Encyclopaedia Judaica
Jews in the "USA" 08: 1945-1970
Racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl Israel - anti-Semitism in
clubs and management - numbers - further immigration - community -
professions - collections - schooling - English writing - "third
religion" - attendance questions - new Jewish law - Vatican 1965 - Jews
and Blacks for civil rights - Six-Day War
from: Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): USA; Vol. 15
presented by Michael Palomino (2008)
[Collaboration of the Jews of the
"USA" with racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl Israel 1945-1950]
During the five years following the war's end in 1945, U.S. Jewish
communal life was dominated by developments among Jewish refugees in
Europe, and by the Jewish struggle in Palestine [[by the racist Jewish
army raping and murdering around]]. Vast public meetings
were frequently convened, while gentile political and religious leaders
were won over by persuasion or pressure, and funds raised for overseas
needs reached levels previously unknown. Thus the *Zionist Organization
of America (Z.O.A.) raised its membership from 49,000 in 1940 to
225,000 in 1948, while *Hadassah numbering 81,000 in 1940, multiplied
more than threefold. As the U.S. exercised a dominant position in
international affairs, [[racist]] U.S. Zionist leaders became important
in framing [[racist]] world Zionist policy, and tended to take a
somewhat more militant position than the Palestinian leadership.
Several thousand U.S. Jewish volunteers navigated the "illegal"
immigrant ships across the Mediterranean and fought in Palestine in
1948-49. With the founding of the [[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA
Herzl]] State of Israel in 1948 and its War of Independence until 1949,
U.S. Jewish interest reached a peak which quickly declined. Membership
in [[racist]] Zionist organizations dropped drastically, in the case of
the Z.O.A. beneath 25,000 in the mid-1950s, and monies raised, as well
as the proportion of them actually allocated to [[racist Zionist Free
Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel, slid slowly downward. Yet the development of
[[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel became a philanthropic,
political, and, to some extent, cultural interest of U.S. Jewry as a
whole.
[Jewish soldiers from WW II coming
back]
In common with U.S. citizens generally, Jews enjoyed an era of
prolonged prosperity during the post-World War II years. Homecoming
soldiers found jobs or attended college en masse under the liberal
terms of the "GI Bill of Rights".
[Anti-Semitism in clubs and
management]
Anti-Semitism in the United States all but disappeared from public
view. Father Coughlin had been (col. 1635)
silenced by his church, and a few agitators, notably G.L.K. Smith, were
practically ignored. Active and largely successful efforts were made by
the U.S. Jewish defense organizations to root out anti-Semitic and
every other form of religious and racial discrimination in employment,
housing, and higher education. Legislation to these ends in many states
was spearheaded by the Jewish community, often in alliance with such
Negro bodies as the N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League, and church
organizations.
On the other hand, efforts to eliminate the exclusion of Jews from
upper-level social clubs and from the management of major banks and
corporations proved less successful [[see also: *Discrimination]].
The basic trend for two decades following the end of World War II was
the decline of anti-Semitism to the point where its disappearance was
widely predicted. Even the feverish atmosphere of the anti-Communist
fright from about 1947 to 1954 and the hunt for alleged Communists in
government and strategic positions, during which a high proportion of
the accused were Jews, did not significantly stir anti-Semitic
sentiment. (col. 1636)
[[More details]]:
After 1945 anti-Semitism in the United States did not assume the
ideological strength it had achieved in the preceding decades. Direct
anti-Jewish agitation after World War II was limited, for the most
part, to isolated fringe groups which were declining in number. Among
the active exponents of anti-Semitism were such individuals and groups
as the Columbians, the miniscule but vociferous American Nazi Party,
the National Renaissance Party, and such publications as Gerald L.K.
Smith's The Cross and the Flag
and Conde McGinley's Common Sense.
Much more threatening from the Jewish viewpoint were the persistence
and growth of ultraconservative groups which officially denied
anti-Semitic proclivities but provided a rallying point for many who
were anti-Semitically inclined. Significantly, however, the
anti-Communist crusade initiated by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the
early 1950s, while receiving widespread popular support, never attacked
Jews as such.
[[McCarthy also was one of the hardest racists barring Blacks from
their rights as also did "President" Eisenhower. Such racism was legal
in the criminal "USA", although the Blacks had fought in the army
1941-1945]].
Political anti-Semitism has shown few signs of strength in the
post-World War II period and there have been only sporadic anti-Semitic
episodes. There has been a noticeable decline in the system of social
discrimination elaborated in the United States between 1880 and 1940.
American Jewry in the 1950s and 1960s attained a high degree of
behavioral acculturation, economic affluence, and educational
achievement. The declining "visibility" of Jews, their absorption into
the dominant middle-class suburban society, the disreputability of
openly avowed prejudice, continued economic prosperity, and the role of
government in fostering major civil rights legislation have combined to
produce a diminution in social anti-Semitism.
In 1945 the president of Dartmouth College openly admitted and defended
a quota system against Jewish students; 20 years later Jewish students
comprised 25% of the student body at the prestigious Ivy League
universities. (col. 1656)
POPULATION, DEMOGRAPHY, AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY.
[Numbers - further Jewish
immigration to criminal racist "USA"]
The number of U.S. Jews increased rather slightly. Unfortunately Jewish
population estimates, while comparatively accurate for many cities,
were unreliable for the country as a whole. The Jewish population,
probably overestimated at 5,000,000 in 1945, stood around 5,200,000 in
1956, and by a better based calculation, 5,869,000 in 1969. In
comparison, the U.S. population was 140,000,000 in 1945 and over
200,000,000 in 1970.
