Imagining Early American Jews Explores the Enduring Traces of Colonial Era Jewish Culture
Michael Hoberman explains that Imagining Early American Jews started out as a Covid-19 lockdown project, when he could not go anywhere and had the time to think about research he had done and books he had read. “Even if I couldn't actually go out into the field, go to an archive and look at new material,” says the Fitchburg State University professor of literature. “I could reinterpret material that we've seen already in a new light.”
Imagination is a necessary tool, because, as Hoberman writes, “Jews with early American roots [are] a breed apart—a minority within a minority within a minority.” Most of the early Jewish families assimilated into the mainstream long ago and lost their direct connection to Judaism. Nevertheless, traces of their presence remain in buildings and artefacts they left behind; in historical and genealogical documentation; and in the minds of Jewish American artists who, like Ben Katchor in A Jew of New York (a graphic novel Hoberman examines), try to imagine what it must have felt like to possess a Jewish sensibility in America’s pioneering era.
Genealogical research, he writes, has offered Jews and “members of all manner of minority groups a means of asserting their historical importance within the framework of American life.” The uncomfortable issue Hoberman raises is that while “possessing such a long history in America may seem to confer a form of entitlement and legitimacy to American Jews…it also implicates them in a series of sometimes troubling alignments. As the nation faces its distant past with an eye toward racial reckoning, Jews are no longer eligible, if they ever were, to claim the mantle of innocent and detached newcomers.”
In September, the book received a glowing appraisal in the Wall Street Journal. Last July, Professor Hoberman spoke to the BJV about his work and the questions it raises. Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
How did you get started on this approach to the subject of early American Jews?
My thinking along those lines goes back to a time in my career when I wasn't actually doing Jewish history at all, but when I was in grad school getting my PhD. The first book that I wrote was on folklore and oral history. When you study oral traditions, you learn very quickly that the historical accuracy of stories you hear is of less importance than the interpretations of the stories, the implications of the stories, and how widely the stories spread, as well as who tells them, why they tell them, and when they tell them. I applied a similar way of thinking to early Jewish American history.
Most American Jews, when they think of historical narratives, might think of the German Jews who came here in the 19th century, and then of the mass migration later from Eastern Europe. You write about the shtetl myths and the Holocaust as being foundational to that contemporary consciousness rather than the early American component. At some point, there developed a post-Holocaust imperative to make Jews part of the founding narrative. Can you explain your ideas on why that occurred?
In the realm of these legends and these mythologies, I think the starting point for many American Jews, is the Eastern European Jewish experience, the experience of the Lower East Side, and so on. And that makes sense from a purely genealogical standpoint – the majority of American Jews, myself included, have at least some ancestry that connects to those post-1882 migrations. However, I think eventually what happens is that people attach and derive meaning from their Jewish identities based on the experience of the Holocaust. When I teach Jewish literature to my students (who are overwhelmingly non-Jewish) and I first broach the subject of Jewish culture, their automatic assumption is that Jewish means the Holocaust. I think it's important to question that amd to problematize that, particularly if you consider that some of the people I write about are 10th generation American Jews.
When are Jews going to start to think about themselves as Americans and let go of the attachment? It doesn't mean that the connections to the old country aren't important. But if we want to understand how we fit into American society, it's important to let go of the idea that somehow we came from somewhere else - because, as the book explains, Jews have been here as far back as the 17th century. Another complicating factor that I talk about in the book is that since the 1980s, people have started to think in terms of multiculturalism. There's a tendency among at least some members of American minorities to attach meaning and authenticity and significance to suffering or persecution. Now, in many instances, this is completely understandable. But the reality that I perceive around me is that the [American] Jewish experience has not been one of suffering or deprivation. Maybe in certain phases, yes, but by and large, it's a success story. Jews have - with varying degrees of completion - assimilated and participated in American society, and have certainly played an active role in shaping American culture.
It's time to start thinking about Jews as part and parcel of the American experience. Looking at these earlier stories as a fount of meaning for the American Jewish experience seems to me to be a useful way to push back against the exoticization and the assumption that you can only be a legitimate participant in American multiculturalism if you could point to a particular situation where your ancestors were persecuted. Jews were persecuted overseas, but not here.
