Companion book packs, omits a lot in small space
‘The Jewish Americans’
By Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
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Capturing the entire history of Jews in America within one book is impossible. Fortunately, this does not stop good historians from trying.
The latest gift from an undaunted expert is “The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America” by Beth S. Wenger.
Wenger was an excellent choice to write this companion volume to the PBS series of the same name. The University of Pennsylvania history professor is a leader in the field of Jewish-American history—and an engaging writer for a non-academic audience as well.
“The Jewish Americans,” like all books born out of a film series, will grace many a coffee table untouched, which is a shame.
This is a very thoughtful work into which readers of all ages can happily disappear for hours on end.
Like the PBS series, Wenger moves at top speed, using fewer than 300 well-designed pages to get from 1654, when a small band of Jews arrived in what is now New York City, to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and other prominent American Jews of this century.
The story of Jewish life in America is better than a novel (who could dream up a character like Irving Berlin, composer of “White Christmas?”) and Wenger’s treatment allows it to be enjoyed either chronologically or in fits and starts, with the reader picking chapters at random.
It’s a tricky thing to craft a history with chapters that stand alone, but for the most part, that’s the case with “The Jewish Americans,” a trait that recommends it to teachers at all levels.
The author sets up each section with a brief essay and then turns the topic over to those who lived in the time and made history. She uses well-chosen primary and secondary sources from each era—immigrants, political figures, businesspeople, artists and others speak through their own letters and journals; their thoughts and stories are culled from newspapers, speeches, interviews, photos and advertisements from their day.
Even those well-read in Jewish-American history will find fresh perspectives and stories. The chapter titled “A Baseball Primer for Jewish Immigrants” is a delightful example.
After introducing Abraham Cahan, legendary editor of The Jewish Daily Forward, Wenger quotes from a 1909 article that tried to explain that most American institution—baseball—to the newly arrived immigrants:
“…The roles of the seven guards of the defense party are also specific: they must try and catch the hit ball in order to destroy the enemy’s attempt to hinder them and to get rid of the player doing the obstructing…”
As Wenger points out, it is unlikely that anyone came away from the article with the slightest understanding of baseball, but the fact that the foremost Jewish newspaper of the day attempted it speaks volumes about immigrants’ hunger to understand American life, particularly the things held most dear in their new country.
A book this sweeping necessarily picks and chooses between content, and both reviewers and historians tend to pounce on what is not included.
My disappointment is the too-brief coverage of American Jews and the civil rights movement of the 1950s-60s and beyond—rabbis, scholars, journalists, voter-registration volunteers and others crucial to the overthrow of Jim Crow.
That complaint aside, I’d say this: Put “The Jewish Americans” on a shelf next to “American Judaism: A History,” by Jonathan D. Sarna (Yale University Press) and you’ll have an impressive start on a Jewish-American studies library.
“The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America,” by Beth S. Wenger, Doubleday; $40. 376pp.
Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett is a Portland writer.