America: Contexts and Cultures

Abstract

America constituted a new model of democratic civic society, grounded in the prior European separation of church and state but with greater latitude for ethnic identification. This new model attracted massive numbers of immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including millions of Jews seeking new homes and better lives. The coinciding dynamic of an evolving American society along with a newly expanded Jewish community facilitated the ability of American Jews to quite rapidly find their place in general society and to create a voluntary Jewish communal structure and culture. The emergent American Jewish culture became a noteworthy component of the broader American culture as well as an informal educative force for America’s Jews.