Dear American Jewish History Aficionado,
In this season of transition, many of us seek more time for research and writing. To spur these summer months of anticipated productivity, we proudly offer a new issue of American Jewish History. The cover provides an image of convicts heading into a ship for transport. We leave it to you to decide whether you find it historically relevant, symbolic, or both.
This issue has many layers, and offers what some might see as an extended diagnosis of American Jewish history.
Jeffrey A. Marx will help you understand the lives of Jewish convicts transported from England to Colonial America in unprecedented detail —supplemented by a list of over 200 names for further exploration.
Karla Goldman provides an extraordinary chronicle of the Jewish hospital in Cincinnati, following it from its 1850 founding to its late 20th century transformation into the city’s premiere community philanthropic fund—and asking questions along the way about the institution’s role in addressing an urban Jewish population’s health, physically and communally.
Nicole Siegel, meanwhile, brings us into a mid-19th century debate surrounding autopsy procedures in Jewish hospitals, including questions about whether Jewish law allowed an increasingly common medical practice. Siegel’s account brings into relief the relationship between religious authorities, physicians, and the hospital boards that often serve as a mediator between the two.
Please also acknowledge Melissa Klapper’s final turn as Book Review editor—ending an era of devoted service to the field marked by endless patience and superhuman timekeeping. Her farewell includes scholars’ assessments of a monograph and four collections of essays covering the full field. And in our ever-innovative Public History section (thanks to David Weinstein), Riv-Ellen Prell provides an extended reflection on three “digital public histories” of antisemitism in in midwestern college towns—including her own exhibition and website, “A Campus Divided,” addressing the University of Minnesota in 1930-1942—discussing the ways that such exhibitions can “afford the possibility of combining strong narrative voices, accessible archives, scholarly interpretive essays, and creative design and visual elements.”
Finally, we continue our tradition of printing the remarks of our society’s most recent Lee Max Lee Friedman Medal recipient, awarded at our biennial Scholars’ Conference. (The irony is not lost on us that our April 2024 issue presents a speech from June 2024. History lives on multiple timelines.) Eli Lederhendler’s lively address offers much to discuss on the state of our discipline. And here, dear reader, we end on a cliffhanger—for Lederhendler’s remarks will bring an equally lively roundtable in the next issue.
Keep your subscriptions up to date, and stay attuned!
With humanistic greetings (sans AI—this time…),
Marni, Jessica, and Judah
Editors-in-Chief
To read American Jewish History Vol 108, No. 2, April 2024 visit Project Muse