Immigration provided little of the Jewish increase. From 1944 through
1959, 191,693 Jews settled in the United States, of whom 119,373
arrived from 1947 through 1951. The large majority were European
survivors, over 63,000 of whom entered under the provisions of the
Displaced Persons Act of 1949. Otherwise, the quota system of the
Johnson Act and its successor McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 remained
intact until practically abolished by new legislation in 1965. From
1960 through 1968 about 73,000 Jewish immigrants arrived. Jewish
immigrants after 1957 tended to be Israelis (frequently of European
birth), Cubans leaving the Castro regime, and Near Easterners. The
United Service for New Americans, a descendant of the previous National
Refugee Service together with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS),
and local community organizations aided the immigrants. Some "new
Americans" were professionally trained, but most tended to enter
traditional Jewish occupations, such as garment cutters, salesmen, or
shopkeepers. Due to their comparatively small numbers and the
stabilization of U.S. Judaism, the influence of post-1945 immigration
on Jewish life was small except in Orthodox circles.
[[Addition: Secret Jewish
immigration is not
mentioned
The immigration with changed name or changed religion with forged
documents is not mentioned. But it can be admitted that this kind of
secret Jewish immigration was not so rare because it is tradition for
persecuted people to hide their identity and forged documents were easy
to have by Jewish organizations. It can be that the real immigration is
the double of the indicated immigration number of 191,693, this would
be approx. 380,000]].
[Community life 1945-1970: centers
and new centers of Los Angeles and Miami]
U.S. Jewry continued to be a metropolitan group. About 40% dwelled in
the New York City area, as had been the case since 1900; the sum total
of Jews living in Greater New York, northeastern New Jersey, and the
nine next largest communities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia,
Boston, Miami, Washington, Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit) equaled 75%
of U.S. Jewry. The most notable demographic phenomenon within these and
other urban centers was movement to the suburbs, which to some extent
merely continued the usual trend to better neighborhoods as income and
aspirations rose. Seeking greater space, more (col. 1636)
relaxed living, and a more homogeneous social environment, large
numbers of Jews quit the ever more congested and aging cities. By 1958,
85% of Cleveland Jews lived beyond the city boundaries, and the same
happened to virtually the entire Jewish population in Detroit, Newark,
and Washington, D.C., within the next decade. Every large city saw a
considerable proportion of its middle class, including Jews, settle in
the suburbs, especially as massive Negro immigration precipitated
formidable social problems. Jewish neighborhoods tended to become
Negro rather quickly, except in New York where the process was a slow
one.
Coincidental with the suburban movement, was the migration of large
numbers of Jews within the United States. The increase of the Los
Angels Jewish population from 150,000 in 1945 to 510,000 in 1968, and
of Miami from 7,500 in 1937 to 40,000 in 1948 and perhaps 150,000 in
1970, was almost wholly the result of internal migration. Much of it
came from the Middle West whose Jewish population failed to increase
after the 1920. Thus, Chicago, with 333,000 in the city in 1946,
actually declined to 285,000 for its metropolitan area by 1969.
Milwaukee also lost - 30,000 to 24,500 - and centers such as Cleveland
and Detroit did not increase. Boston's Jewish population increased from
137,000 in 1948 to 176,000 in 1968, apparently owing to heavy Jewish
participation in that area's scientific and technological growth.
[Professions 1945-1970]
After 1945 a new occupational pattern of U.S. Jewry became evident. No
nationwide survey was conducted but many studies of individual
communities made clear that employment in the professions was rising
greatly, and proprietorship and management somewhat less so; skilled,
semiskilled, and unskilled labor was sharply decreasing, and clerical
and sales employment somewhat declining. Forestry, mining, and
transportation in all forms hardly employed any Jews, as in the past;
the small contingent of Jewish farmers slowly decreased in size. The
ascent of the professionals was a general phenomenon. Thus, in the
small, venerable Jewish community of Charleston, to which few
immigrants came, professionals more than quadrupled between the
mid-1930s and 1948. Charleston's antithesis, Los Angeles, likewise saw
its Jewish professionals increase from 11% to 25% of heads of household
between 1941 and 1959. In addition to the continuing prominence of Jews
as physicians, lawyers, accountants, and (in New York City) teachers,
they were prominent as scientific professionals in such new industries
as electronics.
Earlier occupational patterns lasted longer in New York City where
skilled and unskilled workers comprised about 25% of the Jewish labor
force in 1952 and in 1961, and professionals only 17% in both years. In
such professions as law, medicine, dentistry, and teaching Jews formed
a clear majority of those employed. Industries in which they had once
been the labor force, especially garments, remained Jewish only at the
higher levels of skill and in entrepreneurship. As entrepreneurs, Jews
were extensively represented in urban retail trade, the building of
homes and shopping centers, and in metropolitan real estate. The same
could be said of such mass media areas as television, films, and
advertising, and of cultural enterprises like book publishing, art
dealing, and impresarioship in music and theater. Stockbrokerage and
other spheres of finance continued to involve Jewish firms and brokers,
but the high prominence of Jewish financiers during the late 19th and
early 20th centuries did not return.
