so we settled on
America, one by one
we settled on
America, man and woman
Joshua Gottlieb-Miller, Chain Migration (excerpt)
History of the Jewish American Heritage Month
This year we celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month for the 20th time in the US. Following President George W. Bush’s proclamation designating May 2006 as Jewish American Heritage Month, we annually celebrate the contributions of Jewish Americans to the United States throughout May. The proclamation followed the arrival of the first Jewish denizens in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (which ultimately became New York and US territory) by about 350 years. In September 1654, 23 Jewish refugees fled Pernambuco, the north-Brazilian colony originally founded under the Portuguese crown, then seized by the Netherlands, and recaptured by the Portuguese, prompting non-Catholics to look for refuge outside Brazil.
In Dutch North America, the Jewish migrants could find safe harbor and an opportunity to start new lives. Over a century ago in 1905 and later in 1954–55 as well, Jewish scholarly and communal organizations highlighted the significance of this event. For them it marked the beginning of a continued history of Jewish contribution to the nation. At the national level, President Carter recognized this contribution for the first time. His Proclamation No. 4752 in April 1980 designated the Jewish American Heritage Week. The dedication of the Jewish American Heritage Month followed 26 years later. For additional information about the history of the Jewish American History Month, please see the Library of Congress Research Guide.
Books and films
Dedicated to the celebration of this year’s Jewish American Heritage Month, the following selection of recently released books and movies highlights the importance that American Jewry in general, and scholars and artists in particular, ascribe to the history of Jewish participation in the nation’s cultural, economic, political, and religious life from the foundation of the state until today.
Recent books
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The epigraph at the top of the page cites the recently published collection of poems “Dybbuk Americana” by the poet Joshua Gottlieb-Miller (Wesleyan University Press, 2024). Each poem tells a chapter of a personal history, scrutinizing growth, struggles, and dilemmas, starting with the grandfathers’ immigration to the US. By choosing this title—in Jewish folklore, the dybbuk is an evil spirit entering the body of the living—Gottlieb-Miller pays homage to the modern Jewish literary and artistic tradition. His poetry offers itself as a generous guide to introduce the members of the Emory community to this rich cultural realm. It is highly recommended, for example, to read and watch the performance of Sholom Ansky’s “The Dybbuk” or listen to Leonard Bernstein’s “The Dybbuk suite no. 2.” In his “A Promised Land: Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, and the Birth of Religious Freedom” (Oxford University Press, 2024) Adam Jortner focuses on the Jewish presence in the colonies establishing the United States and the role Judaism played in the formation of the nation defined not solely by Christianity based on the principle of the separation of the state and church.
“The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai” edited by Dianne Ashton with Melissa R. Klapper (New York University Press, 2024) takes the reader to Civil War Richmond, Virginia, and introduces them to the challenges Mordecai, a Southern Jewish woman deeply identifying with the values of the Confederacy, faced during the war.
Especially relevant to the Emory community, Shari Rabin’s recent “Jewish South: An American History” (Princeton University Press, 2025) explores Jewish experiences in the US South. The title itself points out the author’s interest in exploring Jewish histories as part of the broader fabric of the ethnically and religiously diverse Southern society from the establishment of the colony of Carolina until the 1960s. Emory affiliates will find it interesting to explore other resources similarly titled “The Jewish South,” especially the nineteenth-century newspapers published in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Mordechai’s home town, Richmond, Virginia.
Recent films
Of the movies released in the past year that narrate the experiences of Jewish immigrants and their descendants in the US, the two movies mentioned here focus on young American Jews’ interest in learning about the history of their families. These movies suggest that the memory of the immigrating grandfathers and great-grandfathers dissipates with the coming of age of every new generation in the US. In “Treasure,” Lena Dunham in the role of Ruth, a New York-based journalist, invites her father Edek, played by Stephen Fry, to visit Poland where he grew up, met Ruth’s mother, and survived the Holocaust, so she can better understand the family’s history and roots. Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” likewise tells the story of a visit to Poland, however, of third generation survivors. The characters of Kieran Culkin and Eisenberg, two cousins, fly to Poland to learn about their grandmother’s life and Holocaust survival before arriving in the US. The journey also presents them an opportunity to learn about themselves and each other.
It would be a mistake not to list here “The Brutalist,” the movie in which Adrian Brody plays the fictional character of László Tóth, a Jewish Hungarian who, having survived the Holocaust, arrives in the US and succeeds to revive his career as an architect. Behind the fiction of the protagonist’s persona appear the histories of real-life Jewish Hungarian architects, such as the New York architect Emery Roth (1871-1947), Marcel Breuer (1902-1981), a leading figure of the Bauhaus movement and collaborator of László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), likewise of Hungarian Jewish origins, who significantly contributed to US urban landscapes. The Emory collections offer a rich selection of works that feature and discuss their oeuvre and legacy.
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Historical newspapers
The Emory community has access to a wide variety of US-based Jewish newspapers published from the mid-19th century, as the Southern Jewish periodicals illustrate. The bulk of these newspapers are accessible through the library’s databases. One of the earliest Jewish newspapers published in the US was “The Jewish Messenger.” The first issue was printed on “Jan’y 2, 1857” in New York. The publisher marked the Hebrew date, “Tebeth 6, 5617,” under the header next to the Gregorian one, and indicated the origins of the newspaper title right below it by quoting the Book of Isaiah (52:7) from the Hebrew Bible as a motto in the original Hebrew: “מבַשֵּׂ֗ר ט֖וֹב מַשְׁמִ֣יעַ יְשׁוּעָ֑ה” and in English: “A messenger of good tidings, publishing salvation.” In this issue, the editors stated the newspaper’s “Object, Course, and Principles” arguing that “Living in a land glorious and free, our course will be marked by the most glowing patriotism for the land we inhabit and whose welfare we are commanded to seek, without militating against.” They aimed “to improve and edify” their readers by relying on the centuries-long tradition of Orthodox Jewish learning and thus striving to become the messenger the motto depicted. In arguing so, they demonstrate to us what it meant to participate in the American public sphere as Jews to part of the Jewish community at the time. Their message is echoed in the theme of the Jewish American Heritage Month.
—by Katalin Rac, Jewish Studies subject librarian