The White House has issued complaints about the history on display in our national museums, complaining that it is too negative, that it portrays the past as a place of hurt. Yet, I would argue that historians, those in the academic world, museum directors, and local historians have been doing their job — and doing it well.
I am a local historian in Ithaca, New York, writing mostly about the place where I live and the region that surrounds it. By listening and observing the work of others, I have learned about Rosie, a young immigrant woman who led a strike in 1913 in Auburn, New York. I have come to see H. H. Coleman as an inadvertent historian whose columns in the Colored American in the 1880s, described the social life of Black people in my town. I have learned about Juanita Breckenridge Bates who led the fight for suffrage in my town and the curious fact, that her husband, in 1917, forgot to turn over his ballot to affirm the fact that women should have the vote. I have learned about Lizzy the enslaved woman who was suddenly “disappeared” from her home in Caroline and sold in the south just as New York was passing a law in 1827 to abolish slavery in the state. I have come to know about Rev. Henry Johnson who brought the AME Zion church in Ithaca into being, but while lecturing around the state was beaten 17 times. I know that the first Jewish rabbi in Ithaca arrived in 1915 where he and his wife had a child; then moving on to Alabama his family was listed as having a child born in Ithaca — with Greece written in pencil above young David’s name, no one in Alabama knowing about Ithaca, New York.
Small things. But they tell a greater picture. That life in the past was not always a rosy place, that laborers had to strike for better working conditions, that Black people fled here and then away again because this was not far enough away from the federal marshals unleashed by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. I learned that local women worked hard to achieve equality in the law by sending a petition to Albany in 1878 asking that the word male be removed from the state constitution, and that petition, while registered, was then deposited in the trash and never heard of again. So, the women had to go to work again to gain equal rights.
Opening up the faults of the past does not tear down our country but rather it aids us in rising above it. It allows us to see that we can change for the better, recognize our faults, and strive to bring about a pluribus unum. The truth of the past allows us to see that problems and faults can be overcome, that there are moral truths worth fighting for, that individuals matter. It is this diversity that has been uncovered over the past 50 years that has broadened our view of the past and is displayed in museums across the land.
This country was not a place of peace and harmony but a place where individuals had to step out of line to make “good trouble” to bring about necessary change. That story needs to be told ‘lest we believe that the past was unlike the present where there are tensions and contests and inequities that need to be resolved for this be a true democracy.
Historians are doing their job. It is now up to those in power and voters to see that where there is inequity we work for fairness, where there is harm, we bring balm, where there is strife we talk to each other to make the country and the world better places.
Ever since the atomic bombings of Japanese cities in August 1945, the world has been living on borrowed time. The indications, then and since, that the development of nuclear weapons did not bode well for human survival, were clear enough. The two small atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed between 110,000 and 210,000 people and wounded many others, almost all of them civilians. In subsequent years, hundreds of thousands more people around the world lost their lives thanks to the radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing, while substantial numbers also died from the mining of uranium for the building of nuclear weapons. Most startlingly, the construction of nuclear weapons armadas against the backdrop of thousands of years of international conflict portended human extinction. Amid the escalating nuclear terror, Einstein declared: “General annihilation beckons.”
Despite the enormity of the nuclear danger, major governments, in the decades after 1945, were too committed to traditional thinking about international relations to resist the temptation to build nuclear weapons to safeguard what they considered their national security. Whatever the dangers, they concluded, military power still counted in an anarchic world. Consequently, they plunged into a nuclear arms race and, on occasion, threatened one another with nuclear war. At times, they came perilously close to it―not only during the 1962Cuban missile crisis, but during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war and on numerous other occasions.
By contrast, much of the public found nuclear weapons and the prospect of nuclear war very unappealing. Appalled by the nuclear menace, they rallied behind organizations like the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy in the United States, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain, and comparable groups elsewhere that pressed for nuclear arms control and disarmament measures. This popular uprising secured its first clear triumph when, in the fall of 1958, the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain agreed to halt nuclear weapons testing as they negotiated a test ban treaty. As the movement crested, it played an important role in securing the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and a cascade of nuclear arms control measures that followed.
Even when U.S. and Soviet officials revived the nuclear arms race in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a massive public uprising halted and reversed the situation, leading to the advent of major nuclear disarmament measures. As a result, the number of nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals plummeted from about 70,000 to about 12,240 between 1986 and 2025. At a special meeting of the UN Security Council in 2009, the leaders of the major nuclear powers called for the building of a nuclear weapons-free world.
In recent decades, however, the dwindling of the popular movement and the heightening of international conflict have led to a revival of the nuclear arms race. As three nuclear experts from the Federation of American Scientists reported last June: “Every nuclear country is improving its weapons systems, while some are growing their arsenals. Others are doing both.” The new nuclear weaponry currently being tested includes “cruise missiles that can fly for days before hitting their targets; underwater unmanned nuclear torpedoes; fast-flying maneuverable glide vehicles that can evade defenses; and nuclear weapons in space that can attack satellites or targets on Earth without warning.” The financial costs of the nuclear buildup by the nine nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) will be immense. The U.S. government will reportedly spend over $1.7 trillion on its nuclear “modernization.”
Furthermore, over the past decade, the governments of North Korea, the United States, and Russia have issued public threats of nuclear war. In line with its threats, the Russian government announced in late 2024 that it had lowered its threshold for using nuclear weapons. In response to these developments, the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been set at 89 seconds to midnight, the most dangerous level in its 79-year history.
As the record of the years since 1945 indicates, the catastrophe of nuclear war can be averted. To accomplish this, however, a revival of public pressure for nuclear disarmament is essential, for otherwise governments easily slip into the traditional trap of enhancing military “strength” to cope with a conflict-ridden world―a practice that, in the nuclear age, is a recipe for disaster.
This public pressure could begin, as the Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s did, with a call to halt the nuclear arms race, and could continue with the demand for specific nuclear arms control and disarmament measures. But, simultaneously, the movement needs to champion the strengthening of global institutions―institutions that can provide greater international security than presently exists. The existence of these strengthened institutions―for example, a stronger United Nations―would help resolve the violent conflicts among nations that spawn arms races and would undermine lingering public and official beliefs that nuclear weapons are essential to safeguard national security.
Once the world is back on track toward nuclear disarmament, the movement could focus on its campaign for the signing and ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty, providing the framework for a nuclear weapons-free world, was adopted in 2017 by most of the world’s nations and went into force in 2021. Thus far, it has been signed by 94 nations and ratified by 73 of them.
Given recent international circumstances, none of the nuclear powers has signed it. But with widespread popular pressure and enhanced international security, they could ultimately be brought on board.
They certainly should be, for human survival depends upon ending the nuclear terror.
How Rightwing Money Tries to Shape the Teaching of American History
By Alan Singer
The Bill of Rights Institute sponsors events and provides scholarships for the annual conference of the National Council for the Social Studies. On the face of it, it seems innocuous, until you dig a little deeper. The NCSS sells sponsorships, display booths, and sessions that combined can cost a publisher or an organization almost $15,000 which it uses to cover the cost of the convention. At the 2024 NCSS National Conference in Boston, Bill of Rights Institute representatives conducted ten sessions. I have no idea what the Bill of Rights Institute actually pays, but I do know the money and their curriculum initiatives come from the rightwing Koch Foundation and its network of aligned organizations including Americans for Prosperity and the Stand Together Trust. In a 2017 interview with the conservative research group Accuracy in Academia, the President of the Bill of Rights Institute claimed it was working with “approximately one-quarter of the nation’s secondary school teachers in American history, civics, and social studies.”
Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in the United States, is a $115 billion conglomerate that owns oil refineries and pipelines, markets oil, coal, and chemicals, wood pulp and paper. It uses the Koch Foundation and network to fund conservative causes including challenges to climate science, support for corporate tax cuts, and eliminating federal regulations and environmental controls. The Koch network channeled over $9 million to Project 2025 advisory groups. Other major financial backers of the Bill of Rights Institute include the Adolph Coors Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Bradley Impact Fund, and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, all donors to the Heritage Foundation for creation of Project 2025. Much of that money was channeled through and the Donors Capital Fund.
In 2014, Bill Bigelow, writing for the Zinn Education Project, accused the Koch Brothers of trying to shape social studies curriculum through their Arlington, Virginia-based Bill of Rights Institute, founded in 1999. According to Bigelow, the Bill of Rights Institute’s tactics to infiltrate social studies include presentations at conferences, essay contests for students, and free seminars for teachers on topics like “Being an American,” “Preserving the Bill of Rights,” and “Heroes and Villains: The Quest for Civic Virtue.” Bigelow argued that their curriculum material “cherry-picks the Constitution, history, and current events to hammer home its libertarian message that the owners of private property should be free to manage their wealth as they see fit.” In one lesson students learn, “The Founders considered industry and property rights critical to the happiness of society.” Of course in many cases their belief in individual property rights included the right to enslave Africans and confiscate land from North America’s indigenous population. In his review of Bill of Rights Institute curriculum and background material, Bigelow found “nothing that could help teachers show students how race and social class shaped the U.S. Constitution” and “nothing that invites students to think about the Constitution from the point of view of anyone other than the elites who drafted it,” including the new nation’s enslaved population.
I attended a regional social studies council conference where a representative from the Bill of Rights Institute made multiple presentations including one on African American participation in the American War for Independence. The lesson plan and supplementary material is available of the Bill of Rights Institute’s website (https://billofrightsinstitute.org/lessons/paths-to-freedom-african-americans-and-the-revolutionary-war). With the Trump administration’s war on museum displays and social studies curriculum that portray negative aspects of U.S. history like the brutality of chattel slavery, I think it is a good example of how the Bill of Rights Institute skews the teaching of American history in line with patriotic history as championed by Project 2025 and the Trump administration’s The 1776 Report. This lesson acknowledges slavery but emphasizes, I believe incorrectly, how the American Revolution was a significant step towards emancipation using isolated examples to support its contentions. The reality is that with the development of the cotton gin in the 1790s and the expansion of cotton production and textile manufacturing at the start of the 19th century slavery in the United States expanded exponentially.
Excerpts from a statement by the Bill of Rights Institute followed by my comments in italics.
The resistance against Great Britain and the Revolutionary War inspired American colonists to think about their natural and constitutional rights. The language and principles of liberty, equality, and self-governance led White and Black Americans to question the institution of slavery and to challenge it more directly. Their diverse efforts led to the largest emancipation in world history at that time and freed an estimated 100,000 enslaved people.
This is misleading. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution challenged the existence of slavery in what would become the United States. A majority of the men who wrote both documents were slaveholders. A statement blaming the King of England for imposing the slave trade on British colonies was removed from the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution indirectly acknowledged the legitimacy of slavery with the three-fifth compromise and provisions for the capture and return of freedom-seekers.