Various local studies showed that around 1960 some 25% of employed Jews
were in professional and semiprofessional occupations (as was 13.9% of
the employed U.S. population), and 30% were proprietors, managers, or
self-employed (col. 1639)
businessmen (as was 10.7% of the employed U.S. population). The
proportion in business was especially high in smaller cities, where
Jews continued in their old role as leading local merchants. The
"clerical and sales" classification included about 25%, and of the
remaining 20% about three-quarters were skilled and semiskilled workers
and craftsmen, and the small remainder worked at unskilled and manual
labor and personal service. Local surveys demonstrated also that the
proportion of professionals was higher in the younger Jewish strata.
This finding when combined with the fact that some 80% of Jewish youth
of college age during the 1960s actually attended college, strongly
suggested that the proportion of professionals would continue to rise.
In these vocational trends, U.S. Jews anticipated the movement of
employment away from manual, craft, agricultural, and factory work into
clerical, technical, managerial, and professional occupations. Their
attachment to independent entrepreneurship in a corporate age was
unique, however. Somewhat scantier evidence indicated that Jewish
incomes stood appreciably higher than those of any other religious or
ethnic group in the United States. (col. 1640) [[...]]
Discrimination in admission to medical schools is no longer openly
practiced and Jewish students increasingly choose careers in such
fields as engineering, which in the 1930s were highly discriminatory.
In the late 1960s Jewish professors constituted over 10% of the
faculties in the nation's senior colleges. Surveys of discrimination by
city and country clubs and by resorts have shown a decline in the
proportion excluding Jews. Nevertheless, subtle forms of social
anti-Semitism persist, especially in what has come to be known as
"executive suite" discrimination. While Jews constituted 8% of the
college-trained population in the United States, they comprised less
than 1/2 % of the executives of America's major companies or presidents
of American colleges. (col. 1656)
Despite conflicting evidence, public-opinion surveys which were
conducted in the U.S. during the period from 1940 to 1970 (col. 1656)
generally documented a substantial decline in anti-Semitic attitudes.
Whereas 63% of the American public attributed *objectionable traits" to
the Jews as a group in 1940, only 22% felt this way in 1962.
Anti-Semitism in the United States, while far from extinct, is usually
no longer expressed openly. The American political system has acted as
a brake on anti-Semitism and the civil position of Jews in the United
States has never been fundamentally endangered. Nevertheless, latent
anti-Jewish stereotypes are persistent. (col. 1657)
STATUS AND COMMUNAL STRUCTURE.
[Racist Zionist manipulation with
fund raising for racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl Israel - local
matters - combined collections for overseas and domestic needs -
unifications]
Economic prosperity, the neutralization of once sharp ideological
differences, growing social homogeneity, and the closing of the rift
between natives and immigrants resulted in a lengthy period of communal
consensus which perhaps extended from 1950 to 1968. The [[racist
Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] State of Israel became a unifying rather
than divisive force. Funds were ample for generally agreed communal
purposes in the United States and overseas. A benevolent neutrality
prevailed upon religion, except in some Orthodox circles.
Communal interests focused primarily on local matters as Jewish
suburbia built its institutions, while in older urban areas they had to
struggle to survive or relocate.
Nearly every city, except New York and Chicago, conducted a combined
campaign for overseas and domestic needs and had some form of central
Jewish community organization.
The Jewish community councils, founded during the 1930s, generally
merged with the older federations of Jewish philanthropies and were
governed by an executive board and a none too potent community assembly
of representatives from organizations. In some cities, however,
contributors to the combined campaign above a minimal level (usually
$10) were enfranchised to vote for a fixed proportion of the delegates
to these assemblies. These central Jewish communal bodies promoted
equal rights through their community relations committees which
coordinated the local efforts of the leading Jewish defense
organizations (*American Jewish Committee, *American Jewish Congress,
*Jewish Labor Committee, *Jewish War Veterans). They also sponsored
the local bureaus of Jewish education, settled intra-communal disputes,
in some communities supervised kashrut
[[Jewish
nutrition rules]], and generally functioned as the recognized Jewish
spokesmen in the general community. The social service agencies
affiliated with the antecedent federations enjoyed far-reaching
autonomy. The most important activity by far was the annual campaigns,
whose proceeds were allocated, after negotiations, by carefully devised
formulas.
At the national level, ideological groupings and specialization of
activities evolved, but no stable central body developed. The defense
organizations, mentioned above, coordinated their activities in the
"National Community Relations Advisory Council. The *American Zionist
Council did likewise for [[racist]] Zionist bodies, especially on
political issues, and the *Synagogue Council, with little power,
obtained occasional unity among the denominational federations of
synagogues. The military functions of the *National Jewish Welfare
Board were largely replaced by its peacetime activity of providing
coordination and (col. 1640)
program assistance to approximately 300 Jewish community centers, and
their 645,000 members, affiliated with it by 1960. The *Council of
Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds guided and counseled its
constituents by means of nationwide meetings, through intensive studies
of Jewish philanthropic policy, of the role of government in education
and social service, and through the activities of various
beneficiaries.
In 1954 the *Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations (the "Presidents' Club") was established, with 17
members, to consult informally in matters concerning [[racist Zionist
Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel and overseas Jewish problems. By virtue
of its age, size, prestige, and non-partisan Jewish character, *B'nai
B'rith tended to play a focal role in such central efforts.
