Adam Mendelsohn
The Revolution in Jewish Life in America
Summary
Adam Mendelsohn discusses how the American Revolution brought about significant changes in American Judaism, challenging the traditional hierarchical structure of synagogues and paving the way for a democratization of religious practices and the emergence of multiple shades of Judaism.
Adam Mendelsohn
Adam Mendelsohn is a historian of Jewish life in English-speaking lands. Much of his work focuses on the adjustment of Jews to living in challenging societies, whether liberal and laissez-faire antebellum America and Victorian London or the racialized southern United States and South Africa. Adam is the author of The Rag Race (2014), an award-winning comparative history of Jews and the clothing trade in America and the British Empire. He is also coeditor of the journal American Jewish History. He directs the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town and is an associate professor in the Department of Historical Studies. The Centre, the only of its kind in South Africa, conducts research focused on Jews in South Africa, past and present.
I’m not sure how many remain today. The heyday of Jewish life in the Caribbean was in the 18th century. Then there’s a decline in the 19th century for a whole variety of reasons, because of the economic decline of the Caribbean and the emancipation of slaves in the Caribbean. But Jews have had a presence there for centuries and remain in the Caribbean to this day.
Jews moved westward along with everyone else. In the 1850s and 1860s, San Francisco had the second largest Jewish population in the United States. It gives you a sense of its economic importance and the opportunities available for Jews. This creates the opportunity for other Jewish communities on the west coast as well.