A History of the Jews in America

Monumental in scope and depth, this vibrantly detailed chronicle sweeps from New Amsterdam of 1654, where Brazilian Jewish refugees established a beachhead in the future New York, to the 1980s campaign to resettle Soviet Jews in the United States. In the most comprehensive and revealing account to date of the saga of American Jewry, George Washington University historian Sachar explores how Jews faced the challenge of preserving their historic group identity within a widening matrix of Americanization. He charts the contributions of Jews from the Revolutionary War to the California Gold Rush of 1849 to labor activism and Tin Pan Alley. He also profiles scores of influential Jews ranging from Samuel Gompers to Alfred Heinz (Henry) Kissinger. Sachar ( A History of Israel ) includes particularly incisive sections on American Jews' heated divisions over Zionism, the efforts to rescue Europe's Jews from Nazism, black-Jewish relations and the Jews' impact on American culture. This absorbing narrative unfolds a splendid epic of immigration, acceptance, acculturation and reaffirmed identity in the face of institutionalized discrimination. BOMC alternate. (May)