[Schooling and school questions]
The relation between church and state, especially in the field of
education, continued to be a touchy issue. The Jewish community
maintained its historic opposition to religious observances in
governmental functions and particularly in the schools. This stand was
put to the test, especially over Catholic demands for government aid to
their parochial school system. A series of Supreme Court decisions
which permitted private schools to receive school buses, lunches, and
textbooks from the government was generally regretted, while decisions
which barred school prayers and any active role for schools in
sponsoring outside sectarian religious instruction were widely
applauded by Jews. The passage of the Education Act of 1964 and
subsequent legislation, providing limited federal aid for private
schools, tended to quiet the issue.
U.S. Jews also opposed school programs which aimed to inculcate "moral
and spiritual values" in children. Local disputes frequently erupted,
typically in predominantly Christian suburbs to which a substantial
number of Jews had moved, due to Jewish opposition to Christmas
observances in the public schools; combined Christmas-Hanukkah
(Ḥanukkah) observances were a syncretistic "compromise".
Thus, the U.S. Jewish community continued its historic affinity for the
public schools provided they were religiously neutral. Among Jewish
organizations the [[racist Zionist]] American Jewish Congress took the
most rigorous separationist position, while the American Jewish
Committee leaned toward a more pragmatic acceptance of the prevailing
public policy. Several theologians, including Mordecai M. Kaplan, Will
Herberg, and Seymour Siegel, wished to modify the traditional Jewish
separationism because of their conviction that the secular public
school tended to inculcate secularism as a quasi-religion. Orthodox
Jewry, which had few children in the public schools, also opposed
rigorous church-state separation in education, partly in hopes of
securing public funds for their hard-pressed day schools. (col. 1641)
[[...]]
The American Jewish community has been most concerned with problems of
church-state relationships in the post-World War II ear. Occasionally,
as in the strong public reaction to the Supreme Court's decision in the
Regents prayer case of 1962 in which public school prayers were
declared unconstitutional, anti-Semitic overtones have been apparent.
(col. 1656) [[...]]
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PLACE IN AMERICAN LIFE.
[Since 1945: Jewish writing in
English]
By the end of the 1940s the Jews as an overwhelmingly native group,
extensively college educated and heavily concentrated in the mercantile
and professional classes with long-standing cultural interests, began
to assume a remarkable degree of prominence in U.S. cultural life.
While their previously notable position as physicians, scientists,
lawyers, psychoanalysts, and musicians continued, Jews now began to
excel in fields once closed or inaccessible to them. Linguistic
strangeness and the thematic content of U.S. literature had tended to
make Jewish writers in English very few. But beginning in the 1950s a
considerable number attained importance and true distinction: the
novelists Saul *Bellow, Bernard *Malamud, and Norman *Mailer;
playwrights like Arthur *Miller; poets such as Delmore *Schwartz, Allen
*Ginsberg, and Karl *Shapiro;and the critics Lionel *Trilling, Leslie
*Fiedler, Alfred *Kazin, and Irving *Howe. Moreover, Jewish subjects
surged into the forefront of literary interest. Novels and short
stories of (col. 1641)
extremely varied quality, on themes including the European Holocaust,
[[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel, and middle-class U.S.
Jewish life, sold in the millions to gentiles as well as Jews. Plays on
Jewish themes attracted vast audiences and were produced on nationwide
television. Many of the above writers contributed to this movement, as
did other successful novelists like Philip *Roth, Mayer *Levin, Leon
*Uris, Irving Wallace, and the ex-Communist Howard *Fast. "Jewish"
became a literary genre even surpassing the "Southern" or the "Middle
Western". Occasional voices, questioning its naturalization into U.S.
literature and even alleged domination by a New York Jewish circle,
focused in such journals as *Commentary,
the Partisan Review, and the New York Review of Books.
While this was largely literary politics or legitimate literary
judgment, there was no doubt that Jews were the principal marketers of
cultural products in the U.S., whether as impresarios of music,
theatrical producers, editors, book publishers, or film and television
producers.
[Since 1945: Jews in masses in
university faculties]
A second major trend was that of Jews into the arts and sciences on
university faculties. During the 1930s and earlier only a few hundred
Jews held academic positions, mainly in the municipal colleges of New
York City, but at the close of the 1960s an estimated 30,000 Jews
composed about one-tenth of all college faculty members. They were
distributed in all fields, although physics, sociology, and psychology
particularly had a high proportion of Jews. No field of study, however,
lacked notable Jewish contributors. Jewish professors could be found in
almost all colleges, but especially in public institutions and in the
"Ivy League".
By and large, Jewish contributors to U.S. cultural life, at least until
the middle 1960s, were not rebels or path breakers, but excelled and
advanced in the established forms. Their general orientation continued
to be the liberal left, with echoes of earlier radicalism. To the
Jewish community its "Jewish intellectuals" were somehow a source of
concern: could they be made to demonstrate positive interest in
established U.S. Judaism, and why did most of them shy away? A
symposium on "Jewishness and the Younger Intellectuals", published in Commentary in May 1961, strongly
suggested that under the cultural consensus and religiosity of the
1950s lay the alienated restlessness of many of the highly
acculturated, talented young.
RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL LIFE.
[Jewry as a recognized "third U.S.
religion"]
U.S. Jewish religious life considerably broadened after 1945 as Judaism
was all but officially recognized as the "third U.S. religion".
