Abstract
This article highlights the overlap in Judaism’s presence as ethnicity and religion. By looking at the world of secular Jewish students at the University of Michigan during the first half of the 20th century, the study identifies four categories of Jews at this institution and demonstrates their overlapping as well as contrasting identities. The study thus underlines the massive diversity of secular Jewish identity in an often hostile world.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Artikel beleuchtet die Überschneidung zwischen dem Judentum als ethnischer und als religiöser Zugehörigkeitskategorie. Anhand eines Blicks auf die Welt der säkularen jüdischen Studenten an der University of Michigan in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts identifiziert die Studie vier Kategorien von Juden an dieser Institution und zeigt ihre sich überschneidenden wie auch kontrastierenden Identitäten auf. Die Studie unterstreicht damit die massive Vielfalt der säkularen jüdischen Identität in einer oft feindseligen Welt.
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Notes
The children of even assimilated Jewish parents in America are sent to a synagogue or cultural center on Sunday mornings to be taught an amalgam of Jewish history, Jewish religion, and even a bit of Hebrew, all in a rather unsophisticated manner.
There existed an analogous constellation in Germany between “juedische Deutsche” and “deutsche Juden.”.
The Nobel Prize Committee cited this book, which has been re-published in many new editions since, as the primary reason for awarding Simon the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1978.
The world of fraternities and sororities at American universities is called “Greek” due to these organizations’ names featuring Greek letters.
Please note the use of the term “Jewish racial heritage” affirms the ideas on this matter delineated at the outset of this article.
This list was taken from Hillel News, October 24, 1933.
Edmund J. Grossberg. “A Justification of the Fraternity System on the Michigan Campus,” letter to Joseph Bursley, dated May 10, 1942. Vice President for Student Services, box 4, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
“Open Tournament in Interhouse Baseball” (Michigan Daily, May 12, 1925); see the announcements under “Women” on page 5 of Michigan Daily, October 27, 1925, where the Phi Sigma Sigma house hosted women members of the Sociology Club; see the notice under “Women” on page 5 of MD, April 5, 1927 on the engagement of one Hanna Kaplan to Nathan Aronson, a member of Phi Sigma Delta.
The term “varsity” in American English denotes the leading or main team representing a university or college in competitive athletic competitions. In British English, it indicates a similar phenomenon, though mostly confined to Oxford and Cambridge.
Hillel was also one of the Jewish people’s most prominent sages and one of its major scholars and teachers, whose name therefore fit the world of higher education as modern society’s major locus of learning, research, and teaching.
The following discussion is derived from Vicary (1939). Office of Religious Affairs, box 8, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Quotes are from pages 5 and 6 of this report.
Here are Heller’s worried words: “If one feels that he must be radical, by all means let him be radical.... What distresses me, however, is the tendency of these Jewish students to protrude themselves to the leadership or forefront of such groups.” (Heller 1935).
One of the four was reinstated when he disavowed his left-wing associations and made a promise of good behavior. Two other left-wing Jewish students were temporarily suspended in October 1935 for passing out NSL literature on campus. They were quickly reinstated following a disciplinary investigation and a promise of good behavior.
Every spring from 1931 through 1942, the University of Michigan hosted an annual Spring Parley that served as a forum for student-faculty discussions on a set of mutually decided topics. The Parleys generally occurred over three days and featured students asking a faculty member questions on the pre-decided topics. The faculty then directed the ensuing discussion.
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We know of no religion in which items such as compassion for the needy, help of the weak, curtailment of individual gains in favor of the collective good do not take pride of place. Therefore, we see as particularly poignant that we publish this article in a scholarly journal devoted to the study of religion at a time when the qualities just listed have played such a decisive role in vanquishing a pandemic that threatened billions of people all over the world. Since we wrote much of this article during this raging battle, we wish to dedicate our modest contribution to the health workers all over the world whose heroic and selfless efforts were nothing short of religious deeds in the truest sense imaginable.
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Markovits, A.S., Garner, K. The pluralism of Jewish identity among students at the University of Michigan, 1897–1945: An apt microcosm of American Jewry’s cultural heterogeneity and diverse identity. Z Religion Ges Polit 4, 263–288 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41682-020-00061-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41682-020-00061-x