Tony Michels in his classic essay from 1955,“America is Different,” Ben halpern undertook to explain what he (and many others) viewed as the uniqueness of American Jewish history. The experience of Jews in the United states was singular, according to halpern, because they at no point underwent an emancipation process wherein they needed to prove themselves worthy of citizenship. They became citizens at the founding of the republic without special consideration. Absent a “Jewish Question” in which the legal status of Jews was subject to debate, powerful antisemitic movements failed to develop on American soil. no significant political party ever attempted to strip the Jews of civil and political rights or undo the liberal constitutional order that guaranteed those rights. needing neither to seek emancipation nor defend it, American Jews constituted “a postemancipation Jewry,” one that enjoyed unprecedented levels of freedom, acceptance, and affluence within a society characterized by a fluid class structure, ethnoreligious pluralism, and a malleable national character. The United states was thus “different,” not merely in the assortment of particulars that differentiates any country from another, but in its fundamentals. This democratic, pluralistic, and prosperous country proved hospitable to such an extent that it produced a profound departure: for the first time in their long history of dispersion, Jews found a true home. 1 halpern’s essay presented a Jewish version of American exceptionalism, the deeply rooted belief in American national uniqueness. 2 As described