HIGHLIGHTS: PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTED BY THE
MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2003-2004
Professor Jonathan Sarna, a Foundation recipient, awarded
the National Jewish Book Council's top prize
Jonathan Sarna, who received two Foundation Doctoral Scholarship
grants in 1977-78 and 1978-79 and a Fellowship grant in 1982-83
for his work on American Jewry, has been awarded the top prize
of the National Jewish Book Council for his magisterial work,
American Judaism: A History. The volume, prepared in conjunction
with the 350th anniversary of Jewish settlement in North America,
was published by Yale University Press.
Professor Sarna, in this rich and insightful book, argues that
the central theme of Jewish history in Europe is peripheral to
the story of American Jews. American Jewish history, according
to Sarna, is a great exception to the notion that Jewish history
is one of persecution and destruction. Rather, it is a story of
Jews accommodating to freedom and reacting creatively to the challenges
of an open society.
Earlier historical accounts of religion in America, treated religion,
including Judaism, as a transient, if not trivial, chapter in
the secular, social culture of American groups. In his volume,
the first systematic, serious, and comprehensive history of Judaism
in America, Sarna traces the evolution of the “unified synagogue-community”
of early American Jewish history to the more pluralistic “community
of synagogues” that exists today.
Sarna argues that the story of American Judaism is neither one
of linear ascent or descent, but embraces both costs and casualties
and revival and revitalization. His model is one of challenge
and response, American Judaism’s fortunes waxing and waning as
they confront the ever-changing problems and opportunities American
society posed for American Jewry.
The vigorous Jewish life achieved in the United States, Sarna
attributes to the critical role played by Jewish leadership. Indeed,
he contends that American Jews shaped their history more actively
than Jews anywhere else except for Israel.
Professor Sarna concludes on a most optimistic note, emphasizing
the resiliency of American Jewry and his belief that American
Jews will find, as they have in the past, creative ways to maintain
and revitalize their community.
Professor Jonathan Sarna is today one of America’s foremost scholars
of American Jewish history, religion and culture. He currently
serves as the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American
Jewish History at Brandeis University, chairs the Academic Board
of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives,
and is also the chief historian of the National Museum of American
Jewish History and of the 350th Commemoration of Jewish Life in
America, 1654-2004. He has authored or edited more than twenty
books on American Jewish history and life.
Prof. Sarna has served as a reader for both our institutional
and doctoral and fellowship programs for many decades. He has
also been a faculty member at the Foundation’s Nahum Goldmann
Fellowship programs in Europe and Australia. Most recently, he
served on the Foundation’s Committee for Hebrew in America, which
developed the pioneering program now being initiated in the UJA
Federation of Northern New Jersey.
We congratulate him on this magnificent volume and derive nachas
from our modest role in helping him in the early years of his
now distinguished career.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Jerry Hochbaum
Executive Vice President
