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Books: A Time to Weep, or a Time to Smile?
Matt Nesvisky
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This year marks the 350th anniversary of the first Jewish settlement in North America. Jonathan D. Sarna, a Brandeis University professor and arguably the preeminent living historian of American Jewry, was not about to let the anniversary pass without a fresh and comprehensive look back -- and at least a glance forward.
Sarna focuses on the most distinguishing aspect of American Jewish history, its religious life -- in the broadest sense of the term. Today�s mainstream American synagogues or temples, with their inevitable book review series, film festivals, "minyan-aires" breakfast clubs and occasionally even Olympic-size swimming pools doubling as mikvehs, are quite extraordinary in the history of the Diaspora. To understand the character of American Jewish life, Sarna says, one must look at the very special and even peculiar history of the Jewish experience in his country.
Sarna provides that history in rich detail, starting with the arrival of the first Sephardim in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, on the island of Manhattan, in 1654. These Jews had been expelled from Recife, Brazil, when that Dutch colony was overrun by the Portuguese. Peter Stuyve-sant, the governor of New Amsterdam, famously opposed the settlement of these Jews, but was overruled by his superiors back home in Holland. The Manhattan minyan subsequently established the first synagogue (1730) in what would become the United States. That house of worship, on Mill Street, no longer exists; another Sephardi synagogue, erected a generation later (1763) in Newport, Rhode Island, remains the oldest extant synagogue in America.
As Sarna charts the fortunes of America�s Jews, through the tumultuous 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, he discovers certain themes. For one, far from being a matter of linear progress, American Jewish fortunes tended to wax and wane. (U.S. Jews had their golden ages, such as after World War II, and they experienced their share of brass, as in the anti-immigration climate of the early 20th century and in the face of the anti-Semitism that accompanied the Depression.) A more consistent theme is offered by the evidence that high rates of intermarriage, conversion and assimilation have bedeviled America�s Jews since that first minyan stepped off the boat in its new Promised Land. (As several scholars have pointed out, by the fourth generation, intermarriage among descendants of virtually all immigrant groups to the American melting pot regularly tops 50 percent.) A third historical idea Sarna pursues is that vigorous Jewish life seems directly related to the presence of vigorous Jewish leaders. (American Jewry essentially began with no leadership whatsoever; later it was periodically blessed with such outstanding thinkers and activists as Isaac Leeser, Rebecca Gratz, Solomon Schechter, Mordecai M. Kaplan, Joseph Soloveitchik, Isaac Mayer Wise, Stephen Wise and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Today�s guiding lights? Up to you.)
Aside from the inevitable emphasis on major figures, Sarna provides fascinating portraits of many others. Notable among these are such colorful individuals as Rebbitzen Esther Jung-reis, who introduced a heady whiff of evangelical fire-and-brimstone to what is too often a bloodless American Jewish pulpit, and the late "singing rabbi" Shlomo Carlebach, whom Sarna credits with bringing numerous countercultural Jews back to their religion. The historian is also good on the great schismatic issues of the past, like the liberal-traditionalist rift over religious observance, the argument over Zionism, the response to the Nazi threat and, more currently, attitudes toward conversion and the roles of women and gays both before and behind the pulpit.
The author�s research, moreover, often leads to wry observations. For example, regarding Prohibition�s exception for sacramental wine, Sarna notes:
"To the deep embarrassment of the Jewish community, however, the terms of the exemption, and particularly the fact that Jewish wine rituals largely entail home consumption, opened the door to wide-spread abuse. Impoverished immigrant rabbis, unscrupulous imposters, and mobsters found the temptation to sell wine on the side for nonritual purposes too lucrative to resist. �Ritual consumption� of wine on the part of Jews skyrocketed during these years as Prohibition created, in the words of one cynical inspector, �a remarkable increase in the thirst for religion.� Judging from official records, in fact, �blessing the fruit of the vine� became during Prohibition the most widely and scrupulously observed of all Jewish religious practices."
