Sunday, October 26, 2008
Jewish Youth and Cultural Change:
A Conference on Rethinking American Jewish History:

"He who holds the future, holds the youth."
Max Weinreich YIVO, Poland 1935

Thanks to a generous sponsor, a select number of tickets are now available at no charge.  Reservations are required and can be made online via smarttix.

Young Jews were the majority of Jewish immigrants to the United States. They dominated the ranks of Jewish political and social movements from anarchism to the counterculture and feminism. They have played a key role in developing a Jewish press, pioneering new Jewish institutions, and creating alternatives to those institutions. They have also been the object of communal condemnation, anxiety and policy. Debates about communal change are debates about Jewish youth.

This conference brings together historians, anthropologists, and scholars of culture in order to reflect on the ways in which young Jews experienced their lives as Jews and Americans over the past two centuries, and how communal and cultural change were reflected in anxieties about Jewish youth. Scholars will ask: How do we tell the history of American Jewish life when we focus on youth? How did young Jewish men and women translate cultural change into American Jewish life? What are the differences between the 21st century and earlier eras? How does cultural memory shape these conversations?

An evening public program will bring together scholars, activists, and cultural critics to reflect on these issues.

Sponsored by: Center for Jewish History, American Jewish Historical Society, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Ratner Center for the Study of Conservative Judaism, Yeshiva University, University of Minnesota, Goren-Goldstein Center for the Study of American Jewish History at New York University

Conference Schedule

Welcome
9:00 AM
Riv-Ellen Prell, University of Minnesota

The American Jewish Historical Narrative and Youth
9: 15AM – 10:30 AM
Jonathan Sarna, Brandeis University
Tony Michels, University of Wisconsin
Deborah Dash Moore, University of Michigan
Riv-Ellen Prell, Chair

Young Immigrants and America
11:00 AM-12:20 PM
Eric Goldstein, Emory University
"Between Yiddish and English: Jewish Youth and the Struggle Over Linguistic Identity in the 1920s and 1930s"
Jeffrey S. Gurock, Yeshiva University
"The Dilemmas of Immigrant 'Tweeners': An Exploration of Age and Americanization"
Eli Lederhendler, Hebrew University
"Orphans and Prodigies: Jewish Immigrant Youth Discover America"
Chair and Respondent: Rebecca Kobrin, Columbia University

Acculturation and Anxiety about Youth
1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Melissa Klapper, Rowan University
"Anxieties About the Jewish 'Girl of the Period' in the American Jewish Press, 1860-1900"
Annie Polland, Museum at Eldridge Street
"Gold Watch, Penny Chocolate, and Becoming a Man: the Promise and Anxiety of the Bar Mitzvah in the Immigrant Generation"
Daniel Greene, Newberry Library
"Reuben Cohen Comes of Age: The Making of a Jewish American Youth"
Chair and Respondent: Eli Lederhendler, Hebrew University

Lois Greene at summer camp in the Berkshires, 1950
Metz Greene Stone Family Papers; AJHS

Post War Youth and Culture
3:15 PM-4:30 PM
Emily Alice Katz, ACLS Post Doctoral Fellow
"Pen Pals, Pilgrims, and Pioneers: Reform Youth and Israel, 1948-1967"
Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University
"Learning the Facts of Death: Holocaust Education as Rite of Passage"
David Kaufman, HUC-JIR
"Culture Heroes of the 60s Generation: Celebrity Consciousness and Jewish Youth"
Chair and Respondent: Chava Weissler, Lehigh University

Research on Contemporary Jewish Young Adults
5:00 PM -6:00 PM
Ari Kelman, UC Davis
Shifra Bronznick, Advancing Women Professionals
Jack Wertheimer, JTS
Convener: Steven M. Cohen, HUC-JIR

Evening Program

Reflections on a Century of Community Concerns about Jewish Youth
7:00 PM-8:30 PM
Moderator: Samuel Freedman, Columbia University/New York Times
Panel:
Hasia Diner, New York University
Paula Hyman, Yale University
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Mechon Hadar
Alana Newhouse, Forward

Ticket Info

Ticket Info: Thanks to a generous sponsor, a select number of tickets are now available at no charge.  Reservations are required and can be made online via smarttix.