American and Israeli Jews protest outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's New York hotel in support of democracy for all in Israel-Palestine, September 19, 2023.

The Forgotten History of American Jewish Dissent Against Zionism

In resurrecting stories of non- and anti-Zionist critics, a new book shows American Jews how questioning Israel is deeply rooted in their community.
Jewish activists demanding ceasefire in Gaza.

When ‘Nice Jewish Boys and Girls’ in the US First Took up the Palestinian Cause

According to Geoffrey Levin’s ‘Our Palestine Question,’ divides over Israeli policy aren’t new – they existed before American Jews fully embraced Zionism.
Palestinian Arab women and children in Israel, 1949

American Jews Have Fought for Palestinian Rights Since Israel Was Born

My research shows that this tradition runs deep.
Blanche and Alfred Knopf

Toward the Next Literary Mafia

Understanding history can help us understand what will be necessary if we’re serious about finally having a more diverse, less exclusionary publishing industry.
Jacob Schiff.

Jewish Leaders a Century Ago Had Complicated Feelings About Israel

Fierce disagreements over Zionism have played out from the movement’s inception among Jews, including community leaders who worried it would spark antisemitism.
Jewish characters in television and film

The Long History of Jewface

Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose is the latest example of the struggles around Jewish representation on the stage and screen.
John Trumbull's painting of Alexander Hamilton, 1806 (National Portrait Gallery).

Founding Philosemitism

Alexander Hamilton always believed that the providential protection that kept the small Jewish world alive would embrace his own extraordinary nation.
Shelby Foote with a drawing of a Civil War battle superimposed over him.

The South’s Jewish Proust

Shelby Foote, failed novelist and closeted member of the Tribe, turned the Civil War into a masterpiece of American literature.
The Garden Cafeteria, New York City.

Jews and Joe

From European streets to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jews have been deeply involved in the history of coffee and the café scene.
The Jewish Catalog

When Judaism Went à la Carte

On the 50th anniversary of "The Jewish Catalog."
The Osterizer’s Spin Cookery Blender and Cook Book.

Of Potato Latkes and Pedagogy: Cooking for the History Classroom

A cooking assignment helps illuminate the lives of Jewish women in the past for students.
Two campers kissing at Camp Cejwin, 1982.

The Jewish Summer Camp Hookup Scene Is Real. Here’s Why It Was Built.

All coed camps can be like this. But Jewish ones were different.

The Making of Norman Mailer

The young man went to war and became a novelist. But did he ever really come back?
Black-and-white photograph of Jacob Schiff, banker and philanthropist, from a side profile

The Sanitizing of Conservative Judaism

Conservative Judaism’s origins lie in a donor plan to neutralize and refine the radical Jewish immigrant masses.
A Jewish family welcomes home their Navy man and gathers for a Passover Seder at their home in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1943.

How a Coffee Company and a Marketing Maven Brewed Up a Passover Tradition

A collaboration between advertiser Joseph Jacobs and the famous coffee company produced the classic U.S. haggadah.
Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson visiting Soviet Jewish émigrés in Israel.

Henry "Scoop" Jackson and the Jewish Cold Warriors

An alliance between Jewish activists and congressional neocons made Soviet Jewry a key issue in superpower relations—and reshaped American Jewish politics.
Four duplicate portrait photos of Judah P. Benjamin.

Biographical Fallacy

The life of Judah Benjamin, a Southern Jew who served in the Confederate government, can tell us only so much about the American Jewish encounter with slavery.
Riesman giving fundraising speech

My Grandfather the Zionist

He helped build Jewish American support for Israel. What’s his legacy now?
A 1951 meeting between ADL leadership and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

The Anti-Democratic Origins of the Jewish Establishment

The history of the ADL and AJC reveals that they were created to consolidate the power of wealthy men and stifle the grassroots left.
2015 Purim Ball in New York City

How New York's 19th-Century Jews Turned Purim Into an American Party

In the 19th century, Purim became an occasion to hold parties to raise money for charities. These parties helped American Jews gain a standing among the elite.