Jewish Studies Commons^™

Imagining The “Day Of Reckoning”: American Jewish Performance Activism During The Holocaust, Maya C. Gonzalez

Masters Theses

Scholars of American Jewish history have long debated the complicity of the American Jewish community in the loss of six million Jewish lives in Europe during the Holocaust. After Hitler took power in 1933, American Jewish leaders took to the streets to protest the Nazi Party’s abuse of German Jews. Two central figures in this history are Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise and Revisionist Zionist Ben Hecht because of their wide-reaching protest movements that operated in competition with each other. Although the historiography presents Wise and Hecht's inability to unite as the product of difference, my examination of their protest performances …

Du Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, Caitlyn Aldersea, Justin Bravo, Sam Allen, Anna Block, Connor Block, Emma Buechler, Maria De Los Angeles Bustillos, Arianna Carlson, William Christensen, Olivia Kachulis, Noah Craver, Kate Dillon, Muskan Fatima, Angel Fernandes, Emma Finch, Colleen Cassidy, Amy Fishman, Andrea Francis, Stacia Fritz, Simran Gill, Emma Gries, Rylie Hansen, Shannon Powers, Jacqueline Martinez, Zachary Harker, Ashley Hasty, Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen, Kathleen Hopps, Adelaide Kerenick, Colin Kleckner, Ci Koehring, Elijah Kruger, Braden Krumholz, Maddie Leake, Lyneé Alves, Seraphina Loukas, Yatzari Lozano Vazquez, Haley Maki, Emily Martinez, Sierra Mckinney, Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen, Audrey Mitchell, Kipling Newman, Audrey Ng, Megan Lucyshyn, Andrew Nguyen, Stevie Ostman, Casandra Pearson, Alexandra Penney, Julia Gielczynski, Tyler Ball, Anna Rini, Christina Rorres, Simon Ruland, Helayna Schafer, Emma Sellers, Sarah Schuller, Claire Shaver, Kevin Summers, Isabella Shaw, Madison Sinar, Claudia Pena, Apshara Siwakoti, Carter Sorensen, Madi Sousa, Anna Sparling, Alexandra Revier, Brandon Thierry, Dylan Tyree, Maggie Williams, Lauren Wols

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

DU Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Works

The History Of Teaching The Holocaust In Public Secondary Schools In The United States, From The 1960s To The Present, Julia Highbury Spenser

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

To Bigotry No Sanction, To Persecution No Assistance: Jews In The American Revolutionary Period, Ziv R. Carmi

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

While Jews were a small minority in the American colonies, they nonetheless participated in the American Revolution on both sides. This paper aims to evaluate the role of Jewish people in the conflict, contextualizing the experiences of this small minority within the larger narrative of the American Revolution and establishing their importance in the development of religious freedom in the United States. Through the examination of these topics, this paper aims to explore the Revolutionary period from the perspective of the Jewish-American, discussing their often-overlooked experiences in this watershed period within U.S. history.

Jud Ms 25 Nathan F. Cogan Collection Finding Aid, Katelynn Paul

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Biographical Note

Nathan Franklin Cogan was born in Bath, Maine in 1937 and was the youngest of seven children. Nathan’s father, Morris Cohen, had originally arrived in Maine in 1914, following the outbreak of World War I. Nathan spent his childhood in Bath, where his father and family members assisted immigrants to Maine as a part of the Hebrew Benevolent Society. Nathan ultimately moved to Portland, Oregon in 1956 to attend Reed College. Nathan served two years in the U.S. Army, and upon ending service he pursued a doctorate in English at UC-Berkeley. Nathan became a professor emeritus of English …

Jud Ms 24 Frederic C. Weinberg Collection, Katelynn Paul

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Biographical Note:

Frederic Weinberg was born in Metuchen, New Jersey. He graduated from Metuchen High School and pursued a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Connecticut in 1969. After receiving his initial degree in English, he enrolled in the University of New Hampshire’s program in Library Science. In 1972 he was accepted into a special program in Educational Media at Boston University where he received a master’s degree in Education. In 1977 Frederic and his family joined the Beth Israel Congregation. He later assisted the congregation as a researcher and archivist. Currently Frederic is a regional coordinator for …

Is Superman Circumcised? The Complete Jewish History Of The World’S Greatest Hero By Roy Schwartz, Gabriel C. Salter

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

In Is Superman Circumcised?, Russell Schwartz provides a historical overview of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's creation of the comic book character Superman, arguing that Siegel and Shuster's backgrounds in Jewish immigrants gives a particularly Jewish subtext to their character. Schwartz builds on this argument with a larger historical overview of American comic book publishing, showing how Judaism and Jewish-American immigrant experiences have informed that industry from its earliest days.

