A Different Kind of American Jewish History

In the lead-up to America's 250th anniversary, the host of Jewish History Soundbites found himself reading through Orthodox Jewish publications' tributes to the occasion—and was deeply disappointed. The articles fell into two categories: those that simply profiled a random rabbi or synagogue that happened to be in America, and those that bent over backward to insist that American Jews aren't really American, that their true connection remains to Europe, and that Jewish success in the United States happened despite American values, not because of them. The host found this second category especially troubling, not because the claims are necessarily false, but because they miss the point of the occasion entirely. America 250, he argues, is an opportunity to recognize something genuinely unprecedented in Jewish history: a diaspora country so different from every other host nation over the past two millennia that it cannot be compared to any of them.

Emancipation Without a Fight