June 5–7, 2006

Charleston, South Carolina

All papers are copyrighted by the author.

Monday, June 5                                      ♦ = concurrent session

12:30 pm Roundtable on Regionalism: The Significance of Place in   American Jewish Life

                   Stern Center Ballroom

Moderator: William R. Ferris, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

•  Deborah Dash Moore, University of Michigan

• John Shelton Reed, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Theodore Rosengarten, College of Charleston and University of South Carolina

• George Sanchez, University of Southern California
   

3:00 pm ♦ On Stage                                                                                       

              Stern Center Ballroom

              Moderator: Hasia R. Diner, New York University

·        The Art and Craft of Comic Imitation: The Parodies of Daniel  Ottolengui Sally Sims Stokes, White House Historical Association

·        Selling (and Buying) the American Dream: The Ethics of Ambition in American Jewish Culture                                                                                                        Andrea Most, University of Toronto

·        “Jewface”: Non-Jews Playing Jews on the American Stage                      Ted Merwin, Dickinson College              

Comments: Michael Alexander, University of Oklahoma
 

♦ Taking Care of One’s Own                                                 

Arnold Hall, Jewish Studies Center

Moderator: Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Jewish Theological Seminary

·        “In Need of the Elements of Civilization”: American Reform Judaism, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and the Spreading of “Civilization” in the Levant in the 1860s                                                                                                                    Aline Voldoire, Columbia University

·        “A Power for Healing”: Newark Beth Israel Hospital and the Jewish Hospital in the United States                                                                    Alan M. Kraut, American University, and Deborah A. Kraut, Independent Scholar

·        Orphans Together: A History of New York’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum               Kim Van Alkemade, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania

·        Jewish Community Council: The Evolution of Sectarianism in a Montreal Organization                                                                                                                                     Steven Lapidus, Concordia University

Comments: Stephen Brumberg, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

5:00 pm   Roundtable on the Eldridge Street Project

 Moderator: Daniel Soyer, Fordham University

•  Jeffrey S. Gurock, Yeshiva University

• Tony Michels, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Annie Polland, Eldridge Street Project and Jewish Theological Seminary

TUESDAY, JUNE 6

9:00 am  ♦ Southern Strategies

                Addlestone Library, Room 227

                Co-sponsored by the Southern Jewish Historical Society

Moderator: Peggy K. Pearlstein, Hebraic Section of the Library of Congress

·        “Country Jews”: Reconsidering 19^th-Century Alsatian Jewish Identity in the American South                                                                            Pamela Dorn Sezgin, Gainesville College

·        The South to Center Stage: The Origins of Reform Ideology at Baltimore’s Har Sinai and in America                                                                         Mark K. Bauman, Atlanta Metropolitan College

·        Uptown and Traditional: A New Take on Baltimore’s German Jewish Community                                                                                      Jessica Elfenbein, University of Baltimore

·        Whistling Dixie while Humming Ha-Tikvah: Acculturation and Activism among the Orthodox in Fort Worth                                                                         Hollace Ava Weiner, University of Texas, Arlington

Comments: Gary P. Zola, American Jewish Archives and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
 

                 ♦ Languages and Landscapes

               Arnold Hall, Jewish Studies Center

Co-sponsored by the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program,                    College of Charleston

                         Moderator: Rebecca Korbin, Columbia University

·        Tongue Ties: the Emergence of the English-language Diaspora in the Mid-19^th Century                                                                                                      Adam Mendelsohn, Brandeis University

·        Holy Congregation, House of God: KKBE’s 1794 Synagogue Reconstructed  Daniel Kurt Ackermann, University of Virginia

                Comments: Dianne Ashton, Rowan University
 

10:45 am  “The Jewish Woman in America” after Thirty Years

                          Stern Center Ballroom

 Co-sponsored by the Jewish Women’s Archive

 Moderator: Beth Wenger, University of Pennsylvania

•   Joyce Antler, Brandeis University

•  Karla Goldman, Jewish Women’s Archive

• Mary McCune, State University of New York at Oswego

 Comments: Paula E. Hyman, Yale University
 

12:15 pm Jewish + Female = Athlete

              Stern Center Ballroom

                Panel exhibit mounted by Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, presented by Linda J. Borish, Western Michigan University