Some colonists acknowledged the moral wrong of slavery while protesting British violations of their rights in the 1760s and 1770s. Pamphleteer James Otis wrote that, “The Colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.” Pennsylvanian Benjamin Rush wrote, “It would be useless for us to denounce the servitude to which the Parliament of Great Britain wishes to reduce us, while we continue to keep our fellow creatures in slavery just because their color is different from ours.” While some colonists addressed the contradiction of slavery and freedom, Black Americans challenged the institution.
Neither George Washington nor Thomas Jefferson freed enslaved Africans that they owned during their lifetimes. A 1773 letter written by Patrick Henry, who is remembered for declaring “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death,” is telling about the attitudes of white colonialists about the institution of slavery. In the letter, Henry wrote “Would any one believe that I am Master of Slaves of my own purchase! I am drawn along by ye. general inconvenience of living without them.”
Enslaved persons appealed to revolutionary ideals to argue for their natural rights. In 1773, four enslaved persons in Massachusetts petitioned the legislature for their freedom “which, as men, we have a natural right to.” The following year, a group of enslaved men presented a freedom petition claiming their natural rights and right to consent. “We have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedom without being deprived of them by our fellow men.” The legislature did not yet act upon the petitions, but Black Americans continued to petition for their freedom during the war as did Nero Brewster and 19 other enslaved individuals in New Hampshire in 1779.
The petitions were almost always unsuccessful.Only one of the original thirteen colonies, Massachusetts, outlawed slavery. Most of the enslaved Africans emancipated during the war were emancipated by the British.
Once the Revolutionary War began in 1775 at Lexington and Concord, free and enslaved Blacks joined both the patriot and British sides. Several Black patriots fought bravely at the Battle of Bunker Hill alongside White soldiers, but General George Washington forbade their service in the Continental Army that fall. However, dire manpower needs caused Washington and Congress soon to reverse that policy. The differing states had varied recruiting policies during the war: only South Carolina and Georgia prevented all Blacks from serving. A total of 5,000 free and enslaved Blacks fought for the patriot side throughout the war.
After Lord Dunmore offered freedom to any enslaved Africans who escaped to the British lines, an estimated 20,000 former slaves fought for their freedom by joining the British. The most famous of these was Titus Cornelius, Colonel Tye, who initially fought with Virginia’s Ethiopian Regiment and later led the New Jersey region’s Black Brigade.
Three Pounds Reward – Run away from the subscriber, living in Shrewsbury, in the county of Monmouth, New Jersey, a Negroe man, named Titus, but may probably change his name; he is about 21 years of age, not very black, near 6 feet high; had on a grey homespun coat, brown breeches, blue and white stockings, and took with him a wallet, drawn up at one end with a string, in which was a quantity of clothes. Whoever takes said Negroe, and secures him in any gaol, or brings him to me, shall be entitled to the above reward of Three Pounds, proc. And all reasonable charges paid by John Corlis. Nov. 8, 1775.
The British consistently encouraged enslaved persons to escape to support the British war effort and disrupt the American cause rather than out of a sincere desire for Black freedom.
During peace negotiations George Washington demanded that the British return formerly enslaved Africans including people he claimed to own as contraband. The British refused and evacuated as many as 20,000 Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia and other parts of the British empire.
During the war, General Washington’s aides, John Laurens and his friend Alexander Hamilton, developed an emancipation plan. In 1779, Congress endorsed their plan to raise a contingent of 3,000 enslaved men in South Carolina and Georgia who would be granted their freedom in exchange for military service. The legislatures of those two southern states rejected the scheme because of their opposition to emancipation and to arming enslaved persons.
In November 1775, George Washington issued an order barring both free and enslaved Black men from serving in the colonial army. In January 1776, Washington permitted the enlistment of free Black men who already were serving in the army and in 1777, all free Black men were permitted to join. Only Rhode Island offered freedom to enslaved men who joined the army. In a letter to Laurens’ father, Washington explained his fear that if the colonists did not arm enslaved Africans and offer them freedom, the British would and the war could be lost. Despite Washington’s pragmatic change of position, the plan was never implemented.
Bill of Rights Institute Guiding Questions:
How did African Americans participate in the Revolutionary War?
How did their actions reflect a desire to enjoy their natural rights?
Objectives:
Students will be able to connect actions taken by African Americans during the Revolutionary War to an understanding of natural rights of equality and justice.
Students will summarize the main ideas of historic texts.
Students will create an argument supported by evidence from primary sources. How did African Americans participate in the Revolutionary War? How did their actions reflect a desire to enjoy their natural rights?
These materials are missing from the Bill of Rights Institute’s suggested documents.
A. This charge against the King of England was removed from the original draft of the Declaration of Independence before it was signed on July 4, 1776:“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither . . . Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has suppressed every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”
B. Boston King’s Escape to the British Lines (1779): “As I was at prayer one evening, I thought the Lord Heard Me, and would mercifully deliver me. [P]utting my confidence in him, about one o’clock in the morning, I went down to the river side and found the guards were either asleep or in the tavern. I instantly entered the water, but when I was a little distance from the opposite shore, I heard the sentinels disputing among themselves. One said, I am sure I saw a man cross the river. Another replied, there is no such thing. When I got a little distance from the shore I got down on my knees and thanked God for this deliver-ance. I traveled until five o’clock in the morning and then concealed myself until seven o’clock at night, when I proceeded forward thro’ brushes and marshes for fear of being discovered. When I came to the river, opposite Staten Island, I found a boat and altho it was near a whale-boat, I ventured into it and cutting the rope, I got safe over. The commanding officer, when informed of my case, gave me a passport and I proceeded to New York.”
C. Pennsylvania Gazette on April 12, 1780 reported on a Monmouth County raid led by Colonel Tye:On the 30th ult. a party of Negroes and Refugees, from the Hook, landed at Shrewsbury in order to plunder. During their excursion, a Mr. Russel, who attempted to make some resistance to their depredations, was killed, and his grandchild had five balls shot through him, but is yet living.” On September 9, 1780, Philadelphia Gazette reported: “One of these attempts (and one which very nearly proved successful) was made about the 1st of September, 1780, by a body of Refugees black and white, including among the former the mulatto leader known as “Colonel Tye.” The party made an unexpected attack on Huddy’s house, which was bravely defended by himself and a girl of about twenty years of age, named Lucretia Emmons. The house had been a station for a detachment of the militia, and fortunately the guard had left there several muskets, which the girl now loaded as rapidly as possible and handed to Huddy, who fired them successively from different windows, wounding several of the assailants and causing them to greatly overestimate the number of defenders. This caused them to shrink from further direct attack, and they then set fire to the house, which, of course, ended all hope of successful resistance on Huddy’s part, and seeing the flames beginning to spread, he, to save his house, agreed to surrender on condition that they would extinguish the fire, which terms they accepted.”
D. George Washington, while headquartered at Newburgh, New York, objected to British plans to evacuate formerly enslaved Africans as a violation of the provisional peace agreement and he sought to find and reacquire people he claimed as his own property. In an April 1783 letter to Benjamin Harrison, the Governor of Virginia, Washington wrote: “I transmitted the list of your Slaves to a Gentleman; a worthy active Man, of my acquaintance in New York and requested him to use his endeavors to obtain and forward them to you. All that can be done, I am sure he will do, but I have but little expectation that many will be recovered; several of my own are with the Enemy but I scarce ever bestowed a thought on them; they have so many doors through which they can escape from New York, that scarce any thing but an inclination to return, or voluntarily surrender of themselves will restore many to their former Masters, even supposing every disposition on the part of the Enemy to deliver them.”
E. Virginians Petition to Protect Slavery (1784):“Some men of considerable weight to wrestle from us, by an Act of the legislature, the most valuable and indispensable Article of our Property, our SLAVES by general emancipation of them. … such a scheme indeed consists very well with the principles and designs of the North, whose Finger is sufficiently visible in it. … No language can express our indignation, Contempt and Detestation of the apostate wretches. … It therefore cannot be admitted that any man had a right … to divest us of our known rights to property which are so clearly defined.”
F. Article in the New-York Packet, April 4, 1785:“It would be greatly injurous to this state if all the Negroes should be allowed the privileges of white men, unless there could be derived some possible means consistent with liberty, to separate them from white people, and prevent them from having any connection or intercourse with them . … [I]f they are emancipated on any other terms, it must be evident to the most common understanding, what will be the consequence in a short time; besides the shame we should most inevitably incur from a mixture of complexions, and their participating in government, … still greater consequence is to be dreaded, which is a total subversion of our liberties.”
G. Jupiter Hammon, poet and minister, was enslaved on Long Island. In 1786, he addressed this statement on slavery to the African population of New York State:“Now I acknowledge that liberty is a great thing, and worth seeking for, if we can get it honestly, and by our good conduct, prevail on our masters to set us free. That liberty is a great thing we may know from our own feelings, and we may likewise judge so from the conduct of the white people, in the late war. How much money has been spent, and how many lives have been lost, to defend their liberty. I must say that I have hoped that God would open their eyes, when they were so much engaged for liberty, to think of the state of the poor blacks, and to pity us. He has done it in some measure, and has raised us up many friends, for which we have reason to be thankful, and to hope in his mercy.”
H. According to the Mount Vernon library, seventeen members of the Mount Vernon enslaved population, fourteen men and three women escaped, many to a British warship anchored in the Potomac River. Hercules Posey, George Washington’s cook, and Ona Judge, Martha Washington’s personal servant successfully escaped bondage during Washington’s Presidency while the family was in Philadelphia. They fled to freedom when Washington tried to rotate them back to Virginia to avoid Pennsylvania’s emancipation laws. Posey was later sighted in New York City. Frederick Kitt, who oversaw the executive residence in Philadelphia, placed an advertisement in the Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser offering a $10 reward for Judge’s capture. In 1847, The Liberator published a letter from Reverend Benjamin Chase describing a visit with Ona Judge Staines who was now elderly where she recounted her escape. From Philadelphia Judge secured passage on a ship bound for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A few months after arriving in Portsmouth, Judge was recognized by a friend of Martha Washington’s granddaughter and George Washington enlisted the customs collector there, a federal employee, in an unsuccessful effort to capture Judge. The runaway slave ad and The Liberator article are included on the Bill of Rights Institute web page as “Further Reading,” but not the letter from Washington to the Portsmouth Customs Collector.
I. Letter from President George Washington to Joseph Whipple, Customs Collector, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 28, 1796:I regret that the attempt you made to restore the girl (Oney Judge as she called herself while with us, and who, without the least provocation absconded from her Mistress) should have been attended with so little success. To enter into such a compromise, as she has suggested to you, is totally inadmissible, for reasons that must strike at first view: for however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People (if the latter was in itself practicable at this Moment) it would neither be politic or just, to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference; and thereby discontent, beforehand, the minds of all her fellow Servants; who by their steady adherence, are far more deserving than herself, of favor. … If she will return to her former Service, without obliging me to resort to compulsory means to effect it, her late conduct will be forgiven by her Mistress; and she will meet with the same treatment from me, that all the rest of her family (which is a very numerous one) shall receive. If she will not, you would oblige me, by pursuing such measures as are proper, to put her on board a Vessel bound either to Alexandria or the Federal City.”
