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Spanning 350 years of Jewish experience in this country, Sachar tells the stories of Spanish marranos and Russian refugees, of aristocrats and threadbare social revolutionaries, of philanthropists and Hollywood moguls. At the same time, he elucidates the grand themes of the Jewish encounter with America, from the bigotry of a Christian majority to the tensions among Jews of different origins and beliefs, and from the struggle for acceptance to the ambivalence of assimilation.
"Dense and absorbing...not only good history but a contribution to the current American-Israeli relations."--The New York Times Book Review
"I have been teaching American history for thirty-eight years, but I was frankly astonished by much of the information contained in Howard Sachar's monumental volume."--David Brion Davis, The New Republic
Contents
Prologue
1. A Foothold in the Early Americas
2. The Germanization of American Jewry
3. The Americanization of German Jewry
4. The Last European Avalanche Begins
5. Survival in the Immigrant City
6. Social and Cultural Ferment in the Immigrant World
7. The German-Jewish Conscience at Efflorescence
8. World War I and the Contest for American-Jewish Spokesmanship
9. The Jewish Presence Under Appraisals
10. The Golden Door Closes
11. Breaking the Immigrant Lockstep
12. The Culture of Americanization
13. The Era of the Great Depression
14. Nazism and the Quest for Sanctuary
15. World War II: Catastrophe and Renewal
16. The Zionization of American Jewry
17. The Birth of Israel
18. From Cold War to Belle Epoque
19. The Triumph of Democratic Pluralism
20. Defining a Relationship with the Jewish State
21. A Jewish Impact on American Culture
22. At Home in America
23. Ethnicity at the Apogee
24. Again, the Promised Land
25. Diaspora and Homeland: A Crisis of Recognition