Pre­sent­ing the Amer­i­can Jew­ish his­tor­i­cal expe­ri­ence from its com­mu­nal begin­nings to the present through doc­u­ments, pho­tographs, and oth­er illus­tra­tions, many of which have nev­er before been pub­lished, this entire­ly new col­lec­tion of source mate­ri­als com­ple­ments exist­ing text­books on Amer­i­can Jew­ish his­to­ry with an orga­ni­za­tion and ped­a­gogy that reflect the lat­est his­to­ri­o­graph­i­cal trends and the most cre­ative teach­ing approaches. 

Ten chap­ters, orga­nized chrono­log­i­cal­ly, include source mate­ri­als that high­light the major the­mat­ic ques­tions of each era and tell many sto­ries about what it was like to immi­grate and accul­tur­ate to Amer­i­can life, prac­tice dif­fer­ent forms of Judaism, engage with the larg­er polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and social cul­tures that sur­round­ed Amer­i­can Jews, and offer assis­tance to Jews in need around the world.

At the begin­ning of each chap­ter, the edi­tors pro­vide a brief his­tor­i­cal overview high­light­ing some of the most impor­tant devel­op­ments in both Amer­i­can and Amer­i­can Jew­ish his­to­ry dur­ing that par­tic­u­lar era. Source mate­ri­als in the col­lec­tion are pre­ced­ed by short head­notes that ori­ent read­ers to the doc­u­ments’ his­tor­i­cal con­text and significance.