diversity. Each volume includes a visual essay by art historian Diana Linden interpreting aspects of life for New York's Jews from their arrival until today. These illustrated sections, many in color, illuminate Jewish material culture and feature reproductions of early colonial portraits, art, architecture, as well as everyday culture and community. Overseen by noted scholar Deborah Dash Moore, City of Promises offers the largest Jewish city in the world, in the United States, and in Jewish history its first comprehensive account.

Winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award, presented by the National Jewish Book Council Best Nonfiction Book of 2012 presented by Kirkus Vol. I, Haven of Liberty, 2012 Runner-Up for the Dixon Ryan Manuscript Award presented by the New York Historical Association New York Jews, so visible and integral to the culture, economy and politics of America's greatest city, has eluded the grasp of historians for decades. Surprisingly, no comprehensive history of New York Jews has ever been written. City of Promises: The History of the Jews in New York, a three volume set of original research, pioneers a path-breaking interpretation of a Jewish urban community at once the largest in Jewish history and most important in the modern world. Volume I, Haven of Liberty, by historian Howard Rock, chronicles the arrival of the first Jews to New York (then New Amsterdam) in 1654and highlights their political and economic challenges. Overcoming significant barriers, colonial and republican Jews in New York laid the foundations for the development of a thriving community. Volume II, Emerging Metropolis, written by Annie Polland and Daniel Soyer, describes New York's transformation into a Jewish city. Focusing on the urban Jewish built environment--its tenements and banks, synagogues and shops, department stores and settlement houses--it conveys the extraordinary complexity of Jewish immigrant society. Volume III, Jews in Gotham, by historian Jeffrey S.Gurock, highlights neighborhood life as the city's distinctive feature. New York retained its preeminence as the capital of American Jews because of deep roots in local worlds that supported vigorous political, religious, and economic diversity. Each volume includes a "visual essay" by art historian Diana Linden interpreting aspects of life for New York's Jews from their arrival until today. These illustrated sections, many in color, illuminate Jewish material culture and feature reproductions of early colonial portraits, art, architecture, as well as everyday culture and community. Overseen by noted scholar Deborah Dash Moore, City of Promises offers the largest Jewish city in the world, in the United States, and in Jewish history its first comprehensive account.

Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist movement, was the most influential and controversial radical Jewish thinker in the twentieth century. A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community follows Kaplan from his earliest days as a member in good standing in the Orthodox community, through his period of private estrangement, into his public divorce from Orthodoxy, and ultimately through his many decades as Reconstructionism's leader. Jeffrey S. Gurock and Jacob J. Schacter examine the intellectual influences that moved Kaplan from Orthodoxy and analyze the combination of personal, strategic, and career reasons that kept Kaplan close to Orthodox Jews. More than a biography, A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community is also a social history of American Orthodoxy and of American Judaism over the last century. Demonstrating how Orthodoxy in America was not a monolithic entity but rather allowed for a wide range of beliefs and practices, the book makes a distinct contribution to the fabric of American social history, Judaism, and the history of religion in the United States.

The eight-decade story of a New York neighborhood In 1940, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company opened a planned community in the East Bronx, New York. A model of what the neighborhood would become was first displayed to an excited public at the 1939 World's Fair. Parkchester was celebrated as a "city within a city," offering many of the attractions and comforts of suburbia, but without the transportation issues that plagued commuters who trekked into New York City every day. This new neighborhood initially constituted a desirable alternative to inner city neighborhoods for white ethnic groups with the means to leave their Depression-era homes. In this bucolic environment within Gotham, the Irish and Italian Catholics, white Protestants and Jews lived together rather harmoniously. In Parkchester, Jeffrey S. Gurock explains how and why a "get along" spirit prevailed in Parkchester and marked a turning point in ethnic relations in the city. Gurock is also attuned to, and documents fully, the egregious side to the neighborhood's early history. Until the late 1960s, Parkchester was off-limits to African Americans and Latinos. He is also sensitive to the processes of integration that took place once the community was opened to all and explains why transition was made without significant turmoil and violence that marked integration in other parts of the city. This eight decade history takes Parkchester's tale up to the present day and indicates that while the neighborhood is today predominantly African American and Latino, and home to immigrants from all over the world, the spirit of conviviality still prevails on its East Bronx streets. As a child of Parkchester himself, Gurock couples his critical expertise as leading scholar of New York City's history with an insider's insight in producing a thoughtful, nuanced understanding of ethnic and race relations in the city.

The definitive history of Jews in New York and how they transformed the city Jewish New York reveals the multifaceted world of one of the city's most important ethnic and religious groups. Jewish immigrants changed New York. They built its clothing industry and constructed huge swaths of apartment buildings. New York Jews helped to make the city the center of the nation's publishing industry and shaped popular culture in music, theater, and the arts. With a strong sense of social justice, a dedication to civil rights and civil liberties, and a belief in the duty of government to provide social welfare for all its citizens, New York Jews influenced the city, state, and nation with a new wave of social activism. In turn, New York transformed Judaism and stimulated religious pluralism, Jewish denominationalism, and contemporary feminism. The city's neighborhoods hosted unbelievably diverse types of Jews, from Communists to Hasidim. Jewish New York not only describes Jews' many positive influences on New York, but also exposes their struggles with poverty and anti-Semitism. These injustices reinforced an exemplary commitment to remaking New York into a model multiethnic, multiracial, and multireligious world city. Based on the acclaimed multi-volume set City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York winner of the National Jewish Book Council 2012 Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award, Jewish New York spans three centuries, tracing the earliest arrival of Jews in New Amsterdam to the recent immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union.

