I am neither a librarian nor a lower-school/high-school educator so I really have no business respoonding to Leah Moskovits' request for ideas about marking the 350th anniversary, but I can't resist (if only because I wish my university students were a little more sophisticated when they get to me)-- so please take these ideas with a grain of salt.
Most treatments of American Jewish history are solidly and stolidly celebratory. The basic myth is two-part: a) "we came here seeking religious freedom (or freedom from oppression or freedom from the czar's military) and we achieved it" and b) "we faced an enormous religious/cultural challenge when we came here by abandoning tradition of the old country and then being tempted by the flesh-pots of assimilation in the New World, but with G-d's help [or our own efforts] we resisted and in fact rebuilt something different but fantastic here. There are variants of this myth depending on the cultural orientation of the writer: an Orthodox writer might emphasize the wisdom of post-WWII rejectionist Hasidic immigrants who refused assimilation completely and therefore built a burgeoning Orthodox community; an old-time socialist like Irving Howe, on the other hand, emphasized the cultural Yiddish-language liveliness and political liberalism of the [lost] World of Our Fathers. But the basic structure is one of celebration and success. I would suggest that programs in schools should, on some level, allow students to explore and, if you are brave enough, even challenge the myth. Here are some specific mechanisms for doing this through films; maps and newspapers; social criticism; political history.... a) show a set of films about assimilation and its success or failure: suggestions might be The Jazz Singer or His People (a silent available from Brandeis), and contrast these with stories about false values like (the Canadian) Lies My Father Told Me or (for older students) Hester Street or (for all ages) The Imported Bridegroom. b) encourage the students to map the migration of Jewish population of their own town against research drawn from old newspapers about the price of housing in Jewish neighborhoods. The point of this exercise would be to look at the effect of Jewish communities on local population, on urban growth or decay, etc/ This also raises great questions about how much it costs to be a Jew these days (have them compare the price of kosher and non-kosher foods; education; as well as housing). Hillel Levine's book on the destruction of Jewish Roxbury, MA or Michael Gold's old Jews Without Money might be useful sources for teachers. c) have students look at popular criticisms of suburban life and then ask how much these apply to the suburban lives they live. d) have students look at the reaction of American Jews to the rise of Naziism in Germany in the 1930s (use the New York Times to look at the public meeting in Madison Sq. Gardens and the trip of rabbis to DC; Arthur Hertzberg has written about his father's role and the fact that he was fired from his shul) as compared to the American Jewish reaction to the Six Day War and then ask questions about dual loyalty. By the way, there is a very good recent film that I think students would like by Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's grand-daughter (Heir to an Execution) that would raise a lot of interesting debate. e) programs should also explore how and why Jews have invented so many religious responses to Americanness, ranging from assimilation and forms of secular identification to a range of religious organizations, to cultural redefinitions. The idea is not to say one sysem is better or worse than another but to explore why they were popular in the first place. Anyway, the list can go on for a long time, and most of it is unusable by Jewish Schools for political reasons, The main trick is to create interactive rather than passive programs (let students create information from maps, old newspapers, etc.) Gmar hatima tova. May we all be inscribed for another 350 years of peace Bernard Dov Cooperman Louis L. Kaplan Chair of Jewish History Dept. of History Francis Scott Key Hall 2115 University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742-7315 Phone: 301-405-4271 FAX: 301-314-9399 Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
