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| The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture 1880-1950 | 
 enlarge | Author: Jenna Weissman Joselit
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (2 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1828238
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 0809015862
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
EAN: 9780809015863
ASIN: 0809015862
Publication Date: April 30, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award Photographs, index.
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| Customer Reviews:
 an entertaining guide to how Americans reinvented Judaism February 22, 2005
..showing how some behaviors that some Americans might think of as longstanding tradition were really just improvisations by American Jews, or magnification of minor customs into major events. For example, in Eastern European the Bar Mitzvah was, according to one immigrant, "no ceremony at all" - but in America it became a major life-cycle event as early as the 1880s. And the common custom of listing the names of deceased loved ones on a bronze tablet is almost entirely new, dating from the 1920s.
Other rituals declined and then rose from the dead again: Chanukah was neglected in the 19th century; as early as 1884, one rabbi wrote: "The customary candles disappear more and more from Jewish homes." Christmas trees became more common until in the 1920s, savvy Jewish marketers reinvented Chanukah as a large-scale gift-giving holiday. And as a result, by the late 20th century even some relatively secular households (like mine) ignored Christmas and made a production out of Chanukah.
Shabbat observance, though still not as widespread as one might hope, appears to have rebounded slightly from the alleged "good old days"- in 1950, only 2 percent of American Jews attended a Shabbat service of any kind, a figure that I suspect is even lower than today's status quo.
And innovation sometimes came from unlikely quarters: bat mitzvahs began in Conservative, and even Orthodox, synagogues rather than in Reform Judaism (which preferred confirmation).
Other attempts at innovation thankfully failed- for example, some synagogues' attempts to water down Shavuot by turning it into a Jewish Mothers' Day.
Another interesting feature of this book is that it shows how early American Jews came to differ from other groups. As early as the 1890s, for example, American Jews had half the infant mortality rate of Italians or Czechs. Jews were also fussier eaters- a 1930s survey showed that 42% of Jewish 2-5 years olds refused two or more of a group of foods offered, as opposed to 18% of Polish-American children. (Make of that what you will).
One moral of the book: the more things change the more they remain the same. In 1893, Rabbi Maurice Harris of Chicago asked, "Can a minority move among a majority without being absorbed by it? . . . our distinctive characteristics are going, one by one; we are becoming more and more like our neighbors." Words that could be said just as easily in 2004.
 Sheds light on American Judaism December 15, 2004
This books sheds must needed light on American Judaism. Often vilified as assimilationist by their enemies, this book shows how American Jews in the 20th century adapted their faith to American religious traditions. This is illustrated most dramatically in the domestic nature of American Judaism. Rituals with a home flavor, like Chanukah and Passover, take on a greater relevance than their old world counterparts. This book vividly shows that a religion that may seem to be in their death throes have actually transmuted into something related but different than its predecessor.
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