[[The natives of the "USA" - the Indians - were not recognized, and all
religions of the Black people in the criminal racist "USA" were not
recognized, either]].
Public commission habitually included a Jewish member alongside
Protestants and Catholics, and official ceremonies, including
presidential inaugurations, arranged for Jewish as well as Christian
clerical participation. The 1950s was a period of unprecedented
interest in Jewish religious life and thought, as part of the "revival
of religion" in U.S. culture during those years, and the writings of
such figures as Martin *Buber and Abraham J. *Heschel received wide
attention. Numerous interfaith institutes and assemblies were held.
Indirectly the climate was created for the Jewish role in the Catholic
ecumenical movement of the 1960s.
[Change of character of
communities - numbers of communities and rabbis]
While it was customary to divide U.S. Judaism into Reform,
Conservative, and Orthodox denominations, each with central
institutions and recognized leaders, the reality resembled more a
spectrum in which the membership beliefs, and practices, and even the
rabbinate of one group shaded into the next. The number of
denominationally identified congregations grew rapidly. In 1954 there
were 462 Reform congregations, 102 more than in 1948; of the 473
Conservative there were 156 more than in 1948. (Many had been Orthodox
and evolved into Conservatism). There were 720 affiliated Orthodox
congregations, but many were inactive leftovers from immigrant days.
The increase (col. 1642)
continued, so that in 1958 the congregations numbered 550 Reform, 600
Conservative, and again 720 Orthodox. The Synagogue Council estimated
in 1957, however, 4,240 congregations in the U.S. This great disparity
could be partially explained by the large number of minuscule,
unaffiliated, and inactive bodies in the latter figure. The organized
U.S. rabbinate in 1955 counted 1,127 men in the two large Orthodox
professional bodies, 677 Reform, and 598 Conservative. The U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics (B.L.S.) reached similar conclusions when it found
in 1960, 2,517 congregational rabbis, 944 in "specialized Jewish
community service", and 148 at temporary work or unemployed. To these
3,609 rabbis the B.L.S. added some 650 retired or out of the
profession, and there were probably others privately ordained not
functioning as rabbis.
A 1950 estimate placed total synagogue membership at a maximum of
450,000 families, besides about 250,000 persons who had seats in the
synagogue on the High Holy Days. Perhaps 1,485,000 Jews were thus
synagogally affiliated, and this figure apparently increased during the
1950s. Thus around 1958 there were over 450,000 families in
Conservative and Reform congregations; the Orthodox could not be
properly determined, but a 1965 study suggested 300,000 committed
Orthodox individuals. Altogether, the largest institutions and
membership growth was found among the Conservatives, who counted 833
congregations affiliated with the United Synagogue in 1970 as compared
with some 700 in the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in that
year.
[Synagogues and Jewish
institutions in competition - percentage numbers - attendance questions]
A wave of synagogue construction permitted this increase of
affiliation, as did the burgeoning of new suburban districts. Between
1945 and 1952 an estimated $50 to $60,000,000 was spent on synagogue
building, and the ten-year period which followed may have seen twice
that amount expended. Many synagogues, especially in the suburbs,
accommodated not only worship and study but also quite elaborate social
functions and even sports and social recreation. The tendency of
synagogues to act as Jewish community centers sometimes brought them
into rivalry with non-synagogal Jewish centers and Young Men's (and
Women's) Hebrew Associations, which were professionally equipped for
such work. The latter were engaged in reorienting their outlook and
activities toward a more explicit Jewish program, as recommended in the
influential JWB Survey
directed by Oscar I. *Janowsky (1948).
The synagogue-Jewish center rivalry had some ideological basis:
synagogal claims to primacy as the embodiment of Jewish religion and
tradition, versus the centers' emphasis on their broadly Jewish
character accommodating nonreligious as well as religious members.
Notwithstanding great material growth Jewish religious life hardly
became more intensive. A careful poll taken in 1945 showed that 18% of
the Jews attended public worship at least once monthly, to 65% of
Protestants and 83% of Catholics. A 1958 poll of weekly attendance
again showed 18% of Jews thus an apparent increase to 74% of Catholics
and 40% of Protestants. Although U.S. Jews in questionnaires tended to
describe themselves as "conservative" in religion, this probably
indicated a general liking for religious tradition rather than actual
Conservative synagogue affiliation.
There was widespread well-documented interest in Judaism on college
campuses, and numerous instances occurred of young people adopting
traditional religious life and beliefs. Altogether, however, only small
minorities, estimated between 10% and 20%, observed the Sabbath
scrupulously, maintained the dietary laws in full, and observed daily
prayer. The three recognized religious groupings were found in every
Jewish community of any size, but some were strong in particular
cities. Thus, the (col. 1643)
centers of Orthodoxy were in Boston, Baltimore, and above all New York
City. Philadelphia and Detroit were strongly Conservative, while
Cleveland, San Francisco, and Milwaukee were largely Reform.
