Jews “at home” in America
Jews “at home” in America
Despite their emotional ties to Israel, Jews in America feel very much at home. The sense of comfort and security can be seen in the incorporation of American themes and objects into daily Jewish life. The display also reveals the special ties that Jews in the United States feel toward their local “home”, in this case the city of Detroit.
Jews in America
Constitution of the United States
and the Declaration of Independence.
New York: Sarasohn and Son, Pub., 1892.
Hebraic Section
- Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress: America As A Haven For JewsFrom the Jewish Virtual Library
- Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress: At Home in AmericaFrom the Jewish Virtual Library
- Exhibits in American Jewish History from the American Jewish ArchivesThe Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (AJA), located on the historic Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, was established in 1947 by renowned historian, Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus to collect, preserve, and make available for research, materials on the history of Jews and Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere, including data of a political, economic, social, cultural, and religious nature.
Jewish American Heritage Month
The month of May was chosen due to the highly successful celebration of the 350th Anniversary of American Jewish History in May 2004, which was organized by the Commission for Commemorating 350 Years of American Jewish History.
American-Jewish Family
- American-Jewish FamilyFrom the Jewish Virtual Library
Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.
Books in the Libraries' Collection
Jewish Life and American Culture by Call Number: [Electronic Book]ISBN: 0585354952Publication Date: 2000-01-01WSU Access ID & Password Required
Contents include: Educating for Jewish Living; Forming Jewish Households and Families; and Observing Religious Environments in Jewish Homes.
City of Promises by ISBN: 9780814717318Publication Date: 2012-09-10WSU Access ID & Password Required
New York Jews, so visible and integral to the culture, economy and politics of America's greatest city, have eluded the grasp of historians for decades. Surprisingly, no comprehensive history of New York Jews has ever been written. City of Promises, 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 the most important in the modern world. Volume I, Haven of Liberty: New York Jews in the New World, 1654 -1865, by Howard Rock, chronicles the arrival of the first Jews to New York (then New Amsterdam) in 1654 and 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: New York Jews in the Age of Immigration, 1840 -1920, 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: New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920 -2010, by 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 colour, illuminate Jewish material culture and feature reproductions of early colonial portraits, art, and 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 history.
Commemorating 350 Years of Jewish Life in America
350 years of Jewish Life in America (1654-2004)
AE commemorative medal, by Dana Krinsky
The Jewish Heritage Collection, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
- A Century of Medals, and Still Counting: Anniversaries of the Jews in AmericaBy Ira Rezak, M.D., Professor of Clinical Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has collected Jewish and medical medals for the past forty years, writing and lecturing on both subjects. A fellow of the American Numismatic Society and the New York Academy of Medicine, he is also president of the Harry G. Friedman Society at New York’s Jewish Museum.
From Haven to Home
A Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years of Jewish life in America.
- From Haven to HomeOnline exhibition accompanying a Library of Congress exhibit from 2004.
Tchatchkes and Kitsch
Tchatchkes and Kitsch
The lack of treasured objects from what is, after all, a very young community in comparison to other Jewish settlements around the world also explains the predominance in the last case of ‘tchatchkes,” decorative knick-knacks with little or no purpose, and of “kitsch,” mass-produced quasi-aesthetic objects that have popular appeal.
Wegwood plate with Star of David Decoration
The Jewish Heritage Collection, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
Harvey Magila Doll, Dancing
Harvey Magila
The Jewish Heritage Collection, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
Art in Jewish-American Homes
Published as a black on white lithograph by the H. Schile Company of New York, the color added by hand, Moses, with a tallith (prayer shawl) on his shoulders, holding the Tablets of the Ten Commandments, would have been welcome in many a nineteenth-century American Jewish home.
Moses, New York, 1874. Prints and Photographs Division.
"Arriving in ever increasing numbers during the last decades of the nineteenth century, Jewish immigrants to America did not find the Jewish ambience of the shtetl (small town) in the Jewish sections of the larger cities. To compensate, many made their homes as visibly Jewish as possible with religious prints and lithographs."
- Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress: Art for the HomeFrom the Jewish Virtual Library