“They Can Only Be Influenced By Their Fears”: Redefining White Mob Violence Against Blacks, 1898 – 1917, Riots Or Pogroms?, Deroy C. Gordon

Doctoral Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is to help to redefine racial riots carried out against the African American community in the United States during the 19^th and the early 20^th century. I provide an examination to argue for those racial riots to be redefined as pogroms rather than riots. Racial riots that had been carried out against the African American community in the United States often did not get the attention they deserve. The initial framing of those attacks as riots, made it difficult for black victims of those racial riots to seek legal redress or request government …

'The Street Scene Prologue': Holocaust Survivors, The American Nazi Party, And Exodus, Jason Van

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

During the early 1960s when the American Civil Rights movement was beginning to gain momentum, another movement across the world was taking place to solidify the newly formed country of Israel as a sovereign state. To commemorate the foundation of Israel, American director Otto Preminger created the film Exodus, adapted from a book of the same name by Leon Uris. George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, decided to take action by traveling throughout the country with his closest members to protest the film. Rockwell and his group of Nazis were outraged by the pro-Zionist depictions and the …

Paradoxical Toleration: Southern Antisemitism In The Nineteenth Century, Jason Blau

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores antisemitism in the nineteenth century South. It seeks to demonstrate the relative paucity of religious prejudice directed towards Jews by white southern gentiles until the late nineteenth century, despite the virulence of anti-black racism in white southern society at the time. This “paradox,” contrary to modern assumptions that disparate prejudices run together as has been documented by social psychologists, attracts attention. Historically, scholars made similar claims without much substantiation. Other researchers, such as Leonard Dinnerstein in “A Note on Southern Attitudes toward Jews,” challenged the possibility of southern Jewish acceptance relative to northern mores, pointing out an …

Revisiting The Who And The Where: A Quest To Understanding The Identities Of Second-Generation Israeli-American Youth, Yuval Elbaz

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This is a study about identity formation patters on twelve second generation Israeli-Americans. The study will be divided into three sections: economic assimilation religious assimilation, and political assimilation. I will argue that living in the United States has a significant influence on the way participants viewed their Israeli identities. Although identity will be the focal point of this study, this is not to claim that identity is a fixed category, but rather is fluid and affected by various external and internal factors. In this study, identity is defined as the way people view themselves. For all participants, growing up in …

Umaine Office For Diversity And Inclusion_Hanukkah, World Aids Day, And More! Email, University Of Maine Office For Diversity And Inclusion

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Email from the UMaine Office for Diversity and Inclusion with various details of the Office's work and details of specific events related to the impact of Maine’s Child Welfare practices within Indigenous communities, Hanukkah, and World Aids Day.

Jud Ms 26 Israel Bernstein Writings, Emily Margaret Newell

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Provenance: These papers were donated by Beth B. Schneider, on April 15, 2021.

Ownership and Literary Rights: The Israel Bernstein Writings Collection are the physical property of the University of Southern Maine Library. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the creator or her legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Special Collections Librarian.

Cite as: The Israel Bernstein Writings Collection, The Judaica Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine, Special Collections, University of Southern Maine Library.

Restrictions on access: This collection is open for research.

A Comparative Analysis Of Political Climates In Lithuania, Poland, And Ireland In The Early 1900s Related To Us Immigration And Media Culture, Annelise Silkaitis

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the process and experience of Lithuanian, Irish, and Polish immigrants during the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as the role of media, specifically newspapers and books, in creating the representation and portrayal of these immigrant groups. These different ethnic groups left Europe for a variety of reasons, mainly economic and political, and sought a better life in the United States. Upon arrival, each group struggled with the Americanization process, learning English, building connections, and forming a new society. Although some immigrant groups formed stronger networks and communities upon arrival, each group faced poverty and discrimination. …

Introduction To Antisemitism On The Rise: The 1930s And Today, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

We live in uncertain and unsettling times. Tragically, today's global culture is rife with violent bigotry, nationalism, and antisemitism. The rhetoric is not new; it is grounded in attitudes and values from the 1930s and the 1940s in Europe and the United States. Antisemitism on the Rise is a collection of essays by some of the world's leading experts, including Joseph Bendersky, Jean Cahan, R. Amy Elman, Leonard Greenspoon, and Jurgen Matthaus, regarding two key moments in antisemitic history: the interwar period and today. Ari Kohen and Gerald J. Steinacher have collected important examples on this crucial topic to illustrate …

