Chapters in American Jewish History

Since December, 1996, the Society has been publishing Chapters in American Jewish History on a weekly basis in the national Jewish newspaper, the Forward and in other Jewish newspapers around the country; the following chapters are a mere sampling. A volume entitled Blessings of Freedom includes 120 of these columns, organized according to subject and period. Please see our gift shop to purchase this book.

Click a link in the list below to view the chapter, or enter keyword(s) in the field to search for specific text.

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Chapter 1 Moses Michael Hays "A Most Valuable Citizen"
Chapter 2 Aaron Lopez's Struggle for Citizenship
Chapter 3 America's First Glamour Girl
Chapter 4 Scholarship with a Purpose
Chapter 5 Alfred Mordecai, Military Scientist
Chapter 6 Alfred Huger Moses, Industrial Visionary
Chapter 7 Noah's Second Landing at Ararat
Chapter 8 J. P. Morgan of the Underworld
Chapter 9 The Mysterious Death of Lazarus Averbuch
Chapter 10 The Battle of the Balcony
Chapter 11 August Bondi: The Jew Who Fought Beside John Brown
Chapter 12 Bravo, Bravo, Bravo, Jewish Women! The Kosher Meat Boycott Of 1902
Chapter 13 The Brownsville Public School Boycott: 1905
Chapter 14 Modern Orthodoxy Builds a Cathedral
Chapter 15 The Fight for Jewish Chaplains
Chapter 16 Chicago: Incubator of American Zionism
Chapter 17 The Expelled Jews of Coro
Chapter 18 Blood of Damascus
Chapter 19 David Seixas Stands Accused: 1821
Chapter 20 Don Solomono, Jewish Indian Chief
Chapter 21 Staying Jewish on the Arizona Frontier
Chapter 22 "Red Emma" Goldman's Jewish Anarchism
Chapter 23 The First American Jewish Feminist
Chapter 24 Sir Moses Jacob Ezekiel
Chapter 25 Lending a Helping Hand
Chapter 26 "To Bigotry No Sanction, to Persecution No Assistance"
Chapter 27 General Grant's Infamy
Chapter 28 The Kings of Copper
Chapter 29 A Martyr to His Faith
Chapter 30 The Americanization of Reform Judaism
Chapter 31 Jefferson and the Jews
Chapter 32 Turks, Jews and Infidels Need Not Apply
Chapter 33 John Adams Embraces A Jewish Homeland
Chapter 34 Judah Benjamin, The Jewish Confederate
Chapter 35 Judah Touro: American Jewish Philanthropist
Chapter 36 The "Pioneer" Jews of Martha's Vineyard
Chapter 37 Jewish Dreams of Mexico
Chapter 38 Minnie Low and Scientific Tzedakah
Chapter 39 Mordecai's Female Academy: 1809
Chapter 40 An Early Jewish Floridian
Chapter 41 The Anti-Nazi Boycott of 1933
Chapter 42 Of Civil Seders in the Civil War
Chapter 43 Humble Roots of American Retailing
Chapter 44 American Jewry's Man in Roumania
Chapter 45 Penina Moise
Chapter 46 Teddy Roosevelt, Jewish Avenger
Chapter 47 An American Jewish "Cinderella": Part I
Chapter 48 Fending Off the Missionaries
Chapter 49 The Red Cross's Jewish Star
Chapter 50 The Jewish Teddy Bear
Chapter 51 Thanksgiving and the Jews: Pennsylvania, 1868
Chapter 52 The "Trefa Banquet" and the End of a Dream
Chapter 53 America's First Consul to Jerusalem
Chapter 54 Jewish "Continuity" in Early America
Chapter 55 The First New World Rabbi
Chapter 56 How Hebrew Came to Yale
Chapter 57 Vindication of an American Jewish Patriot
Chapter 58 The Making of A Jewish Citizen
Chapter 59 The Jew with Sir Walter Raleigh
Chapter 60 A Case of Blasphemy
Chapter 61 America's First Hebrew Teacher
Chapter 62 Revolutionary Broker
Chapter 63 Martyr of the American Revolution
Chapter 64 The First American-born "Rabbi"
Chapter 65 Mordecai Sheftall and the Wages of War
Chapter 66 Burned at the Stake
Chapter 67 Faith Beyond the Synagogue Door
Chapter 68 Barney Ross's Greatest Battles
Chapter 69 From Ziegfield to Seinfeld: Remembering Fanny Brice
Chapter 70 But They Were Good to Their People
Chapter 71 Justice Cardozo, Sephardic Jew
Chapter 72 A Voice for the Displaced
Chapter 73 Chanukah, American Style
Chapter 74 The Iceberg, the Radio and David Sarnoff
Chapter 75 A Few Humble Coins and the Making of Israel
Chapter 76 Dick Savitt, Self-Made Champion
Chapter 77 The First American Bat Mitzvah
Chapter 78 A Flag is Born
Chapter 79 The Gangster and the Governor
Chapter 80 Beyond Seltzer Water: The Kashering of Coca-Cola.
Chapter 81 Marty Glickman's Stolen Medal
Chapter 82 Golda Meir's American Roots
Chapter 83 Hank Greenberg: Baseball's First Jewish Superstar
Chapter 84 The Extraordinary Life of Henrietta Szold
Chapter 85 Henry Ford Invents a Jewish Conspiracy
Chapter 86 Rabbi Gittelsohn's Iwo Jima Sermon
Chapter 87 Joe Louis and the Jews
Chapter 88 John Slade's Olympian Journey
Chapter 89 How Wyatt Earp Got Buried in a Jewish Cemetery
Chapter 90 Old in Wisdom, Tender in Years
Chapter 91 Louis D. Brandeis and American Zionism
Chapter 92 LaGuardia 1, Hitler 0
Chapter 93 Lane Bryant Malsin: Fashion Revolutionary
Chapter 94 The Lynching of Leo Frank
Chapter 95 American Newlyweds in Israel, 1948
Chapter 96 Mickey Marcus: Israel's American General
Chapter 97 "Matriarch of the Kosher Food Industry"
Chapter 98 The Massena Blood Libel
Chapter 99 An "Entirely Different" Jew in Congress
Chapter 100 Moe Berg’s Remarkable life
Chapter 101 Molly Picon, All-American Maydl
Chapter 102 The Jewish "Yentile" Governor of Utah
Chapter 103 Syd Koff's Olympic Protest
Chapter 105 My Dear Justine, My Dear Eleanor
Chapter 106 The Day the Rabbis Marched on Washington
Chapter 107 "Mother" Ruth's Journeys
Chapter 108 Ruth Gruber's Exodus: Part II
Chapter 109 Shabbat as Social Reform
Chapter 110 A Gesture of Defiance
Chapter 111 Sid Luckman, Legendary Quarterback
Chapter 112 Sosua: An American Jewish Experiment
Chapter 113 The Tragedy of the St. Louis
Chapter 114 Arthur Szyk: His Brush Was His Sword
Chapter 115 In a League of Her Own
Chapter 116 From the Ashes of Tragedy