James Arnett Friesen Press 384 pages, hardcover, softcover, and ebook
Reviewed by Emily Mernin
It may be hard for modern readers to imagine Manhattan as a rural island or New York City, now home to over eight million, as “a mere smudge along the shore far across the bay.” It might be difficult, too, for anyone who has travelled through New Jersey — the most tightly packed state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — to picture it as it once was: a sparsely populated British colony of rolling hills, farmland, and small villages.
This year marks the semiquincentennial of the start of the American Revolution, the brutal eight-year war that resulted in independence from Great Britain. Much of the conflict unfolded in Philadelphia and in what are now the five boroughs of New York, plus the verdant land between the two cities: the Garden State. In his second novel, The Monmouth Manifesto, James Arnett immerses readers in this landscape as he follows two yeoman farmers who enlist to fight as Loyalists.
Arnett’s plot and characters are drawn entirely from historical accounts, all of which are refer enced in his epilogue, afterword, and appendix; he changes few names and dates. The narrative begins with Richard Lippincott in early July 1776 at a Quaker meeting house in Shrewsbury, on the “northeastern coastal plain.” Described as “even- featured, lean, and about five-foot-nine,” the thirty- one-year-old listens intently to a discussion of “the current chaotic conditions of the Province of New Jersey”— specifically the spreading power of George Washington’s Continental Army. One of the meeting’s elders rattles off James and Richard fight side by side in the Battle of Staten Island in August 1777 and become unexpectedly close, even if James is “one of those polished arrogant Anglicans” and Richard is “one of those prickly sanctimonious Dissenters.” As the years pass — and their home lives feel increasingly distant — they influence each other greatly. Despite a series of rebel advances and London’s declining interest in its restless colonies, they help each other stay loyal to the cause. In 1781, after he learns of Maggie’s death, Richard rents a room for himself and Esther in Manhattan, where most of the Loyalists in the region have taken refuge. Although charting the moral evolution of multiple characters, Arnett zeroes in especially on Richard’s slow acceptance of bloodshed, military life, and revenge.
In 1782, Richard’s eventual comfort with violence culminates in his desire to person ally execute the rebel captain Joshua “Jack” Huddy. Richard organizes the prisoner of war’s hanging without the proper orders — a dangerous decision that surprises himself, Esther, and even James (who later resettles in Nova Scotia). The unwarranted murder of Huddy enrages the Patriots. They write the Monmouth Manifesto, a document “demanding that Washington retaliate” by executing someone on the British side. The future president selects a young officer, Charles Asgill, who (as in reality) ultimately sails back to London after six months of imprisonment.
Arnett’s rendering of this dramatic event, which came to be remembered as the Asgill Affair, is suggestive of the futile desperation of the British and Loyalist forces toward the end of the war, along with the self- abandonment required to commit senseless violence. I grew up in A hillside town in Essex county, recent advancements of the rebel cause, including an attempt to establish a “so-called State” and a “Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.” He then asks a question that rings throughout the novel: “How do we pacifists withstand the demands of a violent society?”
For Arnett, the short answer seems to be that they can’t. Within weeks of this gathering, Richard abandons his 100-acre farm “with its many saltwater marshes and estuaries,” his wife, Esther, and their daughter, Maggie, to join the Skinners, a volunteer regiment forming on Staten Island. Arnett writes long, reflective passages on Richard’s internal struggle to reconcile his peace- loving religious views with his new-found commitment to serve the Crown. After a failed attempt to challenge his slave-owning bunkmate, James Moody, Richard thinks, “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a Friend. Not everyone is ”just a few kilometres west of Newark, facing the ever- changing Manhattan skyline. When I go back to visit, I inevitably drive past the many strip malls of Galloping Hill Road (down which the British retreated during the Battle of Springfield in 1780), catch the eastbound commuter train in Morristown (where Washington’s army headquarters were located), and run along the Palisades — a thirty- two- kilometre stretch of steep cliffs — near Fort Lee (where Thomas Paine composed much of The American Crisis).
Over the last 250 years, these places, like the notion of patriotism, have changed profoundly. It is compelling to find them reimagined here, as part of a richly drawn backdrop for a book about those on “the wrong side of history” (as the cover copy reads). In revisiting this chapter of civil strife, Arnett reminds his readers how careful we must be with what enthralls, ensnares, and enrages us.
The first pages of On This Ground engage the reader in the spiritual identity of children seeking an understanding about life in the world into which they were born. It is also an eyewitness account about how Newark became ‘the worst city in America’ in the 1960s. The first pages of this book provide an historical understanding of Newark but also of cities throughout New Jersey and the United States.
The reflections on education at St. Benedict Prep have value regarding an understanding of the core values, purpose, mission, and vision of all schools. Every teacher will find lessons in the passion and dedication of the faculty who are committed to caring, serving, and teaching. By Page 21, I was reliving the movie of “Sister Act” regarding the passion of nuns serving the people of Los Angeles. Also, my memories of “Welcome Back Kotter”, “Abbot Elementary”, “School of Rock”, “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, “Stand and Deliver”, “Dead Poet’s Society”, and “Up the Down Staircase” each flashed across my mind as I began reading On This Ground! It was an amazing flashback to my own experiences as a teacher.
Chapter 2 is the historical account of the 1967 Newark riots. In this chapter we learn of the German immigrant population that came to Newark in the 19th century, the dominance of the beer industry, the migration in the 1920’s to Newark from the South, and the flight to the suburbs that came with interstate highways and airports. It is one of the best descriptive accounts of continuity and change over time of an American city because of its conciseness and accuracy.
The account of the riots is important for the story of St. Benedict’s Prep School but also for every resident in New Jersey to understand and synthesize. The riots left 26 people dead and 700 injured. Entire blocks were destroyed with property damage totaling $10 million or about $100 million in today’s money. Over 1,400 residents were arrested. Teenage unemployment was about 50%. The white landlords and store owners moved out of Newark to the suburbs and local taxes to fund the essential services and public schools disappeared. The pain of the “Long hot summer of 1967” continued for years. The local government had limited authority and resources, the state government formed the Lilley Commission which identified social, political, and economic issues to be the underlying causes for the riots, and the Kerner Commission led to a national conversation about race and poverty, concluding that in the United States we had two separate and unequal societies.
We walk through the halls of St. Benedict’s Prep with Anthony DePalma to the Shanley Gym where the voices of students from the past and present are heard. Everyone who reads On This Ground will discover the power of love in the culture of this school, the importance of empowering students to make decisions, and how a cohesive community unites and energizes young scholars and athletes. When teachers care and listen to their students, everyone works toward the same goal. Through situations involving cheating, vaping, and texting inappropriate messages, Anthony DePalma guides us through the steps that make a difference in the lives of students; even those who are resistant.
The stories of the hardships of students, disciplinary decisions, the integration of girls from a small Roman Catholic school in neighboring Elizabeth, helping families with limited financial resources, and prayers for healing are not unique to St. Benedict’s. The strategies of how the faculty and headmaster handled these situations is unique. St. Benedict’s connects students and teachers as a community of learners. Anthony DePalma explicitly illustrates the dedication of the educators at St. Benedict’s in an environment where teachers are ‘called’ to serve, even though their college education may not include preparation for urban schools. Other schools will find value in learning how the daily morning faculty meeting discusses the needs of students, the importance of the ‘convocation’ that gathers students together with opportunities for leadership, the overnight experience in the mountains that brings the students together, and how problem-solving includes conversations between students, parents, and administrators.
Beyond the journey through the halls and classrooms are the insights into the lives of young children facing the addictive behaviors of parents, injuries from gun wounds, foster care homes, temporary living conditions, food insecurity, and unemployment. The crisis in our schools and cities is not part of the evening news or the discussions around the dinner table, office, or places of worship. Illiteracy is a crisis in America and perhaps this book will awaken interest.
In New Jersey, 3% of high school students drop out of school by their sophomore year in high school. Source
In New Jersey, 437,000 students (26%) are receiving supplemental food daily. Source
Approximately 1/3 of students in New Jersey are living with single parents or their parents are in prison, rehabilitation, or are unemployed. Source
In New York City, 45% of the students are ‘chronically absent.’ Source
17% of third through eighth graders in the United States are chronically absent because of mental health issues. Many are from suburban homes and excellent school districts. Source
Examine the data (2023) from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis below: Source
On This Ground engages readers to think about the moral and spiritual poverty that is in our country. Towards the end of the book there is an account of a freshman girl who loved to dance but had been disadvantaged in many ways. She overcame several obstacles in her persistence to establish the first cheerleading team at St. Benedict’s. It is a story of moral and spiritual strength and the power of perseverance and determination. The stories of alumni, Anthony Badger, Bob Brennan, and Leon McBurrows remind us that life is challenging because we are human and our humanity is complex.
As I am reading the words of Anthony DePalma, I am thinking of the children who are disconnected from reality. I am also thinking of the 14-year-old freshman entering high school in September 2026 who will only be age 28 in the year 2040. The message for me in On This Ground is the importance of teaching about character, kindness, self-esteem, decision-making, and personal identity. The institutions for helping children and their families with these lessons are our local schools and places of worship. The importance of teachers, clergy, custodians, crossing guards, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, coaches, are essential to connecting young people to a productive life.
America is faced with a crisis of illiteracy and the adage that schools teach reading, writing, and arithmetic is for a different time in our history. The challenges of artificial intelligence, substances, obesity, food insecurity, a warmer climate, and what we spend our money on, are overwhelming!
The story of St. Benedict’s Preparatory School provides optimism and hope. The links below are videos about the story in On This Ground.
Lesson Activity by Hank Bitten, NJCSS Executive Director
It is important for students to understand the constitutional procedures for the transfer of power in the event of the death or physical or mental incapacity of the president. The 25th amendment has been invoked three times since its ratification in 1967. Section 2 was invoked twice, and Section 3 was invoked once in 1981.
1973 Resignation of V.P. Spiro Agnew (R) when both houses approved Gerald Ford (R) as Vice-President
1974 Resignation of President Richard Nixon when V.P. Gerald Ford (R) became President and both houses approved Nelson Rockefeller (R) as Vice-President.
1981 Surgery for President Ronald Reagan following a gunshot wound.
Essential Question: Does the 25th Amendment provide a transition of presidential power from one person to another without being challenged?
Read Section 2 of the 25th Amendment and discuss the following scenarios:
Section 2
“Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.”
Scenario A:President Trump passes unexpectedly, and Vice-President J.D. Vance becomes President under Section 1 of the 25th Amendment.