[The Jewish communities and their
inner affairs: Jewish law for deserted Jewish wives - Orthodox
non-Zionists and Orthodox anti-Zionists]
The denomination had their struggles over internal issues. The Reform
majority, now pro-Zionist, moved toward increased ritual and
traditionalism, over the opposition of a vigorous "classical Reform"
minority, and congregations leaned in either direction. The majority of
Reform rabbis attempted to utilize the classic sources of Jewish law in
religious problems. Among the Conservatives differences tended to be
muffled in loyalty to the central institution, the Jewish Theological
Seminary and its profoundly traditionalist faculty. The main issue was
Jewish law and the extent to which it could be modified within its own
categories, and by whom. In an attempt to demonstrate the reality of
the Conservative conception of halakhah
[[Jewish law]] by solving the classic problem of freeing the deserted
wife (agunah) from her marital
bond, the Rabbinical Assembly promulgated a supplement in 1954 to the
marriage certificate (tosefet ketubbah)
and established a tribunal to deal with such cases.
Vigorously opposed by the Orthodox and by some Conservative dissenters,
this method had rather mixed success in practice. Yet while the
Conservative rabbis and scholars debated this and other halakhic [[Jewish law]] problems of
change, the lay membership proceeded in its own unhalakhic way of life.
Orthodoxy meanwhile shed its status as the Judaism of immigrants after
the number of acculturated, middle-class congregations with modernist,
U.S.-trained rabbinic leadership sharply increased. There was also a
large accretion to Orthodoxy from post-1945 immigration, among whom
Hasidim (Ḥasidim) and yeshivah [[religious Torah school]] leaders were
prominent. Tensions arose between these two segments for the latter
tended to be non-Zionist or anti-Zionist and considered that the
secular world and non-Orthodox forms of Judaism had improperly
influenced U.S. Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy became intellectually active as
religious and philosophic writing, besides traditional rabbinic
scholarship were produced. U.S. reprintings of the Talmud and nearly
the entire corpus of rabbinic classics found a market mainly in
Orthodox circles.
CULTURE AND EDUCATION.
[Jewish writing with linguistic
assimilation - Yiddish publications reduced - Anglo-Jewish press, TV,
and publications]
After 1950 Hebrew literary creativity in the U.S. nearly vanished as
[[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel increasingly monopolized
talent and provided a mass audience for writers. Yiddish letters also
continued their decline, largely on account of linguistic assimilation
Significant Yiddish writers continued to publish, however, including
Chaim *Grade and Isaac *Bashevis Singer, who in English translation
became a U.S. literary celebrity during the 1960s. Yiddish was no
longer the language of the Jewish masses: during the 1960s two daily
newspapers were still published in New York City, besides the monthly
*Zukunft [[Yidd.: Future]], *YIVO publications, and various
organizational periodicals.
On the other hand, Jewish cultural activity in English surged. Its
media included the weekly Anglo-Jewish press whose news came from the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, in some sense synagogue sermons, the lecture
platform of variable quality in Jewish institutions, and Jewish
monthlies and quarterlies - some of which were of the highest standard.
It was no longer unusual to read of Jewish affairs in the general
press; and television and general magazines also frequently presented
Jewish material from which unpleasant stereotypes had long been
eliminated.
University presses and commercial publishers issued serious works on
Jewish subjects, in addition to the best-selling novels and potboilers
mentioned above.
[Jewish schooling at universities]
Jewish scholarship, while still concentrated in seminaries and yeshivot
[[religious Torah schools]], slowly began to find a place in
universities with the establishment of academic chairs in Jewish
studies. To the generation of (col. 1644)
mature, European-trained scholars was added a new one educated in the
U.S. and frequently in [[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel.
Learned studies of outstanding merit in [[criminal racist]] Bible,
[[racist]] Talmud, medieval and modern Jewish languages and literature,
philosophy and theology, history, and folklore were produced by the
elder scholars and their younger colleagues.
[Schooling of the baby boomers
since 1945: Sunday schools - Orthodox day schools - Yiddish education
reduced - funds for Jewish schooling - shortage of teachers]
The low Jewish education level of U.S. Jewry places such works of
learning beyond its comprehension, notwithstanding a new, respectful
attitude toward Jewish scholarship. Jewish education "boomed" as school
enrollment increased, owing particularly to the post-1945 "baby boom",
from some 268,000 in 1950 to 589,000 in 1962. An estimated 80% of U.S.
Jewish children received Jewish education at some time during their
school years. Over half went to Sunday schools, which were generally
attached to Reform congregations, and perhaps one-third to weekday
congregational schools, usually branches of Conservative synagogues. A
striking and somewhat controversial increase was that of day schools,
most of them under Orthodox auspices, which enrolled approximately
80,000 children in 1970;
the lesser expansion of yeshivah [[religious Torah school]] high
schools and of yeshivot for full-time talmudic study was also
conspicuous. As these schools grew the communally supported talmud torahs [[Talmud Torah
schools]] of earlier decades sharply declined owing to changing
religious trends within the Jewish community and the change of urban
neighborhoods;
secular Yiddish education barely survived. Local Jewish welfare funds
began to appropriate more for Jewish education, mainly toward central
bureaus and specialized services. Notwithstanding financial
improvement and the desire of most parents to send their child to some
Jewish school, Jewish education remained brief and superficial for most
pupils, and was severely handicapped by a seemingly insoluble shortage
of qualified teachers.
THE LATE 1960s.
[Vatican Council with
rectification of the passive attitude of Pope Pius XII to the Holocaust
- Catholic-Jewish conversations with only little results in 1965]
Toward the end of the 1960s the U.S. Jewish position seemed stable.