2:00 pm  ♦ Jewish Criminals

              Arnold Hall, Jewish Studies Center

Moderator: Eli Faber, John Jay College of Criminal Justice,                           City University of New York

·   The Jews of Sing-Sing                                                                          Ron Arons, Independent Scholar

·        American Prison: The Forgotten Jews, a Documentary Film in Progress Rhonda Moskowitz, Shining Light Productions

·        Bodies and Souls: The Trafficking of Jewish Prostitutes in the Americas Isabel Vincent, Independent Scholar

·        Searching Sing Sing for my Father: Harry N. Gold, Inmate # 76577,
Sing Sing Prison, 1924-1930
Robert L. Gold, Independent Scholar

♦ City Jews, Country Jews

Addlestone Library, Room 227

Moderator: Dana Greene, Appalachian State University

• Richard M. Gergel, Gergel, Nickles & Solomon

• Leonard Rogoff, Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina

• Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University

• William Toll, University of Oregon

• Lee Shai Weissbach, University of Louisville
   

Wednesday, June 7

9:00 am  ♦ Regionalism Redux

              Arnold Hall, Jewish Studies Center

Moderator: Ava F. Kahn, Independent Scholar

·        Constructing Community, Constructing Section: Regional Culture and Jewish Community across the United States                                         Amy Hill Shevitz, University of Judaism and California State University, Northridge

·        Western Jewry during the Period of Mass Migration: A Case for Regional Distinctiveness                                                                                  Ellen Eisenberg, Willamette University

·        How Southern is Southern Jewish History?                                           Eric L. Goldstein, Emory University

Comments: Eli N. Evans, author of The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South, and chair, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
 

              ♦ Inside Story: Writing about Family

  Addlestone Library, Room 227

 Moderator: Pamela S. Nadell, American University

·        Tevye on King Street: Charleston and the Translation of Sholom Aleichem Joseph Butwin, University of Washington

·        Heart of a Wife: The Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman                   Marcus D. Rosenbaum, National Public Radio

·        Voices for Justice: Jacob M. Rothschild in Atlanta (1946–1973) and Edward B. M. Browne in New York (1881–1889)                                              Janice Rothschild Blumberg, Independent Scholar

 Comments: Rachel R. Bergstein, Yale University
 

11:00 am ♦ Seeds of Statehood

               Addlestone Library, Room 227

  Moderator: Paula E. Hyman, Yale University

·        From Zionism to Ethical Nationhood: Mordecai Kaplan and Jewish Nationalism                                                                                           Noam Pianko, University of Washington

·        Sewing the Seeds of Statehood: American Garment Unions and the Establishment of the State of Israel, 1917–1952                                Adam Howard, U.S. Department of State’s Historian’s Office

 Comments: Zohar Segev, Haifa University
 

♦ First Person Singular: Wonders from the Archives

               Addlestone Library, Special Collections

Field trip to the College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library to see manuscript diaries of Joseph Lyons, Henry Nathan, and David Henry Mordecai, presented by Marie Ferrara, Harlan Greene, and Dale Rosengarten, editors of the recently published unabridged edition of Lyons’s journal
 

1:30 pm  Changing American Jewish Identities

              Addlestone Library, Room 227

Moderator: Jack Kugelmass, University of Florida

·        American Celebrity and Jewish Identity: The Enigma of Bob Dylan
David E. Kaufman, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

·        Israel and the Making of American Jewish Identities                                 Michael E. Staub, Baruch College, City University of New York

·        “Sexism Is a Sin”: Feminism and American Jewish Life in the 21^st Century Marjorie N. Feld, Babson College

Comments: Riv-Ellen Prell, University of Minnesota