Who should President Vance nominate as the new Vice-President? (Member of Congress, Governor, Cabinet Secretary, someone from the media, business executive, etc.)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Since Rep. Johnson is not able to vote for himself, the Republican majority is 219 with 218 votes required for a majority).
If Rep. Mike is not elected by the House, would the election of someone from the Democratic Party be accepted?
119th Congress, Senate (2025–2027) 51 votes needed for a majority.
119th Congress, House (2025–2027) 218 votes needed for a majority.
Majority Party: Republicans (220 seats)
Minority Party: Democrats (215 seats)
Other Parties: 2 Independents (Caucus with Democrats)
Total Seats: 435
Scenario B:President Trump passes unexpectedly between the 2026 Midterm Elections and the meeting of the new Congress on January 3, 2027.and Vice-President J.D. Vance becomes President under Section 1 of the 25th Amendment.
Who should President Vance nominate as the new Vice-President if the Democratic Party controls either the House or the Senate?
Should the current Congress (House and Senate) that was meeting at the time the Vice-President became President continue until a Vice-President was selected or should the newly elected Congress vote on the candidate?
Scenario C: Who should President Vance nominate as the new Vice-President if the Democratic Party controls both the House and the Senate?
Is there a Republican who would be acceptable to a majority of Democratic representatives in both houses?
What would happen if President Vance refused to nominate a Vice-President?
If we do not have a Vice-President and if the Speaker of the House is a Democrat but the Senate Majority Leader a Republican, should the person next in line to succession as president be the Speaker of the House as current law states or should the presidency go to the Majority Leader in the Senate who is from the same political party as the President?
Scenario D: If there is no Vice-President, would it be possible under Section 4 to declare that President Vance was unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office? (in the event of a physical, emotional, or mental incapacity.)
Section 4:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
What ‘other body’ should Congress select?
If the Speaker of the House is a Democrat and the person next in line to become Acting President, could this be challenged if the Majority Leader in the Senate was a Republican (same party as President Vance)?
If a Democrat becomes Acting President, could this person fire all members of the Vance Cabinet and replace them with new officers consistent with his/her political party? (Democrat) Would this be challenged?
“In a purely legal sense, as Acting President, the Vice President can employ all the powers and tools of the office of the president. Historians have characterized the Acting President as playing “a critical role as decisionmaker,” and “tak[ing] care of the day-to-day business” of the White House. The Acting President has the constitutional authority to “move the troops, report on the State of the Union, propose a new budget, send judicial nominees to the Senate for confirmation, remove the secretary of the treasury, do virtually all the things that presidents do. He might even prepare to control his national party apparatus and to secure its presidential nomination.” (Page 44)
“Senator Bayh responded by noting that the Vice President does “not have the office of President but that of Acting President. He does not get the full powers and duties of the office of President unabated. He is Acting President.”
Setting this symbolic distinction aside, the Acting President would be constitutionally empowered to conduct the same acts as the President. In the floor debate in the Senate, for instance, Senator Bayh expressed his belief that the Vice President acting as President would be able to fire and appoint cabinet officials. When Senator Hart expressed concern that a Vice President acting as President would remove cabinet members to “consolidate[] his position” as Acting President, Senator Bayh admitted that this concern was legitimate, but declared, “we do not want a Vice President who is acting in good cause, say, for example, in a 3-year term of office, being unable to reappoint Cabinet members who may have died or resigned.” (Page 71)
Scenario 5: President Vance continually frustrates both Houses of Congress with a nomination for Vice-President.
According to the following statement from the Yale Law Reader’s Guide, could President Vance be impeached? From Yale University
“Depending on the circumstances, actions taken by the President or other officials to frustrate the Twenty-Fifth Amendment process may constitute an impeachable offense.” (page 8)
The 25th Amendment
Section 1
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
Review of Student Research for Community Change: Tools to Develop Ethical Thinking and Analytic Problem Solving
by William Tobin and Valerie Feit, 2020. Teachers College Press, 127 pages.
Review by: Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.
This new text provides an explanation of a program – and a plan – for getting high school students involved in important hands-on research right in their communities. The two authors have become experts in encouraging young people to start on research early – not waiting for college. Despite more traditional approaches of letting students wait to become upperclassmen in college, the authors learned to forge ahead and assume students could do this work.
William Tobin is a research fellow with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. The program explained in this book is an example of the community work Tobin and his students have been doing to help their neighbors. Valerie Feit is co-director of school counseling for Rye Neck, New York schools. This program has been used successfully in three different applications at Duke.
The authors talk in terms of “tools” for coming up with research problems and questions, plans for finding out information, and guidance in making recommendations to solve the problems (pp. 23-24). I think of this book’s content in terms of methods for approaching the work. This looks like a method, with many parts, with rules, with suggestions, and with potential.
The authors provide tools for this “method” of teaching and learning they hope will be applicable in other settings. They have already had students complete research projects using this method. They use a qualitative approach, overall, in their research. However, they do not stress this fact in the book. Interviews and protocols to conduct them ground us in qualitative approaches to getting information from people to help students – and the community ultimately — solve problems.
The method connects clearly (in terms of policy and application) to national standards in the different learning areas, plus Common Core college-ready and work-ready emphases. The method looks forward to more advanced levels of inquiry than the more traditional benchmarked studies of the past. It does this by assuming students can do more advanced and challenging work if they can see the purpose for it, the rewards for it, and the connections of it to real-life goals.
While I will not give away the content and all the goods here, I will say that this appears to be a good “method” for getting students working on purposeful projects earlier than traditionally done. Aspiring to more is always good, especially if there is a research basis telling us the method can work.
As an educator (and community member, advocate, and other roles) I have always been interested in the “why” of doing things in education. Do we respect different learning styles? Where did we as teachers “learn” to do xyz in classes? Is there a good research basis for using certain materials? Has anyone ever proven it makes sense to do abc this way? All of these kinds of questions enter my mind when I look at a new approach. I wonder if this book could work in my neighborhood. With students who need resources like a place to live? In a community not very interested in helping others in need?
The authors emphasize how they have already served communities and how they need partners and cooperation. They remind us that institutions of higher education are supposed to be helping with such endeavors (p. 111). Reminding the readers that IHEs have non-profit status because they are supposed to be assisting in important research projects in the community, the authors urge readers to seek faculty who will sign on and become excited to participate.
I would recommend this book for a couple different uses. First, I would encourage K-12 and college educators read it to see what is possible if we assume students can do more and can meet challenges. The book is important in that way. Second, I would encourage educators to attempt to use some of the tools in a mini-project to ascertain the value of the method. Then, if teachers and college researchers or others can come together to formulate a bigger project, more in-depth labor can be done. Students do the work and need guidance and advice. They need to learn about ethics and the role it plays in inquiry (pp. 12-13).
This method, overall, is another good example of the more mature and advanced kinds of ways of thinking about education for secondary students and underclassmen. As I said above, there is a clear connection to getting students ready for what comes at more advanced levels.
How to use the book in times of distance-learning? How would students find neighbors interested in participating? How would they work with other students to come up with questions? What about brainstorming? Planning?
This might be a method that calls for a hybrid approach. The majority of the discussions could occur online (p. xvii) because of the power of the Internet. This could be done especially during shared times – online meetings. Different teams of students and teachers could work on different steps or themes of the research project. However, it might be necessary to be out in the community to approach potential members and to set up some of the meetings (pp. 112-113) and the interviews. The teams could conduct the remaining work online, such as the interviews, the discussion of them and other input, the drawing of conclusions from the various input sources, the writing of recommendations for intervention (or similar activities), and the follow-up and assessment stages for the entire project.
Review of Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom
by Pete Hall & Alisa Simeral. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. 2015, paper, 178 pages.
Reviewed by Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.
Hall and Simeral have set forth here three major stages to helping teachers reflect on what they are doing in an effort to improve the instruction in the classroom. The authors hope to help teachers learn how to reflect on a regular basis as part of the self-assessment process in which teachers should engage. Included are lots of scenarios of teachers and their comments about why things are working—or not—in their classrooms.
As in most of my reviews, I try to not give away all the content. Here, I will list the names of the nine main chapters of the book: If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher; Reflections on Self-Reflection; Reflective Self-Assessment Tool; The Continuum of Self-Reflection; The Unaware Stage: What Does Unaware Mean, Anyway?; The Conscious Stage: Is the Knowing-Doing Gap Real?; The Action Stage: What Happens When Art and Science Collide?; and The Refinement Stage: Smoothing Out the Rough Edges.
Having attended a Jesuit institution for my Ph.D. in Education, I will have to admit I am fully aware of reflection as a major component of the teaching-improvement process. In most all of my courses, I had to reflect on what I had said, or written, or taught, or done. It was a very interesting reminder of the reflection process many successful and hard-working good educators already use in one form or another.
Most good teachers will admit they are always trying to improve their skills, whether it is coming up with better ways to explain a phenomenon or inventing better ways to let students come to their understanding of how a process works. Good teachers probably apply it to their writing and their research and their service, also. At least that is what the literature says.
Becoming more efficient is important, and this book does have some interesting hints about looking at learning situations with different lenses. I recommend the book as a sort of self-study book, especially for teachers who want to consider some alternatives to learning about new methods or new materials. Sometimes it has to do more with looking directly at how we as individuals do our work. Once we have considered that, we can look outward.
I would recommend this text also in group settings where there are several different short paperbacks and small groups get to choose a book to discuss. The readings in this and similar shorter texts can be a good starting point for considering what it is we are doing in the classroom. Enjoyable and fruitful also are the stories of what other teachers use for methods and materials.
In a recent professional development session I worked on, several of the teachers said, “We never have enough time to talk to each other, simply about what we are doing in our classrooms.” I think this is a good message for principals and others charged with PD and other sessions for teachers. Helping them to reflect can be facilitated by books like this one by Hall and Simeral.
Four books that have influenced my teaching of U.S. history are: the volumes in the Jefferson Papers Project, The Life of Henry Adams, The Life of Arthur Schlesinger, and Our Fragile Freedoms. These books have left a profound influence on me because each of them included a perspective of 50 years or more.
Eric Foner’s Our Fragile Freedoms is a series of selected documents and book reviews that he has authored over 250 years of our history. It is a collection of human stories in addition to documents, perspectives, historiography, and scholarly insights. In my reading I discovered new information and perspectives about enslaved persons, laborers, immigrants, and women. I have also met Eric Foner, our lives share a similar chronology of the second half of the 20th century and the first 25 years of the 21st century. Just when I thought I had mastered everything that needs to be taught in high schools, colleges, and in public discussions, I discovered somethings that are new and important in his book.
