Editor’s Introduction

The five articles in this issue cover topics that have long interested scholars and non-specialists alike: family relationships, the dimensions of pluralism in the U.S., Jews’ engagement with modern culture, and the relationships among Jewish subcultures. Michael Hoberman’s study of the letters written by Quebec Jewish business magnate Aaron Hart (1724–1800) to his children scattered across North America reveal this fathers’ worries and frustrations. Hart strived to find words that would achieve multiple goals—words that would guide his children in managing their business interests, leading honorable lives and remaining observant Jews, even as they balanced British and French standards of respectability. Hoberman’s analysis reveals the immense hope that Hart invested in his letters and, as was the case with other colonial mercantile Jewish families, the frustration he felt when he recognized the limits of his power to compel his children to behave precisely as he wished. Yet, as Hoberman explains, these letters “differ markedly” from letters written by several other early Jewish fathers to their sons and he shows us the “wealth of insight” they can reveal.

The next four articles address some of the challenges animating American Jewish life in the twentieth century. During that period, America slowly began adopting pluralism as an ideal. Jessica Cooperman explains that during World War 1, the National Jewish Welfare Board played a key role in “transforming pluralism from a philosophic idea into a statemandated reality.” As the United States government institutionalized the care of its military personnel, Catholics and Jews worked to add their own organizations to the list of approved agencies that had long been dominated by the YMCA, thus legitimating their own work.

Andrea Pappas turns our attention to the “intersection of modernity and Jewishness” as she explores the short-lived Guild Art Gallery, a New York City venue for the display and sale of works by Jewish artists. Opening in the midst of the Great Depression, the gallery mounted critically significant shows by Jewish artists and gained the support of Jewish patrons for the international roster of artists it exhibited. Pappas explores the ways in which the gallery “provided a means to address the tensions between American life and traditional Jewishness” as modernity itself became a pivotal experience.

The subtle and not-so-subtle challenges to Jewish life described by Hoberman, Cooperman and Pappas also prompted many rabbinical schools to rethink the way they trained their students. After World War II, a wide range of schools made changes in their rabbinical training. As Zev Eleff explains, schools that embraced Orthodoxy also began to incorporate new elements into their curricula. In particular, they saw the importance of preparing rabbis in America with training in counseling. While Orthodox schools disagreed about exactly how to implement this change, they recognized that the demands of congregational leadership required this modification to their programs. This decision clarified the differences between Conservative and Orthodox Jewish approaches to rabbinical training, while at the same time adapting Orthodox training to American Jewish life.

Finally, Nadia Malinovich describes the “competing and overlapping identities” in the history of the American Friends of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, “a non-profit organization created in New York City in 1947 to garner funds for the AIU’s then extensive network of schools in the Arab world.” While both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews supported the AIU, for Sephardic Jews, the organization also provided a vehicle for cultural expression. Malinovich examines the relationship between these two subgroups of American Jews and their support of the AIU. She reveals nuances in the relations of the Sephardim among themselves, with the Ashkenazim and with American culture, as well as with Jews in the Arab world and in Israel.

This rich collection provides new perspectives on familiar concerns and offers new knowledge that can help us to understand the complexities of Jewish life in the Americas.