Constellations of Atlantic Jewish History

Introduction

Introduction During the 16th century and continuing over four centuries, Jews and their descendants forged extensive networks of kinship, commerce, and culture around the Atlantic coasts of Europe, Africa, South and North America, and beyond. The history of these Atlantic Jewries spans generations of colonization, revolutionary wars, cultural transformations, and continental crossings. Their relationships transcended imperial, national, religious and racial boundaries even as their paths to religious freedom and citizenship within politically controlled spaces advanced unevenly. Jews had to fight for their rights and respect as equal members of the communities in which they lived; they also had to confront the wrongs of slavery and racism in the societies in which they were embedded. Jews fought in and survived the violence and upheaval caused by wars. And whether in times of war or peace, they continued to form families, build religious and charitable institutions, self-consciously resist threats of radical assimilation, and creatively address pressures for religious change.

Many crossed the Atlantic for economic opportunities; others to escape oppressive conditions in their native lands. Economic life was fraught with uncertainty; while some prospered, others suffered. Cycles of boom and bust, success and failure afflicted everyone. Amidst sweeping change and uncertainty, optimism and anxiety, faith and doubt, new publishing ventures emerged and new forms of reading functioned as a social glue and as a calming balm connecting Jews and non-Jews of diverse backgrounds. In the nineteenth century, by foot, mule, horse, wagon, and rail thousands of Jews moved further inland settling across the Continental Americas until they reached the Pacific Ocean. They also came west by ship through the Caribbean to the Gulf of Mexico and around the southern tip of South America heading north to Latin America and the Pacific coast of the United States. Even as they reached the Pacific, Jews living in the Americas and across the Atlantic remained intimately connected to each other and part of an Atlantic Jewish historical and cultural geography.

The Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica teaches us about the everyday lives and businesses of these Atlantic Jewries and their changing perceptions and experiences of space and time - both as Jews and as members of their larger societies. As you go through this exhibition, thus, you may wish to don metaphorically an invention of Penn’s founder, Benjamin Franklin: a pair of bi-focals. These near and far-sighted spectacles hopefully will help disclose the particular and universal aspects of Atlantic Jewish history on display. The collection, in short, is more than the sum of its parts. It is the constellation of unlimited potential connections among its many pieces. To appreciate fully its significance and complexity requires an intensive immersion in its details and a keen awareness of the contexts in which each item first belonged. This exhibition, consisting of only a tiny sample of over 11,000 items, also, hopefully will help the viewer to better appreciate the decades of effort the Kaplans devoted to building a scholarly resource of lasting worth.

Arrangement

Space

Times

Rights

Wrongs

War

Peace

Commerce

Culture

Symposium Schedule

February 18, 2014 9:30 - 10:00 am: Breakfast and exhibition browsing

10:00 am: Greetings and Introduction:

Arthur Kiron, Schottenstein-Jesselson Curator of Judaica Collections, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania 10:15 am – 12:15 pm: Session One: Space and Time in the Atlantic Jewish World

Chair: David Ruderman, Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Speakers Aviva Ben-Ur, Associate Professor in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “Atlantic Jewish History: A Conceptual Reorientation” Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University, “Marking Time: Notes from the Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica on How Nineteenth-Century American Jews Lived Their Religion” 12:00 – 1:30 pm: Break for lunch and exhibition browsing

1:30 – 3:30 pm: Session Two: Making a Living - The Business of Being Jewish in America

Chair: Lila Corwin Berman, Associate Professor of History, Murray Friedman Professor and Director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, Temple University Speakers Adam Mendelsohn, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, College of Charleston, “A Covenant of Commerce: The Business of Jews in America” Dianne Ashton, Professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department at Rowan University, “The Kaplan Collection of Victorian Trade Cards” 3:30 – 3:45 pm: Coffee break and exhibition browsing

3:45 - 5:45 pm: Session Three (roundtable): Atlantic Jewish History and Future Research

Chair: Michael Zuckerman, Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania Panelists Melissa R. Klapper, Professor of History, Rowan University Josh Perelman, Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the National Museum of American Jewish History Lance Sussman, Senior Rabbi, Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel Congregation and Professor of American Jewish History

5:45 – 7:00 pm: Reception and Exhibition tour with Arnold Kaplan (by invitation)

Participants

Dianne Ashton Dianne Ashton is professor of religious studies at Rowan University and editor of the journal American Jewish History. She is the author of Hanukkah in America: A History (2013), of the first modern biography of the American Jewish education trailblazer Rebecca Gratz (1997) and of Jewish Life in Pennsylvania (1998). She is also coeditor of the widely read Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Source Book (1992; revised 2009) and former director of the American Studies Program at Rowan University. She received her PhD from Temple University in the Department of Religion.