“Our Fragile Freedoms gathers together nearly sixty book reviews and opinion pieces I have written over the past quarter century, Originally published in venues such as the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, The Nation, and The New York Times, they reflect a period of remarkable creativity among American historians but also intense controversy over the teaching, writing and public presentation of history. The book examines history as refracted through the prism of some of the most influential recent works of scholarship, while at the same time shedding light on my own evolution as an historian.” (Introduction, page xv)
The insights into the U.S. history curriculum are helpful to teachers who want to engage their students in investigating history and discussing the concept of freedom. Here are some examples:
1.Colonial America:“In South Carolina and Georgia, however, the disruption of the War for independence produced not a weakening of commitment to slavery, but the demand that the Atlantic slave trade be reopened. At the insistence of these states, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 forbade Congress from abolishing the importation of slaves until 1808. Given this window of opportunity, South Carolina brought in tens of thousands of new slaves, further reinforcing the African presence in the low country Black society.” (page 22)
2.President Washington:“Thompson (Mary Thompson, author of “The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret: George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon”, 2019) offers various explanations for Washington’s refusal to speak or act publicly against slavery. She points out that freeing his slaves would have meant financial disaster for his family. Like other Virginia planters, Washington was chronically in debt, largely because of his taste for luxury goods imported from Britain. Indeed, in 1789 he had to borrow money to pay for his journey to New York where his inauguration as the first president was to take place.” (page 35)
3. Fugitive Slave Law:“The first arrest under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 took place in New York-a city whose economic fortunes were closely tied to the cotton trade, and whose political establishment was decidedly pro-southern. On September 16, 1850, eight days after President Millard Fillmore signed the measure, two deputy U.S. marshals arrested James Hamlet at his job as a porter in a local store. Hamlet had escaped from Baltimore two years earlier and settled in Williamsburg, a Brooklyn village with a small Black population, along with his wife and three children, all born in Maryland.” (page 53)
4. Emancipation Proclamation: “’I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization,” Lincoln said in a message to Congress less than a month before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Oakes (Professor James Oakes, CUNY) calls Lincoln’s August 1862 meeting with Black leaders (not including Douglass), where he urged them to support colonization, “bizarre,” and explains it as an effort to “make emancipation more palatable to white racists.” And he notes, Douglass reacted with one of his most bitter criticisms of the president, “Mr. Lincoln,” he wrote, “assumes the language and arguments of an itinerant colonization lecturer shows all his inconsistencies, his pride of race and blood, his contempt for Negroes and his canting hypocrisy. (page 72)
5. Reconstruction:“Grant’s contemporaries recognized the Civil War as an event of international significance. One hundred and fifty years after the conflict began, the meanings they ascribed to it offer a useful way if outlining why it was so pivotal in our own history. The Civil War changed the nature of warfare, gave rise to an empowered nation-state, vindicated the idea of free labor, and destroyed the modern world’s greatest slave society. Each of these outcomes laid the foundation for the country we live in today. But as with all historical events, each outcome carried with it ambiguous, even contradictory, consequences.” (page 85)
As teachers, we need to understand the big picture of historical decisions and events over time. This is why it is important for students to learn about continuity and change as one of the core skills of our discipline. Our Fragile Freedoms helped me to grasp the complexity of the concepts of freedom and equality that social studies teachers introduce in kindergarten.
An important article and commentary in the book is “Everyday Violence in the Jim Crow South.” (pp. 201-210) This review of By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners, by Margaret A. Burnham, New York Review of Books, April 6, 2023, provides specific examples of the abuse of power by people in local and state government against innocent citizens.
“In Westfield, a town near Birmingham, a female white clerk at a local store, claiming that a Black customer, William Daniel, had insulted her, called the police. When an officer arrived, he almost immediately shot and killed the alleged offender, even though, as Burnham laconically remarks, Daniel had committed no crime: ‘even in Alabama, there was no law against, ‘insulting a white woman.’” (p. 203)
Another commentary that engaged my interest as a high school teacher was “Tulsa: Forgetting and Remembering.”(pp. 211-220) The information in the Review of The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice by Scott Ellsworth in the London Review of Books, September 9, 2011, provides new insights and perspectives to this horrific tragedy that began with a minor encounter between two teenagers. Scott Ellswoth is from Tulsa and became interested in this race riot in his research for a high school history paper. He pursued his passion of this massacre as a college student at Reed College, and throughout his adult life. The discussion about the importance of local research has relevance to the teaching of history and its relevance to project-based learning.
The review of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont and An Army Afire: How the U.S. Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era by Beth Bailey 2023) left me feeling uncomfortable. I think many teachers emphasize the role of the Tuskegee Airmen in teaching World War II and follow it up with a five-minute talk on President Truman’s Executive Order to embrace “equality of treatment and opportunity” in the military regardless of race, religion, and national origin. Because of my ignorance in this area, I never included examples of Jim Crow discrimination and the race problem in our armed forces. Our Fragile Freedoms provides graphic examples. (pp. 232-243)
In the middle of the book there are some of the most important insights and perspectives for teachers of 20th century United States History. They have a direct relationship to what students are thinking about today as they listen to or witness events that are challenging the values of liberty, equality and social justice. They offer teachers critical questions of inquiry regarding the continuity and change of America’s core values from the Declaration of Independence, Reconstruction Era, and Civil Rights movement. Allow me to summarize from examples on the New Deal and Civil Rights era from pages 243-267.
“We will never know precisely why Parks refused to leave her seat when ordered to do so, her decision was not premeditated but neither was it completely spontaneous. Perhaps it was because an all-white jury in Mississippi had just acquitted the murderers of Emmett Till, a Black teenager who had allegedly whistled at a white woman. Perhaps the reason was that she had inadvertently boarded a bus driven by the same driver who had evicted her twelve years earlier. Parks knew that talk of a boycott was in the air. In any event, in the wake of her arrest the boycott began.” (p. 248)
In the review of Riding for Freedom, teachers might ask if the foreign policy of the Kennedy Administration on the Cold War was mutually exclusive from the domestic policy of integration and racial justice. Many American presidents have faced challenging decisions regarding their promise for domestic reforms and unexpected international conflicts. Kennedy experienced this in his first year as president.
“Certainly, the photographs that flashed across the world embarrassed the White House. But the conflict with the Soviets also inspired deep distrust of any movement that included critics of American foreign policy. After a telephone conversation in which he urged Martin Luther King Jr. to restrain the riders, Robert Kennedy remarked to an aide, ‘I wonder whether they have the best interest of their country at heart.’” (pp. 253-254).
“The continuing distortion of the period (Reconstruction) by historians raised a troubling question, King had long identified the movement with core American values inherited from the nation’s founding. But what, in fact, were the nation’s deepest values? All men are created equal? Or something more sinister, exemplified by Reconstruction’s violent overthrow? King had originally believed, he told the journalist David Halberstam, that American society could be reformed through many small changes. Now, he said, he felt ‘quite differently,’ ‘I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values.’ Was the movement the fulfilment of American values or their repudiation?” (pp. 263-264)
These excerpts are only appetizers for the full meal that is within each review and the entire book. As students think about and debate the civil rights era, they gain an understanding of the civil rights movement, its brutality, its injustice, its inequality, and its struggle. Unfortunately, too many students only know one sentence from Martin Luther King’s speech, “I have a dream….” Teachers should have students read or watch the entire speech.
“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. . . . The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. . . .
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.
The genius of this book is that each chapter offers a new insight, a scholarly perspective, and a valuable lesson. I learned something new about integration, voting, the censorship of speech, the Chicago riots in 1968, and progressivism. The section on History, Memory, Historians is a must read for every pre-service teacher and every social studies teacher. The lessons here about historical omissions, social and intellectual history, and the lessons of history. Our Fragile Freedoms should shape the generation of social studies/history teachers who will be teaching students in the second quarter of the 21st century!
In this lesson, students learn about the bonds that unite Jewish Americans as an ethnic group, and the rich diversity that exists within the community. In addition, students will deepen their understanding of the multifaceted nature of identity across groups.
Essential Questions
● How are Jewish Americans an ethnic group?
● What visible and invisible components make up each person’s unique identity?
● How do the multiple components that make up identity help us understand the diversity of Jewish Americans?
● What are key positive and negative experiences of Jewish Americans both historically and today?
Learning Outcomes Students will be able to:
● Explain how Jewish Americans are an ethnic group that is connected through a shared history, ancestry, culture, religion, sacred texts, and more.
● Understand that Jewish Americans are remarkably diverse in appearance, skin color, ethnic subgroup, and religious practice.
● Analyze the visible and invisible components of individual and group identities and make connections to their personal identities.
● Develop a better understanding of other people, cultures, and ethnic groups, how all groups have commonalities and differences within them, and the parallels that exist between Jewish Americans and other groups.
● Determine central ideas or information from primary and secondary sources.
● IAmJewish:PersonalReflectionsInspiredbytheLastWordsofDanielPearl, Ruth Pearl and Judea Pearl eds., Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004. (9 excerpts)
HANDOUTS
Identity Iceberg document, availableonline
Jewish American Diversity Fact Sheet, availableonline
Jewish Americans: Identity, History, and Experience Fact Sheet, availableonline
Lesson Plan
1. INTRODUCTION
Introduce the topic and emphasize that this lesson examines what unites the Jewish American community, as well as its diversity. While individual identity is personal, Jewish American group identity is based on ties of history, culture, ancestry, religion, language, celebrations, communal and familial traditions, common values, and a sense of a common ethnic peoplehood.
Further explain that this lesson explains some of the challenges Jewish Americans faced historically and continue to face today, including prejudice, discrimination, and antisemitism. It also explains experiences of acculturation and assimilation, and associated benefits and losses. Ultimately, students will be introduced to Jewish American history to deepen understanding of Jewish American experiences over time and Jewish American contributions to American society.
2. IDENTITY ICEBERG ACTIVITY
Provide students with the identity iceberg worksheet and explain that only a small part of an iceberg is visible above the waterline, while most of the iceberg’s mass lies below the waterline and is invisible. Tell students, that like an iceberg, some parts of identity are visible to others, while other parts are invisible.
Watch the video: “Diverse Jewish Stories: Jonah” (3:08 minutes) and ask students what they can determine about Jonah’s identity from what they viewed.
Explain that they are going to investigate various components of an individual’s identity. For this activity, students may choose to focus on their own identity, an imaginary student identity, or a celebrity’s identity. Emphasize that it is optional to use themselves as the subject in this activity, and that no one should disclose private information unless they would like to do so.
Either in small groups or as a whole group, students can brainstorm categories that will be used on the identity iceberg worksheet, or you can share suggested categories below, that include visible, sometimes visible, and invisible aspects of identity.
Suggestedcategories:
● Gender
● Race
● Ethnic appearance
● Visible religious signs: religious head coverings (kippah, yarmulke, hijab, turban); tzitzit (Jewish ritual fringes); cross, Star of David necklace, kirpan (Sikh religious knife), other)
● Age (child, middle schooler, teen, young adult, middle age, elderly, etc.)