The increasingly popular genre of “alternative histories� has captivated audiences by asking questions like “what if the South had won the Civil War?� Such speculation can be instructive, heighten our interest in a topic, and shed light on accepted history. In The Holocaust Averted, Jeffrey Gurock imagines what might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred and forces readers to contemplate how the road to acceptance and empowerment for today’s American Jews could have been harder than it actually was.  Based on reasonable alternatives grounded in what is known of the time, places, and participants, Gurock presents a concise narrative of his imagined war-time saga and the events that followed Hitler’s military failures. While German Jews did suffer under Nazism, the millions of Jews in Eastern Europe survived and were able to maintain their communities. Since few people were concerned with the safety of European Jews, Zionism never became popular in the United States and social antisemitism kept Jews on the margins of society. By the late 1960s, American Jewish communities were far from vibrant. This alternate history—where, among many scenarios, Hitler is assassinated, Japan does not bomb Pearl Harbor, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is succeeded after two terms by Robert A. Taft—does cause us to review and better appreciate history. As Gurock tells his tale, he concludes every chapter with a short section that describes what actually happened and, thus, further educates the reader.    

Jeffrey S. Gurock recounts the history of Orthodox Jews in America, from the time of the early arrivals in the 17th century to the present, and examines how Orthodox Jewish men and women coped with the personal, familial, and communal challenges of religious freedom, economic opportunity, and social integration. His absorbing narrative portrays the varied lifestyles of Orthodox Jews and exposes the historical tensions that have pitted the pious against the majority of their co-religionists who have disregarded Orthodox teachings and practice. Exploring Orthodox reactions to alternative Jewish religious movements that have flourished in a pluralistic America, Gurock illuminates contemporary controversies about the compatibility of modern culture with a truly pious life, providing a nuanced view of the most intriguing present-day intra-Orthodox struggle the relationship of feminism to traditional faith. The book exposes the hypocrisy of Jews who, while outwardly devout in their careful observance of religious ritual, have behaved as moral miscreants. Anyone seeking to understand the American Jewish experience will find Orthodox Jews in America to be essential reading."

Judaism s Encounter with American Sports examines how sports entered the lives of American Jewish men and women and how the secular values of sports threatened religious identification and observance. What do Jews do when a society in this case, a team "chooses them in," but demands commitments that clash with ancestral ties and practices?

Jeffrey S. Gurock uses the experience of sports to illuminate an important mode of modern Jewish religious conflict and accommodation to America. He considers the defensive strategies American Jewish leaders have employed in response to sports challenges to identity, such as using temple and synagogue centers, complete with gymnasiums and swimming pools, to attract the athletically inclined to Jewish life. Within the suburban frontiers of post World War II America, sports-minded modern Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis competed against one another for the allegiances of Jewish athletes and all other Americanized Jews. In the present day, tensions among Jewish movements are still played out in the sports arena.

Today, in a mostly accepting American society, it is easy for sports-minded Jews to assimilate completely, losing all regard for Jewish ties. At the same time, a very tolerant America has enabled Jews to succeed in the sports world, while keeping faith with Jewish traditions. Gurock foregrounds his engaging book against his own experiences as a basketball player, coach, and marathon runner. By using the metaphor of sports, Judaism s Encounter with American Sports underscores the basic religious dilemmas of our day."

This volume is a comprehensive encyclopedia of leaders and officials of governments, international organizations, political parties, and military institutions. Based on years of research in archives and institutions around the world, and particularly authoritative on Asia and the Pacific, this bilingual (Japanese / English) compilation will be a resource for researchers, journalists, and government officials worldwide.

The increasingly popular genre of "alternative histories" has captivated audiences by asking questions like "what if the South had won the Civil War?" Such speculation can be instructive, heighten our interest in a topic, and shed light on accepted history. In The Holocaust Averted, Jeffrey Gurock imagines what might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred and forces readers to contemplate how the road to acceptance and empowerment for today's American Jews could have been harder than it actually was. Based on reasonable alternatives grounded in what is known of the time, places, and participants, Gurock presents a concise narrative of his imagined war-time saga and the events that followed Hitler's military failures. While German Jews did suffer under Nazism, the millions of Jews in Eastern Europe survived and were able to maintain their communities. Since few people were concerned with the safety of European Jews, Zionism never became popular in the United States and social antisemitism kept Jews on the margins of society. By the late 1960s, American Jewish communities were far from vibrant. This alternate history-where, among many scenarios, Hitler is assassinated, Japan does not bomb Pearl Harbor, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is succeeded after two terms by Robert A. Taft-does cause us to review and better appreciate history. As Gurock tells his tale, he concludes every chapter with a short section that describes what actually happened and, thus, further educates the reader.