Teaching the Jewish Experience in the American History Classroom: Themes and Sources

This chapter advocates a thematic approach to the integration of the teaching of American Judaism in the context of the American history classroom. It argues that three important features of Jewish life in the United States are critical to an appreciation of how Jewish Americans are embedded into but remain somewhat dissonant from America’s social fabric: (1) the historically contingent and thereby fluid nature of "Jewish American" as a social category); (B) the endurance of antisemitism as a feature of American life; and (C) the relationship between Jewish Americans and the American polity. This chapter also recommends a pedagogy centered on the teaching of primary sources as a means of cultivating historical thinking skills.