● Language(s) (accent, second language, regional dialect, formality of speech)
● Religion/level of religious practice/spirituality/philosophy
● Family’s national origin/immigrant/refugee/forced migration
● Nationality/citizenship
● Violence, trauma, or intergenerational trauma
● Activity, passion, or a job that is an important part of identity
● Other cultural or group or family aspect of identity
With the list of identities categories handy, ask students to write in categories of identity on a blank identity iceberg worksheet that are:
● usually visible to others above the water line, in the top third
● sometimes visible, and sometimes invisible, close to the waterline
● usually invisible to others, in the bottom third of the iceberg
Ask for student volunteers to share their identity icebergs with the class. Identify commonalities and differences across the student examples.
MakingConnections
Think about groups whose identities are sometimes visible and sometimes invisible. What happens when members of these groups publicly express their identities?
The following are two options for an activity centered on learning about Jewish American diversity.
Option A: Arrange students into small groups. Provide each group with the Jewish American Diversity Fact Sheet (2 pages) and review the contents together. Instruct the groups to cut the document so that each fact is its own strip of paper. Next, have the students put the facts into groupings that they think go together, encouraging them to have no more than six groups. Once the facts have been grouped, have the students provide a title for each of the groupings. They then should review each grouping and revise until they are satisfied with their sorting. Finally, have each group share the titles they came up with, the facts they included with that title, and explanation as to how they arrived at the title and the facts that they have associated with it.
Option B: Have students read the Jewish American Diversity Fact Sheet (2 pages).
In small groups or as a class, have students discuss and respond to the following questions:
● In what ways are Jewish Americans a diverse ethnic group?
o Suggestedresponses: racial and physical appearance, ethnic subgroup, language, food and cultural traditions, religious observance, origins, etc.
● What bonds Jewish Americans across diversity?
JEWISHAMERICANS:IDENTITY,HISTORY,ANDEXPERIENC
o Suggestedresponses: shared Jewish history, ancestry, values, sacred texts, religious rituals, traditions, celebrations, culture, and a sense of common peoplehood.
● What is meant by the term “Jewish peoplehood”?
o Suggestedresponses: Jewish peoplehood refers to the idea that all Jews are connected to one another across time and geography and share a common destiny. Other identity categories fail to capture the complexity of Jewish group identity.
● What did you learn that surprised you?
o Suggestedresponses:Jews are incredibly diverse and are multiracial. There is not one way of being Jewish, but many, and there is no single physical appearance that characterizes what Jews look like. At the same time, Jews feel a strong sense of common peoplehood.
● Where have Jewish Americans come from?
o Suggestedresponses: Jewish Americans have ancestry from many different countries, and some Jewish Americans have lived in the U.S. for centuries. Many Jewish Americans are of Eastern and Central European Jewish descent. There is a significant Middle Eastern Jewish population in many parts of the U.S. (from Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen). Jewish Americans also have roots in North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco), East Africa (Ethiopia), Central Asia (Bukharan Jews from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), Central and South America, and beyond. Regardless of recent origins, Jewish Americans, like Jews everywhere, are connected to each other and to their ancestral homeland of Israel; Judaism highlights this connection in daily prayers and Jewish holidays.
MakingConnections
In what ways are other American ethnic groups diverse? Consider the diversity among other American ethnic groups and pan-ethnic groups (groups with origins in a large diverse region). Consider diversity among African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino/a Americans, and Native Americans.
o Suggestedresponses: racial and physical appearance, language, food and cultural traditions, religious observance, origins, ethnic subgroups, etc.
The following additional videos and texts can be viewed by students to provide examples of Jewish American racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, and may help to answer the previous questions on Jewish American diversity.
● Video Series on Jewish Americans: Faces of American Jewry, is a 2021 series of 2-3 minute long videos on Jewish Americans produced by the American Jewish Committee.
● Reading: “Being Jewish in the United States,” (2 pages), Facing History and Ourselves. Judaism’s religious diversity in three short readings by three teens on their relationship to Judaism with discussion questions.
4. I AM JEWISH: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS INSPIRED BY THE LAST WORDS OF DANIEL PEARL ACTIVITY
This activity is based on excerpts from the book, IAmJewish:PersonalReflectionsInspiredbytheLastWordsofDanielPearl.
Tell students that Daniel Pearl was a Jewish American journalist, raised in California. Pearl was working as the South Asia Bureau Chief of TheWallStreetJournal, based in Mumbai, India. In early 2002, soon after 9/11, he was kidnapped and later beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan for being Jewish. After losing their son, Daniel Pearl’s parents asked a diverse group of Jews to reflect on what being Jewish means to them in memory of Pearl, reflecting on Pearl’s last words which were: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”
Divide students into small groups and assign each group to read two or three brief excerpts from IAmJewish:PersonalReflectionsInspiredbytheLastWordsofDanielPearl. Provide them with the PDFs or digital versions so that they can respond to the following prompts on the excerpts regarding individual and group identity:
1. What elements of identity does the author stress? (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)
2. Highlight or underline one key sentence or phrase from each excerpt to share with the class. 3. Why do Jews not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Ask students to share one word that jumps out on what being Jewish means to the writers and compile them in a shared visual medium for the class.
AdditionalResourceforIAmJewishActivity
The following additional video can also be viewed by students and used to answer the activity questions.
Video: “I Love Being Jewish,” (7:24 minutes) Jane Parven, high school student Jane Parven discusses her Jewish American identity, antisemitism, and goal of eliminating all forms of hate. 3/14/2018, Massachusetts
5. JEWISH AMERICANS: IDENTITY, HISTORY, AND EXPERIENCE ACTIVITY
Have students read the Jewish Americans: Identity, History, and Experience Fact Sheet (4 pages).
You may first want to explain and define the key terms from the Fact Sheet before students read it, or you may check comprehension of the following key terms during the discussion: acculturation,assimilation,racialization,WhiteSupremacy,andantisemitism.
Next, in small groups or as a class, ask students to discuss and respond to the following questions:
● What does acculturation and assimilation mean? Why do people acculturate or assimilate?
oSuggestedresponsestosecondquestion: To fit in, make friends, succeed in school, get a job, not feel different, or because after living and going to school in the new culture and language, they feel part of the dominant culture.
● What does a member of an ethnic group gain from assimilation? What does a member of an ethnic group lose from assimilation?
o Suggestedresponses: Gains: a sense of belonging, success in school and jobs, a new positive hyphenated culture and identity. Losses: lack of connection to their parents’ culture, gap between generations, loss of language, traditions, and religious practices.
● What are some of the ways Jews have been racially categorized? What does racialization mean? o Suggestedresponses: While Jews are not a racial group, they have been categorized as non-white, as the “Hebrew race,” seen by Nazis as an inferior race, seen by White Supremacists as non-white, as threatening to replace white people, and as a threat to racial purity. Racialization is when a dominant group decides another group is a separate lower race.
● What were some of the push factors for Jewish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries? Why were Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany refused entry to the U.S.? How has immigration shaped the Jewish American experience?
o Suggestedresponses: Jews came to the U.S. as immigrants and refugees fleeing persecution, pogroms, poverty, war, and revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries. Anti-Jewish prejudice in the U.S. in the 1930s and U.S. immigration law prevented most Jewish refugees from being admitted during the Holocaust, dooming Jews to their deaths in Nazi-occupied Europe. Jewish immigration experiences and family histories of escaping persecution have made many Jewish Americans empathetic to the plight of other immigrant and refugee groups in the U.S. today.
● In what way(s) do you think the Holocaust shifted perceptions of Jews in American society?
o Suggestedresponses: Before the Holocaust, Jews experienced a lot of open discrimination. After learning how prejudice led to the genocide of the Holocaust, more overt forms of anti-Jewish discrimination decreased but hatred of Jews did not go away.
● Based on what we have learned about changes in how Jews have been racially categorized, what conclusions can we draw about race as a social construct?
o Suggestedresponses: If light-skinned Jews can be categorized as non-white or white, then racial categories and boundaries are socially constructed and can and do change.
● What are some of the noteworthy contributions Jewish Americans have made to American society?
o Suggestedresponses: Jews have been leaders in the labor, civil rights, feminist, and other rights movements; contributors and founders in the film industry, in American music, literature, and comedy, and in science, and medicine.
● What is antisemitism? How does anti-Jewish hate show up in different ways?
JEWISHAMERICANS:IDENTITY,HISTORY,ANDEXPERIENC
o Suggestedresponses: Antisemitism is anti-Jewish prejudice or hate. It often shows up through Holocaust or Nazi imagery that is used to intimidate or threaten Jewish students. It shows up with Jewish students being excluded from diversity discussions or allyship, or in being excluded for not disassociating themselves from Israel. It also shows up in accusations that the Jewish “race” threatens white purity. Historically, Jews faced discrimination in jobs, education, housing, and social acceptance.
MakingConnections
What parallels are there between Jewish Americans and other American ethnic groups?
o Suggested responses: Experiences of immigration and being refugees, prejudice and discrimination, assimilation and acculturation, connection to origins and traditions, contributions, and communal pride.
How have other groups responded to prejudice and discrimination?
o Suggested responses: Activism, legislation, education, ethnic pride, celebratory events, seeking representation, standing up for others experiencing discrimination.
6. CONCLUSION
In an Exit Slip, or as a group discussion, have students reflect on what they have learned in this lesson. The following questions can help guide the discussion:
1. Name some ways Jewish Americans are connected as an ethnic group, how are they internally diverse, and what you have learned about Jewish American history and experiences?
2. When you think about your individual and group identities, what are some things that connect the group, and some ways your identity reflects diversity within that group?
3. How are the experiences of Jewish Americans distinct from other groups’ experiences?
7. EXTENSION ACTIVITIES
1. Through the resources from this lesson and external research, students have been provided with detailed information on the positive impact Jewish Americans have made on society. To spotlight these contributions, have students create social media style posts that highlight three reasons Jewish Americans should be recognized and celebrated alongside other American ethnic groups, for example with Jewish American Heritage Month, celebrated in May (no actual social media accounts are needed, as this can be done using templates here , or use your own).
2. Have students conduct research about Jewish American contributions to American society and evaluate how these contributions have impacted their lives or the lives of others. Students could focus on contributions in particular fields, such as science, medicine, literature, art, music, politics, law, business, sports, entertainment, etc. Students can use people from the Jewish Americans: Identity, History, and Experience Fact Sheet or follow their own interests. Their research and discoveries can be presented in a variety of ways, such as a multimedia presentation, a digital or traditional poster, a speech, a written biography, etc. Students can use people from the Jewish Americans: Identity, History, and Experience Face Sheet, the Weitzman National Museum ofAmerican Jewish History Hall of Fame virtual exhibit, or follow their own interests.
3. Ask students to choose one aspect of their own identity and write a one-paragraph reflection on why that aspect of their identity is important to them. Please complete: “I am (chooseanaspectofidentity) because …, and it is important to me because ….”
Jewish Americans: Identity, History, and Experience Fact Sheet
Jewish American Diversity Fact Sheet
Jewish Americans have come to the United States from all over the world and have brought a rich variety of different Jewish cultural traditions with them.
