Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism PeterAdams. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.

Abstract

Politics, Faith, and Making of American Peter Adams. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.Former journalist, now teaching English at Virginia's Old Dominion University, Peter Adams chronicles major events from 1840s through turn of twentieth century spurred Jewish community to Americanize every facet of life, unify their fractious congregations, and engage more forcefully in partisan (1). The drive to Americanize led to rapid expansion of Reform seeking to erase the foreign features of Judaism and making it look more like American Protestantism (5). assimilated by relinquishing orthodox conceptions of God, replacing traditional Hebrew with English in shortened Sabbath services, adding Sunday services, introducing music, and seating men and women in same pews (4, 5). Adams finds four hundred year Jewish diaspora in America without precedent, with early on malleable and served well by its lack of hierarchy and decentralization, this resulting in factualism at times and continuum of positions from Orthodox to Reform, with middle position in Conservative moment. American Judaism, as described by Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, was the religion of God, reason, humanity, and freedom (7). With a series of persecutions overseas and occasional spikes in antiSemitism at home, Adams concludes that Jews fashioned an authentically American synagogue and way of life that put experience of European ghetto forever behind them (153).After a particularly vicious spike in Judeophobia during Civil War and into Gilded Age, Jews made steady but painfully difficult advancements toward modernity (1). They transformed themselves from fractured communities into political presence and power. The Jewish population, although tripling in population from 1848 to 1860, remained religious minority seeking public anonymity. Following events of Civil War, Jews in 1850s recovered from expulsion by Union generals to address whether they had become sufficiently American to influence events of their own survival, this resulting in further efforts to assimilate, modernize, and become involved in partisan politics (4). Nonetheless, bitter debates over matters of faith, ritual, and observance divided Orthodox from Reform Jews and delayed compromises and bridges to union.The reader of Politics, Faith, and Making of American learns much about both and Civil War. General Grant, although saving Union, gained infamy for his expulsion of Jews (General Order No. 11), who were accused of violating Treasury Department's regulation of trade and were thought to be involved in black market in Southern cotton, from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. President Lincoln expressed surprise at Grant's actions and his condemnation of class outright, voicing his own position of making no distinction between Jew and Gentile and revoking Order within eighteen days. Grant, too, after War, transcended his antiSemitism, actually carrying Jewish vote in 1868 for his presidency and appointed several Jews to high office. …