"What People Get Wrong About the History of American " Topic

….Judaism Before the Civil War.

"Years ago, Steven R. Weisman visited a friend in Israel who had grown up in a non-observant Jewish-American household like him. But, unlike Weisman, the friend had become devoutly Orthodox.

Thinking about the differences in their practice of the same religion, Weisman began to contemplate the history of American Judaism, even as his career led him to focus mostly on economics, not faith. By the time he was ready to write a book decades later, he had come to realize that America had changed Judaism, just as Judaism had changed America.

In particular, he found that freedom of religion had given Jewish immigrants in the United States the opportunity to define their religion in new and different ways, and that larger struggles about issues such as slavery forced them to confront the issues that faced the rest of the country, too. And, though late-19th-century waves of immigration often dominate the popular conception of the history of Judaism in the U.S., he also found that the story began far before most people think it did…."
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Amicalement
Armand

And in Cincinnati,Ohio one of the leaders was Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise,also one one of the founders of Hebrew Union College.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

Where the Judaism came from and when it got to America also made a difference. Spanish Jew vs Russian Jew vs Germanic vs etc. Then, you have pre and post-Holocaust. Thoughts on Israel. Even pre and post the formation of the USA. For example, Back in college, I became friends with a young lady who was Spanish Jewish from New Mexico/ northern Mexico. Her family had been there from the late 1500s. She had a very hard time fitting into the Jewish culture she found at the school. They simply did things differently than what she understood her religion to be. If you think about it. Compare an Amish, to a Catholic, to a Baptist, to a Mormon, etc. You get a lot of variety in Christians, too.

Agree!.

Amicalement
Armand

I read the article. I found this statement quaint: "Oh yeah. The vast majority. Every once in a while you run into people who say, well, my ancestors were here before the Civil War."

All my ancestors predate the ACW, and with one exception predate the AWI. Predate the ACW – LOL!!!!