The Jewish people originated about 3,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, in the land of Israel.
Jewish Americans, like Jews everywhere, feel a strong connection to each other and to the ancestral homeland of Israel. Jewish tradition and rituals reinforce these connections in many ways, from the content and direction of daily prayers to Jewish holidays. For example, Jews around the world conclude the Passover Seder with “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Jews are a distinct ethnic group connected by rich traditions, thousands of years of history, ancestry, language, and religion. Jewish American ethnic identity may be expressed through food, language, holidays, celebrations, a feeling of connectedness to other Jews (Jewish peoplehood), remembrances of historical and ancestral experiences, connections to Israel, a commitment to social justice, and cultural elements such as music, literature, art, and philosophy that are also part of Jewish life.
Jews do not fit exclusively into predefined categories, and frequently self-identify as both an ethnic group and a people.
o Jewish Americans are an ethnic group among diverse American ethnic groups.
o The concept of Jewish peoplehood means that Jews around the world are connected to each other across time and geography and share a common destiny.
There are several major Jewish ethnic subgroups:
o Mizrahi Jews are racially diverse Arabic- and Farsi-speaking Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa for over 2,500 years.
o Sephardic Jews are originally Judeo-Spanish or Ladino-speaking Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and Central and South America, beginning with Spain’s expulsion in 1492.
o Ethiopian Jews are Amharic-speaking Jews originally from Ethiopia.
o Ashkenazi Jews are or were Yiddish-speaking Eastern and Central European Jews.
Major languages and literature of Jewish expression include English, Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, Ladino, and Farsi. Hebrew, the language of Jewish scripture, is often a lingua franca that has united different Jewish ethnic subgroups.
The physical appearance of Jewish Americans is very diverse, and skin color can range from light skinned to dark skinned, and includes Middle Eastern Jews, African American Jews, Asian American Jews, Latino/a/x Jews, and Native American Jews. Jewish families include multiracial households and there are diverse appearances both within families and within communities.
The majority of Jewish Americans emigrated from Eastern Europe, and while their racial appearance often reflects this, there is a range of physical appearances, reflecting the movement of Jews over time and place.
For many Jews, Jewish identity is primary, but they may be classified by others based on their skin color. Therefore, Jews often experience a divergence between internal identity and external classification.
Other Jewish Americans or their families emigrated from the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Yemen), North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco), East Africa (Ethiopia), Central Asia (Bukharan Jews from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), Central and South America, and beyond, and are of Mizrachi and Sephardic heritage.
American Judaism has a range of religious denominations, including Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Orthodox, with a range of observances and practices. At the same time, Jews
are united by shared sacred texts, like the Torah, by celebrations, traditions, and a feeling of connection to other Jews around the world.
Jewish Americans have a wide range of opinions and beliefs about what it means to be Jewish, how Jewish identity is defined, and the extent to which they identify with the religion of Judaism.
Across Jewish denominations, ancestry marks a person as Jewish regardless of the individual’s personal level of religious observance. Traditionally, a person is considered Jewish if born to a Jewish mother. Reform Jews among others consider a person with a Jewish father to also be Jewish.
Jews consider a person who converts to Judaism, without Jewish ancestry, to be as Jewish as any other Jew.
Jews are part of the Jewish American community by birth, adoption, marriage, and by throwing their lot in with the Jewish people through conversion or being part of a Jewish family
Douglas Rushkoff is a writer, journalist, and professor of media studies. “Jews are not a tribe but an amalgamation of tribes around a single premise that human beings have a role. Judaism dared to make human beings responsible for this realm. Instead of depending on the gods for food and protection, we decided to enact God, ourselves, and to depend on one another. So out of the death cults of Mitzrayim [Egypt] came a repudiation of idolatry and a way of living that celebrated life itself. To say “l’chaim [to life]” was new, revolutionary, even naughty. It overturned sacred truths in favor of sacred living.… It’s important to me that those, who throughout our history, have attacked the Jews on the basis of blood not be allowed to redefine our indescribable process or our internally evolving civilization. We are attacked for our refusal to accept the boundaries, yet sometimes we incorporate these very attacks into our thinking and beliefs. It was Pharaoh who first used the term Am Yisrael [People of Israel] in Torah, fearing a people who might replicate like bugs and not support him in a war. It was the Spanish of the Inquisition who invented the notion of Jewish blood, looking for a new reason to murder those who had converted to Catholicism. It was Hitler, via Jung, who spread the idea of a Jewish “genetic memory” capable of instilling an uncooperative nature in even those with partial Jewish ancestry. And it was Danny Pearl’s killers who defined his Judaism as a sin of birth. I refuse these definitions. Yes, our parents pass our Judaism on to us, but not through their race, blood, or genes — it is through their teaching, their love, and their spirit. Judaism is not bestowed; it is enacted. Judaism is not a boundary; it is the force that breaks down boundaries. And Judaism is the refusal to let anyone tell us otherwise.” (pages 90–91)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court from 1993 to 2020 and advocate for women’s rights. “I say who I am in certain visible signs. The command from Deuteronomy appears in artworks, in Hebrew letters, on three walls and a table in my chambers. “Zedek, zedek, tirdof,” Justice, Justice shalt thou pursue,” these artworks proclaim; they are ever-present reminders to me what judges must do “that they may thrive.” There is also a large silver mezuzah [Torah verses in a small case] on my door post… I am a judge, born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of Jewish history and Jewish tradition. I hope, in all the years I have the good fortune to serve on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and courage to remain steadfast in the service of that demand.” (pages 201–202)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Naim Dangoor was a leader of Iraqi Jewry outside Iraq. The location of Babylonia is primarily modern-day Iraq. “When I was a young boy a teacher at school asked me, “Why are you a Jew?” I, with all the practicality of youth, replied, because I was born one!” There is, however, something in this sentiment that rings truer than one might think Judaism is a birthright, a glorious gift from one’s forefathers of faith, culture, and heritage. For me, it is this: my strong Babylonian heritage, the heritage that Daniel Pearl also shared, his mother having been born in Baghdad, that makes me so proud to be a Jew. Babylonia was one of the main birthplaces of the Jewish people, from where Abraham emerged as a founder, and later from where the Babylonian Talmud, forming the framework for Rabbinic Judaism, was created. Its glorious Jewish intellectual eminence fanned out across the known world for more than a thousand years. Currently the descendants of this tradition are spread throughout the globe.” (pages 97–98)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Norman Lear is a writer, producer, and social activist. “I identify with everything in life as a Jew. The Jewish contribution over the centuries to literature, art, science, theater, music, philosophy, the humanities, public policy, and the field of philanthropy awes me and fills me with pride and inspiration. As to Judaism, the religion: I love the congregation and find myself less interested in the ritual. If that describes me to others as a “cultural Jew,” I have failed. My description, as I feel it, would be: total Jew.” (page 34)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl is an Asian American Rabbi ordained by Hebrew Union College. She spent her college summers working as head song leader at Camp Swig, a Reform Jewish camp in Saratoga, California. “My father is a Jew and my mother is a Korean Buddhist. As the child of a mother who carried her own distinct ethnic and cultural traditions — and wore them on her face — I internalized the belief that I can never be “fully Jewish” because I could never be “purely” Jewish. My daily reminders included strangers’ comments “Funny you don’t look Jewish”), other Jews’ challenges to my halakhic [Jewish law] status, and every look in the mirror. Jewish identity is not solely a religious identification, but also a cultural and ethnic marker. While we have been a “mixed multitude” since Biblical times, over the centuries the idea of a Jewish race became popularized. After all, Jews have their own language, foods, even genetic diseases. But what does the Jewish “race” mean to you if you are Black and Jewish? Or Arab and Jewish? Or even German and Jewish, for that matter? How should Jewish identity be understood, given that Am Yisrael [people of Israel] reflects the faces of so many nations? Years ago… I called my mother to declare that I no longer wanted to be Jewish. I did not look Jewish. I did not carry a Jewish name, and I no longer wanted the heavy burden of having to explain and prove myself every time I entered a new Jewish community. My Buddhist mother’s response was profoundly simple: “Is that possible?” At that moment I realized I could no sooner stop being a Jew than I can stop being Korean, or female, or me. Judaism might not be my “race” but it is an internal identification as indestructible as my DNA. Jewish identity remains a complicated and controversial issue in the Jewish community. Ultimately, Judaism cannot be about race, but must be a way of walking in this world that transcends racial lines. Only then will the “mixed multitude” truly be Am Yisrael.” (pages 19-20)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie is President Emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism who focuses on interfaith relations and social justice. “I am Jewish. This means, above all else, that I was present at Sinai and that when the Torah was given on that mountain, my DNA was to be found in the crowd… A people is usually defined by race, origin, language, territory or statehood, and none of these categories is an obvious common denominator for the worldwide Jewish people. Peoplehood is a puzzling concept for modern Jews, particularly the younger ones, who often cannot understand what connects them to other Jews in Moscow, Buenos Aires, and Tel Aviv. But I am convinced, to the depth of my being, that Jewish destiny is a collective destiny… It is the covenant at Sinai that links all Jews, including non-observant ones, in a bond of shared responsibility. And if we hope to strengthen the unity and interdependence of the Jewish people, we will have to revive the religious ideas on which these notions are based.” (pages 114–115)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Sarah Rosenbuam is a 15 years old from Southern California. “When I say that I am Jewish, I am identifying myself as part of a tradition, connected to our foremothers and fathers, and carrying on to the future a culture, a religion, a way of life. I feel pride and am overwhelmed with joy when I declare that I am part of this incredible people, our people Israel.” (page 54)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Senator Dianne Feinstein is the senior US Senator from California since 1992. “I was born during the Holocaust. If I had lived in Russia or Poland — the birthplaces of my grandparents — I probably would not be alive today, and I certainly wouldn’t have had the opportunities afforded to me here. When I think of the six million people who were murdered, and the horrors that can take hold of a society, it reinforces my commitment to social justice and progress, principles that have always been central to Jewish history and tradition. For those of us who hold elected office, governing in this complex country can often be difficult. My experience is that bigotry and prejudice in diverse societies ultimately leads to some form of violence, and we must be constantly vigilant against this. Our Jewish culture is one that values tolerance with an enduring spirit of democracy. If I’ve learned anything from the past and from my heritage, it’s that it takes all of us who cherish beauty and humankind to be mindful and respectful of one another. Every day we’re called upon to put aside our animosities, to search together for common ground, and to settle differences before they fester and become problems. Despite terrible events, so deeply etched in their souls, Jews continue to be taught to do their part in repairing the world. That is why I’ve dedicated my life to the pursuit of justice; sought equality for the underdog; and fought for the rights of every person regardless of their race, creed, color, sex, or sexual orientation, to live a safe, good life. For me that’s what it means to be a Jew, and every day I rededicate myself to that ideal.” (pages 228–229)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection.