Aviva Ben-Ur Aviva Ben-Ur is associate professor in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. She is the author of Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History (2009) and, with Rachel Frankel, Remnant Stones, a two-volume documentary and interpretive study of Suriname’s Jewish cemeteries and synagogues (2009; 2012). Her current book project is Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname, 1651–1825.

Lila Corwin Berman Lila Corwin Berman is Associate Professor of History at Temple University. She holds the Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewish History and directs the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History. Berman received her B.A. from Amherst College and her Ph.D. from Yale. She is author of Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity (2009), a finalist for the Jewish Book Council’s Sami Rohr Prize. Berman is completing a new book titled Jewish Urban Journeys Through an American City and Beyond that has received support from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has also published articles in the Journal of American History, Jewish Social Studies, American Jewish History, Religion and American Culture, the Forward, and Sh’ma.

Arnold H. Kaplan Arnold H. Kaplan is retired from UnitedHealth Group, where he served as chief financial officer. Prior to joining UnitedHealth Group, Mr. Kaplan was senior vice-president and chief financial officer for Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. He is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Kaplan and his wife Deanne, who have two children and six grandchildren, currently reside in the Sarasota area of Florida. Kaplan received his bachelor of science degree in commerce and engineering from Drexel University in 1962. He received a master’s of science degree in industrial administration from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1964. Kaplan currently serves on the board of the American Jewish Historical Society and is a trustee of the UnitedHealth Group Charitable Remainder Trust. He has served on the boards of the Lehigh Valley Hospital & Health Network, the Allentown Art Museum, the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee, and the Baum School of Art. Kaplan is past chairman of the Alumni Board of Governors of Drexel University.

Arthur Kiron Arthur Kiron is the Schottenstein-Jesselson Curator of Judaica Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and an adjunct assistant professor of history in Penn’s History Department. In his role as curator, he oversees public programs of education and outreach, such as exhibits, concerts, and workshops, as well as national and international partnerships to digitize significant collections of Judaica. He is the director of the Jesselson-Kaplan American Genizah Project, an international initiative based at Penn, which seeks to locate, scan, catalogue, and provide dynamic on-line access to early American Jewish historical documents.

Melissa R. Klapper Melissa R. Klapper is professor of American, Jewish and Women’s history at Rowan University. She received her B.A. in history from Goucher College and her Ph.D. from Rutgers University. She is the author of Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860-1920 (NYU Press, 2005) and Small Strangers: The Experiences of Immigrant Children in the United States, 1880-1925 (Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2007). Her work has been awarded grants and fellowships from, among others, the American Jewish Archives Center, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Schlesinger Library on the History of American Women at Harvard University, and the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research. Dr. Klapper is the book review editor of the scholarly journal American Jewish History and a frequent lecturer in the community. Her most recent book, Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890-1940 (NYU Press, 2013) has just been awarded the 2013 National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies.

Adam Mendelsohn Adam Mendelsohn is associate professor of Jewish studies at the College of Charleston. He specializes in the history of Anglophone Jewish communities in the period prior to eastern European mass migration. He is the author of The Rag Race, which will be published in 2014, about Jewish involvement in the clothing trade in the United States and England in the nineteenth century. The book argues that the nature and structure of this business played a determinative role in hastening Jewish upward mobility in both societies. He is also the coeditor of Transnational Traditions: New Perspectives on American Jewish History (2014). His book Jews and the Civil War: A Reader, co-edited with Jonathan D. Sarna, was published in 2010.

Josh Perelman Josh Perelman is the chief curator and director of exhibitions and collections at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. He is the co-curator of the Museum’s upcoming premier exhibition, Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American, which was awarded a substantial grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Josh oversaw the landmark core exhibition NMAJH opened in 2010 and founded the Museum’s education, public programming, and visitor services departments. Perelman has a joint PhD in Jewish Studies and American History as well as eighteen years of experience in museums and non-profit leadership. Perelman writes and lectures on topics of historical interpretation as well as the intersections of culture, politics, and art; serves on the board of directors for the Council of American Jewish Museums and Philadelphia’s University City Arts League and is a member of the American Jewish Historical Society’s academic council.

