The Liberal Paradigm

• In Event: Rethinking American Jewish History

Abstract

Historians of American Jews are accustomed to a conceptualization of the past that depicts the broad sweep of American Jewish experience as a steady process of voluntary adaptation to a free, democratic, and prosperous society. The regnant view is basically linear and progressive: Jews immigrated to the United States, struggled to earn a living, achieved affluence, adjusted to social norms in ways consistent with Jewish traditions, values, and interests, and thereby built a variegated but stable ethnic sub-community. This general view is based on a belief in American uniqueness. The American Jewish community was singular, it is said, because at no point did Jews undergo an emancipation process in which they needed to prove themselves worthy of citizenship. Needing neither to seek emancipation nor defend it, American Jews constituted “a post-Emancipation Jewry,” one that enjoyed unprecedented levels of freedom, acceptance, and affluence within a society characterized by a fluid class structure, ethnoreligious pluralism, and a malleable national character. It is a soothing narrative, but unconvincing from the vantage point of the twenty-first century. In our time, the liberal consensus within the Jewish community has begun to unravel, previously marginal trends (such as ultra-Orthodoxy) have enjoyed surprising growth, and economic security eludes growing numbers of people. In light of profound shifts in American society and politics that have taken place of the last several decades, and that have necessarily affected the American Jewish community, does the consensus view of American Jewish hold up to scrutiny? Are there other paradigms that might better help historians explain the American Jewish past?

Author

• Tony E. Michels, University of Wisconsin - Madison