2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)?
3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt?
4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Senator Joe Lieberman is a former U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013, and a Vice-Presidential candidate in 2000. “What does being Jewish mean to me? To me, being Jewish means having help in answering life’s most fundamental questions. How did I come to this place? And, now that I am here, how should I live? My faith, which has anchored my life, begins with a joyful gratitude that there is a God who created the universe and then, because He continued to care for what He created, gave us laws and values to order and improve our lives. God also gave us a purpose and a destiny —to do justice and to protect, indeed to perfect, the human community and natural environment. Being Jewish in America also means feeling a special love for this country, which has provided such unprecedented freedom and opportunity to the millions who have come and lived here. My parents raised me to believe that I did not have to mute my religious faith or ethnic identity to be a good American, that, on the contrary, America invites all its people to be what they are and believe what they wish…. Jews around the world and all who love freedom— the freedom to think, to speak, to write, to question, to pray—will hold Daniel [Pearl] near to our hearts, and from his courage we will draw internal light and strength.” (pages 107-108)
1. Highlight or bold/underline a sentence or phrase from the excerpt that leaves a lasting impression on you. Explain your selection. 2. What elements of their identity does the author stress (culture, family, ancestry, history, religion, social justice, community, etc.)? 3. What do you think being Jewish means to the person in the excerpt? 4. Why do Jewish Americans not fit neatly into racial and religious categories?
Jewish Americans: Identity, History, and Experience Fact Sheet
● The first Jews to arrive in 1654 to what became the United States were Sephardic Portuguese Jews from Brazil, who fled the Portuguese expulsion and Inquisition. The American Jewish community was predominantly Sephardic through the first decades of the U.S.
● From 1840 to 1880, Jewish immigrants were primarily from Central Europe and Germany, fleeing poverty, persecution, anti-Jewish violence, and revolution. During this time, the Reform Movement transformed Jewish practice in America, created the first prayer book for Americans, and established a rabbinical school. By 1880, the majority of U.S. synagogues were Reform congregations.
● Between 1880 and 1924, 2 million Jewish immigrants came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe, pushed by persecution, pogroms, war, and poverty. White supremacist prejudice against Jews and Catholics from Eastern and Southern Europe motivated the passing of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924, greatly restricting Jewish immigration through 1965.
● In official U.S. immigration and naturalization law from 1898 to 1941, Jews were categorized as part of the “Hebrew race.” This racialization deemed Jews non-white.
○ Racialization is when a group becomes categorized as a stigmatized group, and that group is seen as a separate lower race by another dominant group.
● Yiddish became a major language of Jewish newspapers, theatre, and culture, while at the same time public schools became the vehicle for acculturation, Americanization, and learning English, with many Jews entering teaching.
● American Judaism was changed by the large wave of Ashkenazi immigrants 1880-1924 from Eastern Europe, and in the next three decades, by the growth of the Orthodox (1920s-50s) and Conservative (1950s) movements. These movements established synagogues, rabbinical schools, seminaries, and universities. For many decades, American Judaism was defined by the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox denominations.
● In addition to targeting African Americans, the white supremacist racism of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) deemed Jews as non-white, a separate and lesser race that was a threat to American “racial purity,” and targeted Jews with exclusionary immigration legislation and intimidation in large marches on Washington, D.C.
○ White supremacy is the belief that white people are a superior race and should dominate society. White supremacists target other racial and ethnic groups, such as African Americans and Jews, who they view as inferior.
● In the first half of the 20th century, Jews were usually not considered white in American society and, as a result, experienced discrimination in employment, housing, education, and social acceptance.
● From the 1880s through the 1960s, antisemitic employment discrimination with overt and covert “no Jews allowed” notices often led Jews to enter new industries with less discrimination. Housing covenants prohibited Jews or “Hebrews” from purchasing houses in many areas. Elite universities also had quotas, limiting the number of Jews who could attend them until the early 1960s.
● Jewish American allies to the African American community played a significant role in the founding and funding of the NAACP, Rosenwald Schools, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington to build over 5,000 schools for African American students between 1917 and 1932, and by 1928, one-third of the South’s rural Black school children and teachers were served by Rosenwald Schools. In 1931, lawyer Samuel Leibowitz defended the Scottsboro boys.
● Motivated by Jewish tradition’s concern for the worker, and oppressive working conditions for Jewish immigrants, the U.S. labor movement included many Jewish labor organizers, such as Samuel Gompers (founder of American Federation of Labor (AFL) and president 1886-1924); Rose Schneiderman (active 1904-1940s in the Women’s Trade Union League); and Pauline M. Newman (active 1907-1983), Clara Lemlich (active 1909-1951), and David Dubinsky (active 1932-1966 as president) in the International Ladies Garment Worker Union (ILGWU).
● Jews were pioneers in the new film industry in California in the early decades of the 20th century. This included studio heads Harry Cohn (Columbia Pictures 1919-1958), Samuel Goldwyn (active 1913-1959), Louis B. Mayer (active MGM 1915-1951), Carl Laemmle (Universal Pictures active 1909-1939), the Warner Brothers (active 1918-1973), and Adolph Zukor (Paramount Pictures active 1903-1959). Though there was less overt discrimination in California, anti-Jewish prejudice in the U.S. led many studio heads and producers to shy away from Jewish themes in movies for many decades.
● Jewish songwriters enthusiastically embraced American music and contributed to the Great American songbook (1911-1960), Tin Pan Alley (1885-1940), Broadway musicals (1949-2018), and folk and protest music (1930s-1970s). Among these were: George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Aaron Copland, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Peter Yarrow, Carole King, Country Joe McDonald, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.
● In the 1920s and 1930s, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories (later used in Nazi propaganda) were openly distributed in the U.S., for example by Henry Ford’s newspaper (TheDearbornIndependent) and Father Edward Coughlin’s radio show.
● Drawing upon white supremacist ideas about Jews and pseudoscientific eugenics “theories,” Nazi racial theories deemed Jews a separate non-white race (racialization), and the lowest race in their racial hierarchy, leading to the genocide of the Holocaust.
● In the 1930s, growing anti-Jewish prejudice in the U.S. led to the U.S. government’s refusal of entry to Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany until 1944, after millions of Jews were already murdered.
○ Refugees are people with a history of persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
○ Immigrants are people who have left their country of origin and arrived in another country.
● Some Jews changed their Jewish sounding names to avoid discrimination, be more accepted by American society, not feel different or other, or because they had internalized other people’s negative attitudes about Jews. Starting with immigrants, and common with actors, this practice of name-changing continues to the present day. At the same time, today, many Jewish Americans proudly select Jewish ethnic names, as an expression of pride in their heritage.
● In the decades after the Holocaust, American attitudes toward Jews gradually changed, and overt anti-Jewish discrimination decreased. Descendants of light-skinned Jewish immigrants were able to acculturate or assimilate which brought gains and losses.
○ Acculturation refers to the adoption of many of the practices and values of the majority or dominant culture while still retaining a connection to one’s culture of origin, or a balance between cultures.
○ Assimilation is a process by which a minority group or culture comes to resemble that of the majority culture.
● Assimilation allowed the children of light-skinned Jewish immigrants to change their position on the racial hierarchy from their immigrant parents, though they remained vulnerable to antisemitism. Assimilation also brought loss of community, identity, cultural traditions, and practic
● During the civil rights movement, a large percentage of allies were Jewish activists, disproportionate to their small percentage in the U.S. population. Nearly half the country’s civil rights lawyers were Jewish, and more than half of the non-African American civil rights workers were Jewish, including two of the three men murdered during the 1964 Freedom Summer.
● Jewish women played critical roles in the second wave feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s: Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg when she worked for the ACLU.
● Jews have also been at the forefront of the LGBTQ rights movement, contributing to major milestones such as the advancement of marriage equality and the fight for HIV/AIDS recognition: Evan Wolfson, Edie Windsor, Roberta Kaplan, and Larry Kramer. Pioneering LGBTQ Jewish elected officials include Harvey Milk in California, and Barney Frank from Massachusetts.
● While anti-Jewish prejudice became less socially accepted over time, antisemitism persisted and persists in various forms today.
○ Antisemitism is hatred, discrimination, fear, and prejudice against Jews based on stereotypes and myths that target their ethnicity, culture, religion, traditions, right to self-determination, or connection to the State of Israel.
● Antisemitism is found across the political spectrum, and manifests differently. In schools, it often shows up through Holocaust or Nazi imagery that is used to intimidate or threaten Jewish students. It also shows up with Jewish students being excluded from diversity discussions or allyship, or for not disassociating themselves from Israel.
● Jews and Jewish institutions continue to be targets of anti-Jewish hate, which can include vandalism, bomb threats, harassment and bullying, physical assaults and violent attacks such as bombings and shootings. For example, in Pittsburgh, PA in 2018, and in Poway, CA in 2019, there were two synagogue shootings with a total of 12 fatalities.
● In different contexts, Jewish Americans may have very different experiences.
○ Light-skinned Jews may experience the benefits of conditional whiteness on the basis of their appearance, for example, in safer encounters with law enforcement. At the same time, they may experience antisemitic prejudice and discrimination on the basis of their Jewishness from people on both extremes of the political spectrum.
○ Jews of color, like all communities of color, face systemic racism, and also face antisemitic prejudice and discrimination on the basis of their Jewishness.
● Jews of all skin colors who are visibly Jewish, from their appearance, name, self-identification, or religious clothing or symbols, e.g., a Star of David necklace or kippah, experience more overt antisemitism.
● Reflecting Jewish tradition’s fondness for the written word, Jewish Americans have contributed extensively to American literature. Among these literary figures are:
○ poets Emma Lazarus, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, and Louise Glück.
○ playwrights Ben Hecht, Lillian Hellman, Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, David Mamet, and Tony Kushner.
○ writers Mary Antin, Anzia Yezierska, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Isaac Asimov, Saul Bellow, Herman Wouk, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Elie Wiesel, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Judy Blume, Art Spiegelman, Anita Diamant, Faye Kellerman, Nathan Englander, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Dara Hor
● Jewish comedians have also played an important role in shaping American popular culture, drawing on their experiences as outsiders looking in on American society. Examples include: Groucho Marx and the Marx brothers, Three Stooges, Jack Benny, Sid Cesar, Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman, and Jon Stewart.
● Jewish Americans have made significant contributions to life saving medical advances that have saved millions of American lives including: chlorination of drinking water (Abel Wolman in 1918); polio vaccine (Jonas Salk in 1955, and Albert Sabin in 1961-64); measles vaccine (Samuel Katz in 1958); heart pacemaker and defibrillator (Paul Zoll 1956 and 1960); the mammogram (Jacob Gershon-Cohen in 1964); the Heimlich maneuver (Henry Heimlich in 1974); and identifying that virus genes can cause cancer (Harold Varmus in the 1970s).
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