In recent scholarship, academics have focused primarily on areas of conflict between Blacks and Jews; yet, in the long struggle to bring social justice to American society, these two groups have often worked as allies in both the organized labor and the civil rights movements.Demonstrating the complexity of the relationship of Blacks and Jews in America, African Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century examines the competition and solidarity that have characterized Black-Jewish interactions over the past century. These essays provide an intellectual foundation for cooperative efforts to improve social justice in our society and are an invaluable resource for the study of race relations in twentieth-century America. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Adam Zachary Newton couples works of prose fiction by African American and Jewish American authors from Henry Roth and Ralph Ellison to Philip Roth and David Bradley. Reading the work of such writers alongside and through one another, Newton offers an original way of juxtaposing two major traditions in American literature and rethinking their sometimes vexing relationship. Newton combines Emmanuel Levinas' ethical philosophy and Walter Benjamin's theory of allegory in shaping an innovative kind of ethical-political criticism. A final chapter addresses the Black/Jewish dimension of the O. J. Simpson trial.

The author reviews, compares and contrasts the history of African-Americans in the American South with the history of Southern Jews, and describes periods of time in which those histories and interests converged or differed. The author contends that for the most part, the stories of these two groups have been very different from one another, only recently converging more often than in the past.

There is so much to Louis Harap's three volumes, this extraordinary trilogy, that a reviewer can only hint at the depth, penetrating intelligence, research, and insight of the author. This is a monumental work. American Jewish Archives This volume, the final one in a three-part series on the Jewish presence in twentieth-century American literature, first examines the special literary relationship of Blacks and Jews as exemplified in the writings of the two groups. Harap locates the historical roots of this relationship in Black folklore and history and finds illustrations of it in the work of Black novelists from Richard Wright to Paule Marshall. He examines the partial breakdown of this relationship in both social and literary terms during the 1970s.

Starting with the Victorian age, this study moves through the shifting power of US Protestantism and Catholicism into an intense period of immigration and pluralism. Later chapters include the Jewish experience, African American religion, evangelical movements and 20th-century religious thought.

American dramas consciously rewrite the past as a means of determined criticism and intentional resistance. While modern criticism often sees the act of revision as derivative, Malburne-Wade uses Victor Turner's concept of the social drama and the concept of the liminal to argue for a more complicated view of revision.

"The robust Jewish community of Cleveland, Ohio is the largest Midwestern Jewish community with about 80,000 Jewish residents. Historically, it has been one of the largest hubs of American Jewish life outside of the East Coast. Yet there is a critical gap in the literature relating to Jewish Cleveland, its suburbs, and the Midwestern Jewish experience. Cleveland's Jews in the Urban Midwest remedies this gap, and adds to an emerging subfield in American Jewish history that moves away from the East Coast to explore Jewish life across the United States, in cities including Chicago and Detroit, and across regions like the West Coast. Cleveland's Jews in the Urban Midwest features ten diverse studies from prominent international scholars, addressing a wide range of subjects and ultimately enhancing our understanding of regional, urban, and Jewish American history. Focusing on the twentieth century specifically, the historians included in this collection address critical questions about Jewish Cleveland in the history of the United States. Essays investigate Jewish philanthropy, comics, gender, religious identity and education from the perspectives of both Reform and Orthodox Jewish communities, participation in social service organizations, and the Soviet Jewish movement, among other subjects, and reveal the different roles these subjects play in shaping Jewish communities over time. Uniquely, this is a work of regional history that engages fully in parallel conversations in Jewish history and urban history, making the volume a key addition to these three dynamic fields"--Provided by publisher.

This book recounts the transformation of a relationship of irreconcilable enmity to one of respectful coexistence and constructive dialogue. From the Inquisition to the Passion Play at Oberammergau, the Catholic Church for centuries perpetuated a theology of contempt that reinforced antipathy between the two faiths. Focusing primarily on the Catholic doctrinal view of the Jews and its ramifications, Egal Feldman traces the historical roots of antisemitism, examining tenacious Catholic beliefs such as displacement theology, deicide, and the conviction that the Jews' purported responsibility for the Crucifixion justified all their subsequent misery and vilification. A new era of Catholic-Jewish relations opened in 1962 with Vatican II's Nostra Aetate, No. 4. This document brought about a reversal of the theology of contempt, a de-emphasis on converting Jews to Christianity, and a determination to initiate constructive dialogue between Catholics and Jews. Feldman explores the strides made in improving relations and discusses recent disputes, including the erection of a convent near Auschwitz and the proposed canonization of the wartime pope, Pius XII, that reflect the fragility of the interfaith relationship. This book underscores the magnitude of the change in Catholic thinking about Jews since Vatican II and the courage of thinkers and leaders on both sides in forging new bonds across the lines of faith.

This collection focuses on a variety of important themes in the American Jewish and Judaic experience. It opens with essays on early Jewish settlers (1654-1820), the expansion of Jewish life in America (1820-1901), the great wave of eastern European Jewish immigrants (1880-1924), the character of American Judaism between the two world wars, American Jewish life from the end of World War II to the Six-Day War, and the growth of Jews' influence and affluence. The second half of the volume includes essays on Orthodox Jews, the history of Jewish education in America, the rise of Jewish social clubs at the turn of the century, the history of southern and western Jewry, Jewish responses to Nazism and the Holocaust, feminism's confrontation with Judaism, and the eternal question of what defines American Jewish culture. Original and elegantly crafted, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America not only introduces the student to a thrilling history, but also provides the scholar with new perspectives and insights.