With A Little Help From My Friends: Jewish Mutual Assistance In Nineteenth-Century Maine, David M. Freidenreich, Kristin Esdale

Maine History

Jews in 19th-century Maine relied on familial, ethnic, and, to a lesser degree, institutional networks of mutual assistance to survive and thrive. These Jews, who commonly worked as merchants of clothing and other dry goods, counted on family members to get them through hard times and hired fellow Jews to peddle their wares in the countryside. Jewish peddlers and merchants regularly borrowed or loaned cash and goods on credit within a small, tightly knit community that extended across Maine and as far as Boston and New York. Commercial networks also reinforced familial ties as children and in-laws entered the family …

Our Monuments, Our History, Temma F. Berg

English Faculty Publications

Beginning with Toni Morrison's concept of "rememory" and the recent completion of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers on the University of Virginia campus, this essay explores the current monuments controversy by focusing on four Viennese monuments which have much to tell us about how new memorials might contextualize and reframe history. The first Viennese monument, a celebration of a series of fifteenth-century pogroms, was built into the wall of a house opposite the Judenplatz, a square in the center of what was once a thriving Jewish community. Four hundred years later, from 1998 to 2008, three additional memorials were built …

The Truman Administration And Zionist Legitimation Strategies To Achieve Statehood, Gianna Meier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Following World War II, with the strength of Britain shattered by economic exhaustion and the rising influence of the United States in post-war international policies, the Zionist commitment to Jewish statehood intensified, driven even more urgently by the specter of the Holocaust atrocities. Meanwhile, warfare in Palestine both between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs and between the Jews and Britain increased tension in the region to such a point that Britain decided in February 1947 to withdraw from its obligations under the Mandate for Palestine. It left to the United Nations (UN) the challenge of finding a workable resolution …

The Flame That Sparked Outrage: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Amanda Isaacs

History | Senior Theses

The Flame that Sparked Outrage

The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, a tragic event in New York City, reflected the ignored demands by both foreign born and U.S born citizens. The unrelenting rioting and protesting marked a turning point in progressive American politics. The late 19th and early 20th century was a glorious time for new beginnings in America. The buzz about the opportunities in the States roamed the globe and sparked interest in every person encountered. The ships carrying Eastern European immigrants; Italians, Jews, and those of Polish descent, were migrating across seas to enter into the modern world of …

In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

American girls and women used the parlor piano to reshape their lives between 1880 and 1920, the years when the instrument reached the height of its commercial and cultural popularity. Newspapers, memoirs, biographies, women’s magazines, personal papers, and trade publications show that female pianists engaged in public-facing piano play and work in pursuit of artistic expression, economic gain, self-actualization, social mobility, and social change. These motivations drove many to use their piano skills to play beyond the parlor, by studying in conservatory, working as classical and popular music performers and composers, founding and teaching at schools, working as department store …

Louisville Jewish Hospital’S “Tikkun Olam”: A Case Example Of Continuity For American Jewish Hospitals, Hannah Thompson

Dean's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Scholarship

According to Mary Wagner, the author of Jewish Hospitals Yesterday and Today, Jewish Hospitals emerged in the mid-19th century in the U.S. for several reasons: the Jewish American community’s need to combat anti-Semitism, to provide services for its large and then-growing immigrant population, and to establish a place for Jewish medical professionals to work, since anti-Semitism prevented them from being employed elsewhere. Although, American Jews became increasingly more accepted as part of the broader American social and political milieu throughout the early 20th century, Jewish Hospitals persisted in cities across the U.S. until the 1970s. To date roughly 22 …

Kline Collection Finding Aid, Casey Bush, Robyn Conroy

Strassler Center Archival Collection Finding Aids

This collection was purchased in 1997 through the generosity of the following donors: Michael J. Leffell ’81 and Lisa Klein Leffell ’82, the Sheftel Family in memory of Milton S. Sheftel ’31, ’32 and the proceeds of the Carole and Michael Friedman Book Fund in honor of Elisabeth “Lisa” Friedman of the Class of 1985

The collection contains books, pamphlets, magazines, guides, journals, newspapers and screenplays related to Jewish history, German history, World War II, and the Holocaust. Of the at least 3,600 volumes, valued at approximately $300,000, 60% are in English, 30% in German, and 10% in other languages …