Population held to predictable rates; immigration was minimal and
readily absorbed; demographic and occupational trends continued as they
had from approximately 1950; [[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]]
Israel attracted warm political and financial support and tourism; and
the institutions of the Jewish community were generally well financed
and seemed capable of dealing with most of the problems coming upon
their agendas. Late in the 1960s, however, quite unanticipated matters
and issues arose which stirred unusual interest and anxiety.
The accession of Pope John XXIII in 1958 and the Vatican II Ecumenical
Council, which he convened, inaugurated sweeping changes in the Roman
Catholic Church. These included a major attempt to rectify the ancient
anti-Jewish record of the Church and to meet belated worldwide
criticism of the passive or aloof attitude of Pope Pius XII during the
European Holocaust. The movement within the Church to "exonerate" the
Jews from "deicide" and to formally recognize the theological
legitimacy of Judaism was highly active in the United States, and
stirred considerable Jewish participation and enthusiasm. A period of
Catholic-Jewish theological conversation and "dialogue" commenced, in
which Cardinal Bea and U.S. prelates were leaders; the most prominent
Jewish spokesman was Abraham J. Heschel. The final document issued by
Vatican II in 1965 disappointed high hopes. While Catholic silence (as
well as that of Protestants) during the Arab preparations to annihilate
[[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel in May 1967 was very
disillusioning, Catholic-Jewish dialogue continued, but in a subdued
key.
[Jewish students demonstrating for
equal rights for the Blacks - relations between Jews and Blacks]
The acquisition of equal rights by U.S. Negroes had long been a goal of
legal and political action, as well as philanthropic endeavour, by
Jews. Not only did such Jewish organizations as the *American Jewish
Committee and the (col. 1645)
*American Jewish Congress possess long records as supporters of
legislation and litigants in court in order to secure Negro rights, but
individual Jews since the days of Louis *Marshall and Julius *Rosenwald
and the *Spingarns had long provided a large proportion of activists
and funds in these struggles. During the "civil rights summers" of the
mid-1960s young Jews constituted, by some reports, as high as 50% of
all the white student youth who went south to assist Negroes. The
passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, and the legal and
judicial prohibition of racial segregation in all forms, were viewed by
Jews with deep satisfaction. (col. 1646) [[...]]
Jewish participation in the Negro civil rights movement of the 1950s
and early 1960s brought charges from Southern extremists of attempts to
"mongrelize" [[bastardize]] and communize America. In the late 1960s
the shift of the Negro movement to greater militancy, the growth of
black nationalism, and the emphasis on "black power" generated
considerable friction in Negro-Jewish relations. Although surveys
indicated that anti-Semitism among the mass of American Negroes is no
greater, and perhaps less, than that existing among white Americans,
and although moderate Negro leaders condemned anti-Semitism, the
possibility of continued group conflict existed and seriously disturbed
American Jewry in the late 1960s. (col. 1656) [[...]]
[[Addition: Struggle for rights
and for
peace in the criminal racist "USA" in the 1960s
In May 1963 the white racist police attacked a demonstration: During Mercury
"Faith 7" in Birmingham (Alabama) the
white police attacks black demonstrators with dogs. The children
demonstrated for the lift of the apartheid in the "USA". Children are
arrested. Ku Klux Klan burns down a hotel where
foreign demonstrators stay over night. President Kennedy sends troops,
then makes a trip through the South and praises the civil rights
movement of Martin Luther King. The black Medgar Evers is murdered by a
sniper in June 1963. On 28 August 1963 is the big final demonstration
of the "March to Washington" with the speech of Martin Luther King "I
have a dream". President Kennedy lets happen the demonstration which is
too much for the white racists in the criminal "USA". So President
Kennedy is murdered on 22 November 1963. On February 1965 the black
civil right activist Malcolm X is murdered. Since 2 March 1965 the
white racist policy of the criminal racist "USA" is going on against
Vietnam with the operation "Rolling Thunder". On 3 April 1968 Martin
Luther King is murdered, and on 5 June 1968 Robert Kennedy is murdered.
In many towns of the criminal racist "USA" the white racist police is
making war against black demonstrations and the blacks begin to fight.
The fight combines with the Vietnam War demonstrations and peace camps
which are fought by the white racist police. Peace demonstrators are
even killed by the criminal white racist police of the criminal racist
"USA", e.g., 4 students in Kent, the "Kent 4", on 4 May 1970. A
considerable part of this racist war system of the "USA" is financed by
Jewish bankers, and their children are demonstrating against the
system. Finally the Blacks got their civil rights and were allowed to
use a "white" toilet and to purchase land. But add to this the natives
of the "USA" are never
mentioned. They are sterilized, put into open air ghettos called
"reservation", their spiritual culture is fought up to their
destruction etc. Instead CIA is organizing a moon fake lasting for
years with photos from moon studios with implanted flags without
shadows and with cars without tracks...]]
[Further contacts between Jews and
Blacks in the northern "USA" - Black competition against Jews]
After these victories, the long-established Negro-Jewish alliance was
gravely strained and broken at many points, largely owing to the inner
dynamics of Negro life (see *Negro-Jewish Relations). However, the
presence within Negro areas of numerous Jewish merchants and slum
landlords - many of whom were "holdovers" from earlier years when such
districts were heavily Jewish - was also a source of friction. The
whites with whom the masses of southern Negro migrants to northern
cities came in contact were also disproportionately Jewish, including
social case workers, lesser professionals, and, in New York City,
public school teachers.
