Anti-Semitism in American History ed. by David A. Gerber, and: Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale by Dan A. Oren, and: The Jewish Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe by Nitza Rosovsky (review)

444 Shorter Book ReviewsI David A. Gerber, ed. Anti-Semitism in American History. Urbana: Universitvof Illinois Press, 1986. 428 pp. " Dan A. Oren. Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale. New Haven:Yale University Press in cooperation with the American Jewish Archives, 1986.xiv+ 440 pp. Nitza Rosovsky. The Jewish Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. iv + 108 pp. Illus. America is a pluralist society. These books are a timely rerninder that for mostof American history this seeming truism was more myth than fact. They remindus that a generation or two ago, when the "melting pot" (an image coined, incidentally, by a Jewish writer, Israel Zangwill) was the dominant conception of the fate of immigrant groups, few Jews would have believed that a pluralist society, with political equality and cultural autonomy of "national" groups,was possible. Yet this is precisely the condition of America today. Over the past forty years, there has been a profound change in American society. In essence, it has broken open to Jews and to members of other ethnicand religious groups. For Jews, at least, change has been so dramatic that, as these books make clear, American Jews in their twenties and thirties inhabit a completely different world from that in which their parents grew up. Because the Nazis destroyed the dynamic Jewish society of Central andEastern Europe, because the Soviets have effectively silenced their Jewish citizens,and because the Moslem resurgence emptied North Africa and the Arab Near Eastof their historic communities, outside of Israel only America is left with a large, viable, vocal Jewish community. In many ways its health is as important toJewish survival as is the security of the State of Israel. And recently, despite the apparent vibrancy of this community, there is a sense of unease amongst American Jews. Many woITythat anti-semitism, so discredited by the Holocaust, is on the rise as the memories of the Nazi depravities recede. They point to the ugly anti-semitic outbursts of writers such as Gore Vidaland Joseph Sobran, editor of the National Review, and of politicians such as Jesse Jackson. They worry about the fall-out from the Pollard spy affair and fromthe01I crisis. On the other hand, others worry that things are too good in America-that the decline of anti-semitism, the absorbency of American society, as evidenced bythe rismg rate of intermarriage and the drifting away of many Jews from Judaism,isa far greater danger for the future survival of American Jewry. Paradoxically, there is a suspicion amongst some Jewish leaders that anti-semitism, bad as it is, isgood for the Jews since it binds them together as a people. Its disappearance, somefear. will dissolve their will to survive as a distinct group. These three books deal largely with an America that once was-an Americafull of bigotry, restrictions and racial quotas. They recount the difficulties of Jewish Shorter Book Reviews 445 life in America, the obstacles Jews had to overcome in order to get jobs, find places to live and educate their children. Anti-Semitism in America is a collection of fourteen studies elaborating on several aspects of anti-Jewish feeling in America. Various essays deal with antisemitism in the South, in the State Department, on the stage, in the university, and inthe church. In addition, there are essays on Jewish-Irish relations in New York City at the tum of the century, feminism and the Jewish question and the insensitivity of the American left toward Jewish issues. Much of the material in these articles is new, though some of the facts are quite familiar. Unlike most books of essays, this is well-integrated, has a common theme, and the scholarship is uniformly good. It is an excellent introduction to anti-semitism in America. For American Jews, Yale University has always been something of a puzzle. Here was the quintessential bastion of WASP America, representing the American ehte. And what is the centrepiece of its seal? Two mysterious words written in Hebrew. The words were chosen by the university's Puritan founders some 300 years ago because they saw themselves as the American successors to the ancient Israelites. But having Hebrew words on...