Pamela S. Nadell

Jews experienced antisemitism the moment they landed on what would become the United States. When they first arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, Peter Stuyvesant tried but failed to deport them. As historian Pamela S. Nadell tells in Antisemitism, an American Tradition, this was only antisemitism’s beginning on our shores, as negative European stereotypes about Jews rooted into American soil. Compared with the Old World, with its expulsions, Inquisition, ghettos, and Holocaust, America’s Jews have a different history—but one where antisemitism, even if it has had fewer dramatic eruptions, is deeply embedded. Jews in America faced restrictions on holding office and getting financial credit. Universities set quotas to limit the number of Jews attending and businesses refused to hire them. Jews endured verbal and physical attacks, and their synagogues and cemeteries, continuing to this day, were vandalized and desecrated. Antisemitism, an American Tradition investigates the depths of this fraught history and its recent manifestations: white nationalists chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virginia, and a gunman murdering eleven worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue building. Nadell also shows Jews responding to prejudice and hate. America’s Jews created advocacy organizations. They turned to the courts to safeguard their constitutional rights. They made common cause with allies to confront all types of hate. They even used their fists when needed. At a time when prejudice, discrimination, and hate against Jews is flaring across the country, Antisemitism, an American Tradition argues that we must understand the past. This momentous work reveals how antisemitism—and resistance to that hatred—endures, representing not a rupture from America’s history, but a centuries-old legacy.

Jews met antisemitism on landing in New Amsterdam in 1654 when Peter Stuyvesant tried to expel them. The founding of the US changed little, as negative European stereotypes rooted into American soil. They faced restrictions on holding office, admission to schools and employment, while synagogues and cemeteries were vandalised. Recently, white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virgina and a gunman killed eleven members of a Pittsburgh synagogue. Antisemitic incidents increase each year. In Antisemitism, an American Tradition, Pamela S. Nadell investigates the depth of this fraught history. She explores how Jews battle antisemitism through the law, by creating organisations to speak for them, and respond with their fists or join with allies in fighting all types of hate.

What does it mean to be a Jewish woman in America? In a gripping historical narrative, Pamela S. Nadell weaves together the stories of a diverse group of extraordinary people--from the colonial-era matriarch Grace Nathan and her great-granddaughter, poet Emma Lazarus, to labor organizer Bessie Hillman and the great justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to scores of other activists, workers, wives, and mothers who helped carve out a Jewish American identity. The twin threads binding these women together, she argues, are a strong sense of self and a resolute commitment to making the world a better place. Nadell recounts how Jewish women have been at the forefront of causes for centuries, fighting for suffrage, trade unions, civil rights, and feminism, and hoisting banners for Jewish rights around the world. Informed by shared values of America's founding and Jewish identity, these women's lives have left deep footprints in the history of the nation they call home.

Pamela Nadell's biographical dictionary and sourcebook is a landmark contribution to American, Jewish, and religious history. For the first time, a great American Jewish religious movement is portrayed with amplitude, authority, and personality. In the most revolutionary era in two millenia of Jewish history, this surely is an important volumn. Moses Rischin, Professor of History, San Francisco State UniversityConservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook is the first extensive effort to document the lives and careers of the most important leaders in Conservatism's first century and to provide a brief history of the movement and its central institutions. It includes essays on the history of the movement and on the evolution of its major institutions: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, The Rabbinical Assembly, and The United Synagogue of America. It also contains 135 biographical entries on the leading figures of Conservative Judaism, appendices, and a complete bibliography on sources of study.