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NHC Home TeacherServe Divining America 20th Century Essay-Related Links


Featured "Divining America" Essay:
The American Jewish Experience in the Twentieth Century: Antisemitism and Assimilation
by Jonathan D. Sarna and Jonathan Golden


Links to Online Resources

From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/
Wide-ranging exhibition from the Library of Congress with hundreds of documents in its collections.


The National Museum of American Jewish History
http://www.nmajh.org/index.htm
Valuable teaching site with virtual exhibitions—including the new permanent exhibition "Creating American Jews"—that are geared to the general audience, perusable in ten minutes, and image-filled with web-friendly text. Don't miss the timetable with side-by-side chronologies of American history, American Jewish history, and world Jewish history at http://www.nmajh.org/timeline/index.htm.


Jews in America
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewstoc.html
In addition to eleven short pieces on American Jews in the twentieth century, this site offers a guide to the history, beliefs, rituals, and denominations of Judaism at http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/judaism.html. From the Jewish Student Online Research Center (JSOURCE) of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.


Jewish Heroes and Heroines in America
http://www.fau.edu/library/depts/judaica9.htm
Brief chapters on 101 notable American Jews from 1900 to the present. Sponsored by the Judaica Collections of Florida Atlantic University Libraries.


Jewish Women's Archive
http://www.JWA.org
Rich site offering online exhibits that profile American Jewish women's lives, incorporating them in broad time capsules of the eras in which the women lived (spanning 1791 to 1992) with many images, primary sources, and background resources. An example of fine Web page design for educational sites. The Archive is a non-profit organization whose academic council includes scholars from Brandeis, Yale, Stanford, and the Library of Congress.


Chapters in American Jewish History
http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/index.cfm
Short pieces on little-known aspects of American Jewish history, including the 1902 kosher meat boycott, the Jewish creators of Superman, and the "kashering" of Coca-Cola. From the American Jewish Historical Society.


Judaism in America
http://www.wfu.edu:/~matthetl/perspectives/fifteen.html
Highly readable lecture from Dr. Terry Matthews for his course "Religious Life in the United States" at Wake Forest University (NC).


Biographies of Jewish leaders (discussed in the essay)


The Archive of Jewish Immigrant Culture
http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/efimova/archive/main/archive.html
In its words, the Archive "is an open forum for sharing the uniqueness and continuity of Jewish identity from shtetl life to Soviet urban settings, the resettlement in the United States, and the multicultural experience of the new generations." The site was founded in 1996 by professionals, scholars, and artists who are Russian immigrants.
Enter the "Projects" page:
  • In the "Clinic" section, read the narrative responses of Russian Jewish immigrants to the site's online survey.
  • In the "Theater" section, view photographs submitted by Russian Jewish immigrants.

Jewish Immigration to the United States (Photograph Collection)
http://www.yivoinstitute.org/digital_exhibitions/index.php?mcid=80
Fifteen briefly annotated photographs from the collection of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Baruch College/City University of New York (CUNY).


Jews in Local History
Many Web sites are available on regional Jewish history. Search on "Jews AND [your city, state, or region]." For example:
"Homeward Bound": The Zionist Exposition
http://www.wzo.org.il/home/index.htm
An introduction to American Zionism from the Jewish Agency for Israel/World Zionist Organization.
  • In the Zionist Movement Pavilion, see "Early Zionist Activity in the U.S." and "American Zionism in the 1940s."
  • In the Portrait Gallery, see "American Personalities."

American Jewish Response to the Berlin Olympics of 1936
http://www.ushmm.org/olympics/zcc037.htm
Start at this page and progress through six illustrated pages on the response of American Jews to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. The home page of the exhibition is at http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/. From the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


Father Charles E. Coughlin, antisemitic radio priest
http://www.ssa.gov/history/cough.html
Summary of Coughlin's career from the history pages of the Social Security Administration. http://www.ssa.gov/history/cough.html


America and the Holocaust
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/holocaust/
An excellent site for primary and secondary resources for classroom study of the issue. Includes interview transcripts, twenty-six documents, profiles of major American responses and events, a bibliography, a transcript of the program, and a teacher's guide. Designed to accompany "America and the Holocaust" in the series American Experience from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).


U.S. Policy During WWII
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/us_pol.html
Brief, well-written pieces on the response of American Jews and the U.S. government to the Holocaust. From the Jewish Virtual Library.
  • "Could The Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz-Birkenau?"
  • "The Tragedy of the SS St. Louis"
  • "Rabbi Gittelsohn's Iwo Jima Sermon"
  • "When the Rabbis Marched on Washington" [1943]




Return to 20th-Century Links to Online Resources
Return to "Divining America" essay, The American Jewish Experience in the Twentieth Century


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nhc_ed@nationalhumanitiescenter.org



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