‘Pa-Jew-Cah’: Reclaiming The History Of Paducah’S Jewish Community, Hannah Newberry

Posters-at-the-Capitol Presentations

When imagining Kentucky’s religious heritage, most people picture churches, not synagogues. Yet historian Lee Shai Weissbach demonstrates that Kentucky’s first synagogue was built in Louisville in 1849, and Jews had been living in the Commonwealth almost as long as it existed. Kentucky’s Jewish heritage is rich and varied as illustrated by Arwen Donahue’s This is Home Now: Kentucky’s Holocaust Survivors Speak, Deborah Weiner’s Coalfield Jews: An Appalachian History, and Amy Shevitz’s Jewish Communities on the Ohio River: A History. While each of these texts refers to Paducah as an early and important Jewish settlement, none offers exclusive …

Tolerance As A Way To Remember, Natalie Figueroa

Voces Novae

This project examines the topic of Holocaust memorialization with a specific focus on the Simon Wiesenthal Center and their Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance. It posits that the mission and design of the museum were shaped by two major factors, first, the values of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal for whom the Center was named, and second, racial and ethnic tensions within the City of Los Angeles during the late 1980s and early 1990s, which culminated in the Los Angeles riots in 1992 following the acquittal of four white police officers in the 1991 beating of Rodney King. The museum opened …

From Swing King To Swing Kids: The Jazz Era Of ‘Big Band Orchestras’ In World War Ii, Katie Victoria Burnopp

Student Scholar Showcase

Known as the ‘King of Swing’, clarinetist and band leader Benny Goodman (1909-1986) threatened the Nazi cause during WWII. With intent of improving music pedagogy, the purpose of this research was to investigate swing music during World War II. The particular problems of this study were to: (1) identify how the swing music of Benny Goodman (1909-1986) influenced adolescents in the United States of America, United Kingdom, and Germany; (2) explore the Nazi party view on ‘swing’ music of the era; (3) examine how the music of Charlie and his Orchestra became used as a tool for Nazi propaganda; and …

Jud Ms 04 Rosalyne S. Bernstein Papers Finding Aid, Susannah Clark

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Description:

Rosalyne (Spindel) Bernstein (b. 1928) grew up in the Bronx, N.Y. and Fall River, MA, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland, and attended Radcliffe College as an economics major. She and her husband, Sumner Thurman Bernstein (a Portland native), moved to Portland in 1949. There, she played an active role in the community and was involved with numerous organizations, such as: National Council of Jewish Women (president); Head Start program in Portland (founder); Bowdoin College; University of Southern Maine; Maine Health Care Finance Commission; Maine Medical Center; American- Israeli Public Affairs Committee; New England Board of Higher Education; …

Jud Ms 05 Sumner T. Bernstein Papers Finding Aid, Susannah Clark

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Description:

Sumner Thurman Bernstein (1924 - 2002) grew up in Portland, Maine, the son of lawyer parents. He served in the South Pacific in the U.S. Army during World War II (achieving the rank of Captain) and attended Harvard University for his undergraduate education and for law school. He returned to Portland after marrying Rosalyne Spindel in 1949, to join his father and uncle’s law practice, which he helped to grow into Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer and Nelson in 1964. He was very engaged with the community, participating in the following organizations, among others, often serving as president or chair of …

The Bronx Was Brewing: A Digital Resource Of A Lost Industry, Michelle Zimmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Bronx: a bucolic oasis laden with history, a suburb within city-limits, an urban warzone, and thanks to the recent renaissance, a phoenix of progress rising from the proverbial ashes of the fires that burned through the borough in the 1970’s. But many people are unaware that the Bronx also brewed.
Uncovering the brewing industry of the Bronx tells not only the story of the lost industry, but it also communicates the narrative of the development of the Bronx. The brewers were German immigrants who developed a thriving industry by introducing lager beer to the United States by taking advantage …

Your Iphone Cannot Escape History, And Neither Can You: Self-Reflexive Design For A Mobile History Learning Game, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter focuses on the design approach used in the self-reflexive finale of the mobile augmented reality history game Jewish Time Jump: New York. In the finale, the iOS device itself and the player using it are implicated in the historical moment and theme of the game. The author-designer-researcher drew from self-reflexive traditions in theater, cinema, and nonmobile games to craft the reveal of the connection between the mobile device and the history that the learners were studying. Through centering on this particular design element, the author demonstrates how self-reflexivity can be deployed in a mobile learning experience to …

Book Review: Representing Genocide: The Holocaust As Paradigm?, Emily Sample

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.