The wave of riots which swept northern Negro districts between 1964 and
1968 compelled the departure of most of their white businessmen,
including Jews, and violently shook the delicate balance of urban
peace. Militant movements of black separatism and nationalism denounced
whites and repudiated their assistance in terms which were sometimes
anti-Semitic. Proposals for social policy from some Negro and
"establishment" white sources stirred deep Jewish fears that the
economic and social gains of Negroes were to be at Jewish expense, with
Jewish opportunities in higher education and broad areas of
professional employment reduced to make room for Negroes.
[Teacher's strike in New York in
1968 - anti-Semitism and Jewish Defense League]
Other U.S. ethnic groups had similar fears. The strike by the New York
City teachers in 1968, most of them Jews, arose from the intention of
"school decentralization" to ease them out or reduce their
opportunities for advancement in order to advance Negroes (and Puerto
Ricans, in that city's situation) in the school system. Serious
eruptions of anti-Semitism accompanied the strike, and the Jewish
community was disturbed at white intellectual and upper-class
indifference to them.
Deep cleavages appeared within the U.S. Jewish community as feelings
emerged, especially among urban-working and lower-middle-class Jews,
that the established Jewish organizations with their prosperous,
suburban supporters were unconcerned with their plight and heedless of
rising anti-Semitism.
The rapid (col. 1646)
growth of the Jewish Defense League (see *Self-Defense) in New York and
other cities, with its tactics of physical defense, public
demonstrations, and retaliation, expressed this fear.
[Contributions for racist Zionist
Free Mason CIA Herzl Israel after Six-Day War - "contributions" and
exodus of 17,000 Jews - demonstrations against anti-Semitism in Soviet
Union]
The crisis of May 1967 brought U.S. Jewish concern for [[racist Zionist
Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel to a peak. Some volunteers were able to
leave for [[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel before June 5,
1967, but the tension and triumphant resolution in the Six-Day War
found its main outlet in unparalleled contributions - $ 232,000,000 to
the United Jewish Appeal and $75,000,000 in Israel bonds. Hardly had
the euphoria of victory dissipated when the *New Left in shaky
combination with Black militant elements vigorously espoused the Arab
cause. Like Soviet Russia and Poland, they used "Zionist" as a synonym
for Jew in attempting to obscure the anti-Semitic character of their
propaganda. Together with numerous Arab students on U.S. campuses, they
propagandized vigorously for their cause.
The [[racist]] Zionist movement, bland and quiescent for almost 20
years since U.S. Jews expressed their pro-Israel convictions outside
its framework, somewhat revived after 1967. This was particularly
noticeable at many colleges and universities, especially those swept by
campus disturbances and the militant tone of leftist and black demands.
Jewish students spontaneously founded [[racist]] Zionist organizations
named in contemporary manner "liberation movements" and "radical". At a
more sedate level, business investment in [[racist Zionist Free Mason
CIA Herzl]] Israel as well as tourism, both overwhelmingly Jewish
greatly increased despite the danger to Israel's security. Aliyah, long spoken of, became
relatively numerous as approximately 17,000 U.S. Jews settled in
[[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel between July 1967 and
the end of 1970.
Anti-Semitic discrimination and the near-suppression of Jewish life in
the Soviet Union, together with the Soviet regime's refusal to permit
Jewish emigration, furnished the main cause for agitation and protest
by U.S. Jews at the end of the 1960s. The American Conference on Soviet
Jewry, an "official" body, as well as the Academic Council on Soviet
Jewry and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, were the major
organizers. The continued threat to the existence of [[racist Zionist
Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel, urban problems weighing heavily on an
overwhelmingly urban community, and the surge of anti-Semitism and
anti-Israelism, together with the well-publicized glorification of
violence by some black militant demagogues and white followers, angered
U.S. Jews and tended to stimulate a siege mentality. Assertions were
common that Jewish communal life and institutions were useless and
"irrelevant", and the supposed revolt of youth stirred concern.
Nevertheless, U.S. Jews continued to support liberal political programs
and candidates and played their customary prominent role in U.S.
cultural and economic life.
[Jews in public life of the "USA"]
Less than a century after the U.S. was a distant, little populated
outpost of the Jewish people, U.S. Jewry attained great numbers,
prosperity, cultural eminence, and political prestige. Such growth and
achievements had no precedent in the history of the Jews, just as
those of the United States itself were unparalleled. In a new society
without feudal, aristocratic, or churchly roots, most of the legal and
social problems which preoccupied European Jewry during and long after
its era of emancipation were pointless. Discussions of Jewish status
sometimes had an apprehensive tone and anti-Semitism palpably existed,
but U.S. Jews largely lacked the sense of the problematic about
themselves within a continent-wide society composed of many religions
and ethnic groups. U.S. Judaism was the creation of the Jewish common
man who immigrated to the U.S. Humanitarianism, skill at organization,
liking for innovation, and confidence in unlimited social and material
improvement profoundly influenced Judaism. In U.S. life the Jewish role
was far in excess of the small Jewish percentage of the (col. 1647)
population. Only the [[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] State of
Israel played a greater role than did U.S. Jewry in the 20th-century
transformation of the Jewish people.
[L.P.G.]> (col. 1648)
Sources
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1635-1636 |
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1637-1638
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1639-1640
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1641-1642
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1643-1644
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1645-1646
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1647-1648
|
|
|
|
|
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1655-1656 |
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): "USA", Vol. 15, col. 1657-1658
|
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