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american jewish historical society

A Major Breakthrough: When Passover Cakes Were Big News

By Rachel Gordan, National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar in Residence 2025

A Major Breakthrough: When Passover Cakes Were Big News

At the end of the summer of 1955, Jewish novelist Herman Wouk’s (1915-2019) fourth novel, Marjorie Morningstar was published. At this point in his career, Wouk was a celebrity-writer, having won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his war novel, The Caine Mutiny

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Babka & Beignets: Jewish Foodways of the South

By Cassia Kisshauer
Reference Services Librarian, Center for Jewish History

Babka & Beignets: Jewish Foodways of the South

Food is a way to maintain cherished traditions and connect to ancestors, particularly for marginalized groups. It can also be a method to adapt to a new environment. The American South has a rich Jewish history dating back to the 17th century. Port cities like…

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Sermons of Thanksgiving

By Lauren Gilbert 
Senior Manager for Public Services, Center for Jewish History 

Sermons of Thanksgiving

It is widely believed that the Pilgrims modeled their Thanksgiving feast after the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. In its modern incarnation as a secular festival focusing on gratitude, an appropriately Jewish concept, Thanksgiving has been observed by American Jews from its earliest days.

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German-Jewish Americans at Home at the Turn of the Last Century: A Late 19th-Century Photo Album

German-Jewish Americans at Home at the Turn of the Last Century: A Late 19th-Century Photo Album

“. . . the [Jewish) religion which was to be prized and saved is fast becoming a watery Unitarianism, and its adherents are allowing themselves, where permitted, to become completely assimilated. Reform Judaism which began as a compromise is ending as surrender.”

—Marvin Lowenthal, “Zionism: A Menorah…

Coffee & Bagels as Organizing Tools: the Tzedek, Tzedek Collective and Wholly Bagel Coffeehouse

Coffee & Bagels as Organizing Tools: the Tzedek, Tzedek Collective and Wholly Bagel Coffeehouse

The late 1960s and early 1970s were, in part, characterized by the counterculture that swept through the United States during those years. Catapulted by the growth of social movement activism was an increased awareness of and desire to fix the problems plaguing American society, such as racism, sexism, poverty and…