David B. Ruderman David B. Ruderman is the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Pennsylvania, he taught at the University of Maryland [1974-83] and at Yale University [1983-94]. He is the author of many books and articles including Kabbalah, Magic, and Science (1988); A Valley of Vision (1990); Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (1995, 2001); Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought (2000); Connecting the Covenants: Judaism and the Search for Christian Identity in Eighteenth Century England (2007); and Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (2010). Three of these books, including the last, won national book awards in Jewish history. He has also edited or co-edited five other books and co-edited two popular textbooks. He is a past president of the American Academy for Jewish Research. The Teaching Company has produced two of his Jewish history courses, each in 24 lectures. In 2001, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture honored him with its lifetime achievement award for his work in Jewish history.

Jonathan D. Sarna Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph Engel Visiting Professor of American Jewish Studies at Harvard University (Spring 2014), the 18th president of the Association for Jewish Studies, and the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, where he chairs its Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. He also chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, serves as Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, and serves as an occasional columnist for the Jewish Forward in New York. Author or editor of more than thirty books on American Jewish history and life, his American Judaism: A History won six awards including the 2004 “Everett Jewish Book of the Year Award” from the Jewish Book Council. Sarna is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Academy of Jewish Research. His most recent book is entitled When General Grant Expelled the Jews.

Lance J. Sussman Lance J. Sussman, Ph.D, is Senior Rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel (Elkins Park, PA). He is author of Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (1995) and a major historical study of Reform Rabbis and Mixed Marriage (2006) Sussman served as chair of the Judaic Studies Department at Binghamton University and has taught at Princeton and Hunter College. He is a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and was the national chair of the CCAR Press.

Beth S. Wenger Beth S. Wenger is professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, where she currently serves as chair of the history department and recently completed her seventh and final year as director of the Jewish Studies Program. Wenger’s most recent book is History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage (2010). She is also the author of The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America (2007), companion volume to the 2008 PBS series The Jewish Americans, and New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise (1996).

Michael W. Zuckerman Michael W. Zuckerman is professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. He did his B.A. (at Penn) and his Ph.D. (at Harvard) in American Studies. He is still incorrigibly committed to coming at History that way. He teaches courses in popular culture, national character, human nature, and religion. He has written on subjects from democracy to family life to business, from American identity to the Constitution to religion, from the university to children’s rights to race to the role of ideas in history, and on people from Thomas Jefferson to P. T. Barnum to Oliver North, from Horatio Alger to Lewis Mumford to Doctor Spock. He is now finishing the editing of a collaboration of historians and developmental psychologists on the history of childhood from the middle ages to the new millennium.

Acknowledgements

This exhibition, its design and mounting, as well as its companion volume, would not have been possible without the devoted, creative labors of Andrea Gottschalk, Exhibition Designer & Coordinator for the Rare Book and Manuscript Library , her conscientious staff, Sammi Paek, David Smigen-Rothkopf, and Emily White, and the exceptionally patient, professional copy-editing and proof-reading of Janice Fisher. The web-based presentation of this exhibition has been created thanks to the exceptional design skills of Dennis Mullen and the photographic talents of Chris Lippa.

Credit and great thanks for building this exhibition’s interactive digital map display of the Kaplans’ Victorian Jewish Trade Cards belongs to Doug Emery, Arthur Mitchell Fraas, Dennis Mullen, Michael Overgard, and Dot Porter.

Michael Overgard deserves special recognition for the superlative role he played coordinating and managing the logistics of the Kaplan exhibition. Carton Rogers, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries, William Noel, Director of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts and Director of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, and Tina Cowan, Director of Development for the Penn Libraries provided truly great leadership and support. Ivy Barsky, CEO and Gwen Goodman Director, and Josh Perelman, Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH), enthusiastically embraced this project and partnership. Claire Pingel, the Chief Registrar and Associate Curator at the NMAJH, was indefatigably helpful in her multiple roles coordinating the exchange of Kaplan items between our two institutions. Lynn Smith and the staff of Atelier Art Storage and Services in Philadelphia expertly handled the packing, shipping, and storing of many of the Kaplan rare artifacts.

The following people all deserve recognition for their help bringing this project to fruition: Aleta Arthurs, Sue Bing, Ian Bogus, Chandra Victoria Collins, Jessie Dummer, Lynne Farrington, Josef Gulka, Regan Kladstrup, Judith Leifer, Chris Lippa, David McKnight, Bruce Nielsen, Jasmin Nof, John Pollack, Lynn Ransom, Louise Strauss, Elton-John Torres, Daniel Traister, and Ellen Williams. There is no adequate way to thank Arnold and Deanne Kaplan for their vision and generosity. Our boundless thanks go to them.