In August 1790, US president George Washington wrote a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island.

The letter committed the US to tolerance and inherent rights, telling the Jewish congregation that the fledgling nation “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

This statement became a touchstone for American Jews in the early republic, and now serves as a focal point in an innovative new course exploring how Jews have shaped and understood the American experiment as the country marks its 250th anniversary.

Offered by Brandeis University in Massachusetts, “America and its Jews at 250”  delves into the role Jews have played before and since Washington’s welcome, in US culture, law, politics and education.

The program comes as the US campus environment has become fraught for Jews, and as the American Jewish community increasingly questions its footing in the US due to antisemitism and political turmoil.

“A lot of people are saying ‘Okay, what does this anniversary mean for Americans?’” said Prof. Flora Cassen, who led the creation of the multi-disciplinary course.

“And so my question was, ‘What does it mean for Jews?’” said Cassen, the Lavine Family Director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies.

Marx Brothers, Sephardi immigration and Civil War

That question was the starting point for the course, which will comprise 26 sessions over 15 weeks starting August 26. Open to the public, it will be taught by Brandeis professors, visiting faculty, and public intellectuals.

Cassen, who joined the university’s faculty earlier this year, launched the course to bring the numerous Jewish studies centers on Brandeis’s campus together to collaborate and create connections, she said in an interview.

Brandeis, located outside of Boston – the birthplace of the American Revolution – was established by Jews in 1948 in response to discrimination in higher education against Jews and other minorities. Jewish values are core to the nonsectarian university’s identity and around 35% of its undergraduate student population is Jewish, according to the school.

The new course follows American Jewish history chronologically, starting with the first Jewish arrivals in the Americas, early Sephardi immigration and Jewish rights in the early republic.

Later........

© The Times of Israel