Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860—1920 draws on a wealth of archival material, much of which has never been published—or even read—to illuminate the ways in which Jewish girls’ adolescent experiences reflected larger issues relating to gender, ethnicity, religion, and education. Klapper explores the dual roles girls played as agents of acculturation and guardians of tradition. Their search for an identity as American girls that would not require the abandonment of Jewish tradition and culture mirrored the struggle of their families and communities for integration into American society. While focusing on their lives as girls, not the adults they would later become, Klapper draws on the papers of such figures as Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah; Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Showboat; and Marie Syrkin, literary critic and Zionist. Klapper also analyzes the diaries, memoirs, and letters of hundreds of other girls whose later lives and experiences have been lost to history. Told in an engaging style and filled with colorful quotes, the book brings to life a neglected group of fascinating historical figures during a pivotal moment in the development of gender roles, adolescence, and the modern American Jewish community.

Jonathan Sarna's meticulously documented centennial history presents the personalities and the controversies, the struggles and the achievements behind a century of publishing by America's foremost publisher of Jewish books in English. Sarna's engaging blend of anecdote and analysis contextualizes the Jewish Publication Society within American Jewry's evolving social, political, and cultural history. He demonstrates that the society has been a major factor. Sarna recounts the inspired struggle of the Jewish Publication Society's founders, a group of genteel Philadelphia philanthropists including Cyrus Adler and Mayer Sulzberger, who believed fervently in the need to educate their immigrant coreligionists with Jewish books in the new vernacular. He also tells the story of Henrietta Szold, best known for her later achievements as the founder of Hadassah and Youth Aliyah. Szold worked doggedly for twenty-three years as the society's first editor until a shattered love for a JPS author became the catalyst that led her to Palestine and Zionist leadership. Here too are fascinating accounts of the long deliberations and intense work that produced the authoritative JPS Bible translations of 1917 and 1985, translations acceptable to all major branches of Judaism. Sarna also recounts the controversy surrounding the 1973 publication of The Jewish Catalog, a project developed by the bold JPS editor Chaim Potok. The Catalog, embodying the spirit of the Jewish counterculture, not only became the best-selling JPS book after the Bible, but it also showed that JPS could meet the challenge of a new generation as it moved toward its second century.

The third volume covers the period from 1860 to 1920, beginning with the Jews, slavery, and the Civil War, and concluding with the rise of Reform Judaism as well as the increasing spirit of secularization that characterized emancipated, prosperous, liberal Jewry before it was confronted by a rising tide of American anti-Semitism in the 1920s.

The words of Jewish women to inspire, enlighten and enrich your life. is the definitive collection of ideas, reflections, humor, and wit by Jewish women. Compiler Elaine Bernstein Partnow (The Quotable Woman) brings together the voices of over 300 women—including women of the Bible, actors, poets, humorists, scientists, and literary and political figures—whose ideas, activism, service, talent, and labor have touched the world. Quoted women include: Bella Abzug Hannah Arendt Lauren Bacall Aviel Barclay Judy Blume Susan Brownmiller Judy Chicago Jennifer Connelly Gerty Theresa Cori Deborah Anita Diamant Phyllis Diller Delia Ephron Marcia Falk Dianne Feinstein Anne Frank Rosalind Franklin Anna Freud Betty Friedan Carol Gilligan Ruth Bader Ginsburg Rebecca Gratz Blu Greenberg Erica Jong Frida Kahlo Donna Karan Faye Kellerman Carole King Ann Landers Este Lauder Emma Lazarus Rosa Luxemburg Golda Meir Bette Midler Miriam Bess Myerson Cynthia Ozick Dorothy Parker Belva Plain Letty Cottin Pogrebin Ayn Rand Gilda Radner Adrienne Rich Joan Rivers Ethel Rosenberg Sandy Eisenberg Sasso Hannah Senesh Fanchon Shur Raven Snook Gertrude Stein Barbra Streisand Kerri Strug Henrietta Szold Barbara Tuchman Barbara Walters Dr. Ruth Westheimer Naomi Wolf Rosalyn Yalow and many more ... From winners of Nobel Prizes and Oscars to lesser known but equally remarkable women from many countries and backgrounds, this book is an inspirational gateway to the thoughts and lives of Jewish women, both contemporary and ancient.

Tales of Two Cities compares both metropolises and soon discovers differences as well as similarities. American and German experts from different fields (for example historians, geographers, architects, journalists or Americanists) join our 'guided tours' through Chicago and Hamburg. They introduce the reader to the sister cities as migration magnets and spaces of different interests. They discuss challenges and chances of urban life, city planning, safety measures or media cities within an Atlantic context. The volume includes contributions in German as well as English. Claudia Schnurmann is a researcher at the Department of History at the University of Hamburg (Germany). Iris Wigger is a researcher at the School of Sociology at University College in Dublin (Ireland).

A lively collection of sixteen essays on the many ways American Jews have imagined and constructed communities