About this book
Masorti’s special Sestercentennial issue (70:1) honors America’s 250th anniversary with an array of groundbreaking articles by leading scholars of American Judaism. At almost 400 pages, this dedicated work contains 18 articles, a thoughtful introduction, a review essay, and reflections on critical scholarship. From the American Revolution to the present, this volume explores the impact of the American experiment on Jewish life, religion and culture. Pressing issues like antisemitism, mental health, Jewish education, Zionism, denominational boundaries, conversion, and vernacular religion receive fresh analysis along with cultural topics like music, liturgy, prayer, and sports. The studies use traditional historiography and innovative autobiographical methodology (autoethnography). Contributors encompass a heterogeneous group of secular academic scholars; Conservative, Orthodox, Reform rabbis and laity; Jews by choice and Jews by birth.
Contents
Introduction: America’s Transformation of Jewry 7
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Reflections and Prayers
Reflections from the New Chancellor
of the Jewish Theological Seminary 14
Mike Uram
Prayers for the Sestercentennial 16
Joseph H. Prouser
Part 1: Colonial & Early National Periods
Take the Torah and Run: Gershom Mendes Seixas, Galut, and
Jewish Life in the New American Nation 19
Lance J. Sussman and Lynda Barness
The Americanization of New York’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun 39
Jonathan D. Sarna
America—Founded on Biblical Precepts? 51
Elliot Dorff
Part 2: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Conservative Judaism in America and Its Interpreters (Abstract) 63
Eli Lederhendler
התופעה הקונסרבטיבית ביהדות האמריקאית ופרשנות לקיומה 66
אלי לדרהנדלר
Theodore Seixas Solomons: The Sierra Club’s Trailblazing Humanist 81
Michael Hoberman
The Making of Jewish Values in Postwar America 100
Zev Eleff
Part 3: The Role of Autobiography in Historiography
Porous Denominational Boundaries: A Riverdale Memoir 115
Adam S. Ferziger
Living and Making History as a Historian 128
Shuly Rubin Schwartz
An American Jewish Story 141
Tom Baker
Part 4: Jewish Life and Living
Sports as a Safe Space and as a Defining Religious Moment
During a Troubling Time for American Jews 149
Jeffrey S. Gurock
Where The Tunes Come From:
The Conservative Movement’s Musical DNA 160
Matthew Austerklein
Northern Lights: Another Look at Communal Education
in the Upper Mississippi Valley 195
Earl Schwartz
Part 5: Trends and Values, Challenges and Opportunities
Vernacular American Judaism 214
Deborah Dash Moore
The Mental Health Crisis for Clergy and Beyond in a Post-COVID Era 227
Nicole Guzik
Lee Levinger and the Fight Against Antisemitism 240
Jessica S. Cooperman
Zionism in the Conservative Movement:
The Model To Move Forward 261
Erez Sherman
Emerging Communities and the Memetic Future of the Jewish People (Abstract) 273
Juan Mejia
Comunidades emergentes y el futuro memético del pueblo judío 279
Juan Mejia
The Oneness of Humanity: An Introduction to and Annotated Translation of Rabbi Morris Adler’s “The Foundations of Democracy in the Jewish Tradition” 308
Jonah Rank
Part 6: Review Essay
Michael Hoberman, Imagining Early American Jews (Oxford University Press, 2025); Pamela S. Nadell, Antisemitism, An American Tradition (W. W. Norton, 2025) 371
Yisroel Benporat
About the Contributors 375
