By Steven Trebach, Research Intern I am a Research Intern at the Center for Jewish History (CJH) and a recent graduate of Haverford College. My original goal was to research dual loyalty, which led me to documents concerning the American Council for Judaism (ACJ) within the Center’s Partner’s collections, particularly the American Jewish Historical Society. In the mid-20th century, the ACJ accused Zionist Jews…
By Josh Daniels, Former Research Intern Josh Daniels is writing a two-part series of blog posts on the intellectual foundations of Reform Judaism. See his first post here. Once Reform Judaism began to spread to America, it encountered a very different environment than the one it came from back in Germany. Politically, the American Constitution promised rights to religious freedom, preventing the government from…
By Josh Daniels, Former Research Intern Growing up in a secular household, I had only a loose connection to the religion of Judaism. I attended Hebrew school twice a week for five years, and studied eight months independently for my bar mitzvah. I attended High Holiday services throughout my high school years, and ended up all but renounced my religious identity into college, where,…