Curious side excursions include a sketch of Rachel (Ray) Frank, the once-renowned "girl rabbi" of the Far West in the late 19th century. A teacher, journalist and lecturer, Frank (1861-1948) was also known as "the female messiah" and was sort of the Esther Jungreis of her day; a great subject awaits some enterprising Jewish feminist biographer. Also much appreciated is a reproduction of the menu for the notorious Union of American Hebrew Congregations council banquet in Cincinnati in July 1883. Featured prominently for the pleasure of the Reform Movement leadership were little-neck clams, shrimp, frogs� legs and soft-shell crabs, not to mention meat and milk products.
Unfortunately, despite Prof. Sarna�s self-evident scholarship (40 pages of notes, a 25-page bibliography, a glossary, illustrations and charts), "American Judaism" is marred by some careless editing. Discussing Jewish participation in the Civil War, for example, Sarna writes: "Some eight to ten thousand Jews, mostly recent immigrants, donned uniforms, and at least fifty thousand rose through the ranks to become officers."
In addition, his index is spotty: a single reference in the text to the town of Reading, Pa., for instance, merits inclusion, but multiple references to neighboring Lancaster go missing from the index entirely. Elsewhere, Sarna�s text tells us: "In North Dakota, immigrant Jewish farmers �came from far and near� to celebrate [the High Holidays] at the home of Abraham and Rachel Calof early in the twentieth century, �some traveling for days by horse and buggy and by horseback.�" Typically enough, Sarna�s source notes for this information are meticulous, but don�t go looking for either North Dakota or Calof in the index. As happens too often these days, while the scholar compiled the notes, the publisher evidently handed off the indexing to one of those robots that also hoovers floors.
A more serious complaint is that "American Judaism," while thick with facts, is thin on interpretation. Sarna�s central thesis is that the experience of Jews in a nation founded on principles of liberty and equality is unique in the history of the Dias-pora, and that this has proved at once exhilarating, challenging and even threatening. But that�s a well-ploughed theme. Indeed, that ground seems too overworked to produce fresh insights. It�s interesting, for example, to learn that small landsmanshaft synagogues in America eventually consolidated into larger congregations serving whole new American communities. But what did that mean for the members� sense of identity -- or for that matter, for the character of their spiritual life? Time and again, the reader wishes Sarna had subjected his formidable heaps of facts to deeper analysis and evaluation.
Maybe this timidity results from an academician attempting to write a popular -- and inoffensive -- history. Whatever the case, nowhere is Sarna�s interpretive reticence more evident than in the book�s concluding chapter, where the author discusses American Jewry�s future. Is it the American Jew�s fate, as many fear, to be buried under so many clam shells and shrimp tails -- or to be intermarried out of existence? We breathlessly await the historian�s considered opinion. But about the best we get is this: "[American Jews] witness two contradictory trends operating in their community, assimilation and revitalization. Which will predominate and what the future holds nobody knows."
Similarly, on the one hand, Sarna acknowledges the American Jewish community is made of many disparate parts. But on the other hand, he says he detects something of a "return to the �vital center� and a shift away from the divisive struggles of earlier decades... Threats to the state of Israel and fears of rising worldwide anti-semitism likewise promote a sense among American Jews that they need to find ways to communicate and cooperate with one another across the various religious streams, distances and differences notwithstanding."
Unhappily, one could just as well argue that "the shift away from the divisive struggles of earlier decades" merely indicates a lack of passion or interest in Jewish issues. And as for Israel�s fate serving as glue for American Jews, that sounds hopelessly out of date; vast numbers of American Jews these days, much as we may not like to admit it, just don�t think much about Israel.
So, on this hand, on the other hand -- what is the sound of two hands clapping? Sarna concludes it is quite possible that "as so often before, American Jews will find creative ways to maintain and revitalize American Judaism." Possible, he says. But he refrains from outright prediction. History, he adds, suggests survival will require "visionary leaders, committed followers, and generous philanthropists." Reasonable enough. I just wish history -- or historians -- had more to teach us.
Contributing Editor Matt Nesvisky frequently reviews books for The Jerusalem Report.
American Judaism: A History / by Jonathan D. Sarna. Yale University Press: 490 pp.: $35
September 20, 2004
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