Jewish-American Culture in the United States

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I chose to write about Jewish-Americans after my mother, who was raised Christian, chose to identify herself as Jewish. In my reading I examined Jewish culture and how it is in American society. I looked at how Jewish-American culture has become a prominent component of American society. I looked at the historical forces that have shaped Jewish-American experience in the United States. I looked at demographics of where most Jewish-Americans live. I examined how Jewish-Americans have contributed to our culturally pluralistic society in the United States. Hilene Flanzbaum recalls that what is called the great wave of Eastern European immigration to the eastern United States occurred between 1880 and 1920, after which generations of Jewish-American immigrants established what it meant to be Jewish in America (2013, p. 485). Ilan Stavans points out, however, that the original Jewish settlement in what would become the United States began as early as 1654 with twenty three Portuguese-speaking Sephardic Jews from Recife, Brazil (Stavans, 2005, p. 2). At that time director-general Peter Stuyvesant wanted to keep the Jews out of his diverse town. Stuyvesant described the Jews as “deceitful, very repugnant” and “hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ” which led to most of the original group leaving (Stavans, 2005, p. 2). This reaction to Jews has been a common occurrence throughout history, both in the United States and abroad. Stuyvesant, seeing the economic growth the Jews brought with them, eventually allowed them to stay and eventually embraced their intellectual stamina (Stavans, 2005, p. 2). Throughout history, Jews have been persecuted in just about every place they have settled. Here I have provided just a small ... ... middle of paper ... ...e Menorah Journal And Shaping American Jewish Identity: Culture And Evolutionary Sociology. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Jewish Studies, 30(4), 61-79. doi:10.1353/sho.2012.0095 Stavans, I. (2005). Assimilation and Jewish Ethnic Identity. The Jewish Identity Project: New American Photography, Rpt. In Race and Ethnicity. Ed. Uma Kukathas. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Contemporary Issues Companion. Retrieved Apr 4, 2014, from http://ic.galegroup.com.proxy.hvcc.edu:2048/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displa Winter, J. (2002, Jan). The Death of American Antisemitism by Spencer Blakeslee. American Sociological Association. Retrieved Mar 2, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3089419

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