Earlier generations of Jews – let's say, late 19th century, early 20th century – very much wanted to take possession of the narrative of [Colonial era Jews], and point to it with pride. It's not so alluring to want to do that today – it means something different from what it once meant. One of the most salient points here is a humorous illustration, the Larry David story that I mention in the introduction. [On the Finding Your Roots program], he's shocked to hear that his great, great whatever was a slave owner because Jews have been so accustomed to thinking of themselves as having been on the right side of history in America. There's certainly an argument to be made for that, in certain instances. The Civil Rights movement is a very famous illustration of that, at least in some communities. But when you want to embrace the American narrative, you've got to embrace every part of it, including the parts that are embarrassing or discomforting.
Part of the Colonial story is of Jews assimilating and then disappearing. They don't stay Jews, and that's anathema to the way a lot of Jews think. To them, a Jew not being a Jew anymore is necessarily a bad thing, and so the forces that would cause a Jew not to stay Jewish are somehow suspect. That's an anxiety that many parents still feel – our kids are going to lose their Jewish identity and in a few generations, they won't be Jews. Do you think that's another reason why the Colonial part of the story is not investigated by many Jews?
I'm certain that it is. It's an illustration of the allurements of American culture, which is in some way anathema to the idea of Jewish identity. But I would say, some of these members of these families that I interviewed, whose families are no longer Jewish, still retain the memory of those connections. Secondly, I think the reason people are uncomfortable on a psychological level with thestory of Jews disappearing is because, in a way, it is symbolic of the bigger picture, which is that Jews, even Jews who didn't assimilate, assimilated, right? Every American Jew on a certain level has bought into and participated in a mainstream American culture that is not a Jewish culture.
And so even if they've retained their Jewish identity, whether through going to a synagogue or donating to Jewish causes, on a certain level, they have elected to participate in the bigger picture in American society. That fact in and of itself causes some discomfort, some misgivings. And so not wanting to look at the Colonial story is a way to avoid thinking about a very symbolic illustration of that.
And as you point out, one can have a Jewish identity without being connected religiously.
Personally, that's certainly been my experience. I was raised by two very Jewish people who were both extremely secular for different reasons. My mother grew up on a kibbutz in Israel and was told from her earliest childhood that the Torah was a bunch of stories and that you shouldn't believe anything they tell you in a synagogue. And my father, who was American-born, was a scientist, a research scientist, and extremely dismissive of religiosity in any way. But both of my parents were fully committed and thought of themselves as Jewish, and raised me to think of myself as Jewish.
Another interesting chapter is about the Native Americans and the Jews – not only in relationship to each other, but also the way that the Puritans and the Mormons connected the Jews and the Native American experiences. Again, when Jews tell the story of the pioneer story, it's like they weren't the colonizers. We Jews didn't bring guns, we brought stores and goods and helped Indians assimilate. How real is the story that the Jews were on the right side of the pioneer story?
If the object is to gain absolution and not be accused of massacring Indians, I guess you can say, yeah, the Jews, for the most part, they weren't going out there and mowing down villages in the vein of the US Cavalry. But why was the US Cavalry called out there in the first place? It was so that people could build towns and railroads and develop the West. To have participated in Westward expansion, as Jewish retailers and merchants did along with all the other merchants and retailers, is to have aided and abetted the conquest. My intention with this book is not to point the finger of accusation. I think what matters to me is why do we tell these stories? What do the stories mean to us? And how do we use these stories to try to make sense of where we are today. And so, if Jews want to tell themselves that they were not active participants in the conquest of the West because they want to think of themselves as innocent bystanders, okay. But I think that it’s an inaccurate version of American history for anybody who's reaped the benefits of westward expansion to then say, ‘Well, it was wrong, and I want to wash my hands of it.’
Maybe a growing number of American Jews are coming to grips with that reality. But I think it's an emergent change. It's a recent thing.