Jewish American Heritage Month

Read

• Explore over 400 years of Jewish American experience through this Timeline in American Jewish History presented by the Jacob Radner Center. Dive deeper to learn more about significant moments, actions, and community leaders in these accompanying American Jewish History Snapshots.
• Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated to the United States from Eastern European countries largely spoke Yiddish. Many of these words have become part of American culture and language. Read a bissel about The 22 Best Yiddish Words to Know.
• Americans and the Holocaust: This online exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum examines the motives, pressures, and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war, and genocide.

Watch

• Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies, and the American Dream” (Interlibrary loan or Youtube rental) is a historical documentary that explores the influence of Jewish culture and innovation on filmmaking during Hollywood’s golden age.
• The Jewish Americans - A Series by David Grubin is a three-night documentary that explores 350 years of Jewish American history from the first settlement in 1654 to the present. UCI Login required.
• The U.S. and the Holocaust is a documentary that examines the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the context of global antisemitism and racism, immigration and eugenics in the United States, and race laws in the American south.

Listen

• Yiddish Socialists and the Garment Industries: A century ago, Jews were at the center of the American garment industry and at the forefront of the battle for workers’ rights. This episode of the Adventures in Jewish Studies podcast features Daniel Katz and Caroline Luce discussing how Yiddish-speaking immigrants fused class and culture to empower generations of garment workers.
• The album, In a Dark Blue Night (Apple Music, YouTube, and Spotify), by composer Alex Weiser features Yiddish poetry written by newly-arrived immigrants at the turn of the century and the recorded memories of his late grandmother. It evokes vivid, buoyant adventures in the bustling immigrant world of Coney Island in the 1930s and 40s.
• La Princesa Jewbiana features Kiyomi Kowalski, whose social justice work centers on creating more inclusive spaces for Jewish people of all backgrounds as well as eradicating racism and antisemitism. This episode is part of the VOCES Podcast, which elevates diverse narratives from people who amongst their many identities, identify as Latino/a and Jewish.