Making Judaism Safe for America: World War I and the Origins of Religious Pluralism

Goldstein-Goren Series in American Jewish History

by Jessica Cooperman

Honorable Mention, 2019 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical Society


A compelling story of how Judaism became integrated into mainstream American religion

In 1956, the sociologist Will Herberg described the United States as a “triple-melting pot,” a country in which “three religious communities - Protestant, Catholic, Jewish – are America.” This description of an American society in which Judaism and Catholicism stood as equal partners to Protestantism begs explanation, as Protestantism had long been the dominant religious force in the U.S. How did Americans come to embrace Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism as “the three facets of American religion?”Historians have often turned to the experiences of World War II in order to explain this transformation. However, World War I’s impact on changing conceptions of American religion is too often overlooked.

This book argues that World War I programs designed to protect the moral welfare of American servicemen brought new ideas about religious pluralism into structures of the military. Jessica Cooperman shines a light on how Jewish organizations were able to convince both military and civilian leaders that Jewish organizations, alongside Christian ones, played a necessary role in the moral and spiritual welfare of America’s fighting forces. This alone was significant, because acceptance within the military was useful in modeling acceptance in the larger society.

The leaders of the newly formed Jewish Welfare Board, which became the military’s exclusive Jewish partner in the effort to maintain moral welfare among soldiers, used the opportunities created by war to negotiate a new place for Judaism in American society. Using the previously unexplored archival collections of the JWB, as well as soldiers’ letters, memoirs and War Department correspondence, Jessica Cooperman shows that the Board was able to exert strong control over expressions of Judaism within the military. By introducing young soldiers to what it saw as appropriately Americanized forms of Judaism and Jewish identity, the JWB hoped to prepare a generation of American Jewish men to assume positions of Jewish leadership while fitting comfortably into American society.

This volume shows how, at this crucial turning point in world history, the JWB managed to use the policies and power of the U.S. government to advance its own to shape the future of American Judaism and to assert its place as a truly American religion.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Judaism, Jewish, Religion

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 16, 2018

Reviews

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before WW I, a vast wave of Jewish immigration landed on the shores of the U.S., and the native-born Jewish elite--mostly from older, Central European families that had been here for decades--had a problem and an opportunity.

The problem: in a country where Protestantism was taken for granted as just plain "American" and even other forms of Christianity, like Catholicism, were viewed as sectarian and foreign, how could they make the case that Jews and Judaism were just as American as their Protestant neighbors (and just as much a part of a pluralistic society)?

The opportunity: WW I. Not only did it provide Jews a chance to prove their American-ness by enlisting and fighting for the US--a path that Japanese-Americans would follow later, in WW II--but it also let Jewish leaders argue that they should have a central role in serving the humanitarian needs of all soldiers and the specific spiritual needs of the Jewish men in uniform.

Jessica Cooperman shows how the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) had to overcome obstacles before they could take on that role. First, they had to convince government bureaucrats that the YMCA could not do the whole job. In that respect, the Knights of Columbus (as a Catholic organization) paved the way. At the same time, they had to repel challenges from other Jewish organizations including the YMHA, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, and the Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis, all of whom challenged the exclusive status the JWB had wangled from the military.

But even when they had the sole franchise for serving Jewish enlisted men, the JWB faced challenges based on its contradictory mission. If Jews were Americans, why did they need a separate organization? And if they needed things that other Americans found superfluous--like kosher food, or Friday night services--then were they "real Americans" at all?

In part to address that contradiction and in part because of its own Reform bent, the JWB tried to mold the Jews as much as to serve them. The men it recruited as chaplains, for instance, had to look like Americans, not greenhorns. They had to speak good, even elevated English, and preferably, they would have college degrees and seminary ordination (not smicha from their rabbinical mentor). It was highly desirable for them to look healthy and athletic, as though at any moment they could drop their books and pick up guns themselves. Cooperman cites internal memos that basically translate into, "Don't send him: he looks and sounds too Jewish."

Despite that, the Reform Jews thought the JWB was too Hebrew-based and traditional. The Yiddish-speaking Jewish socialists felt that even more deeply. The Orthodox, on the other hand, saw the JWB as court Jews using their influence with the government to sell out their tradition.

Most important, the enlisted men didn't feel their needs were met. What good was it to have a chance to pray on Friday night (and Sunday morning!) when the non-Jews in the hall would be waiting impatiently for the movie to start right afterwards? What good was it to be able to use space in the YMCA building at the price of being evangelized? And especially for the recent immigrants, who had left Europe and then their homes in the U.S. to fight, why would they want to spend time with people who spoke only English and regarded them with suspicion? How did that contribute to Jewish well-being, at all?

So, it is no surprise to learn that the JWB had less and less influence in the years after the Great War ended. It did surprise me to learn that the USO descended from the combined efforts of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish organizations in that war, and that the whole framework of Protestant--Catholic--Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology--in which what we have in common is so deep and our differences so superficial--is a result of the story that Cooperman tells in this book.

I have to say (and it may be revealing my own narrow historical perspective), it was a constant struggle for me to understand that moral and spiritual uplift and character building could ever have been a concern of the U.S. military. That may possibly be because those lofty terms loosely cover the effort to keep young men far away from home from drinking, whoring, and looting. If they had said that plainly, I would have understood better. But even then, from writings about the Civil War, they should have known what (after the Vietnam War) I now take for granted: that war creates PTSD and continuing psychological and physical trauma, not better character. Did they know, and were fooling themselves? Did they not know, and why not? These questions are not Cooperman's subject, but I found it hard to put myself in the place of the people she discusses without answering them.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Jewish path in America has not always been an easy one. The acceptance of Judaism as a mainstream American religion equal to that of others did not begin until World War I, at least according to Jessica Cooperman’s “Making Judaism Safe for America: World War I and the Origins of Religious Pluralism” (New York University Press). Although some acceptance began during the first part of the 20th century, Jews still experienced economic antisemitism even after World War II. Some Jews tried to ease their economic future by changing their names, something discussed in “A Rosenberg By Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America” by Kirsten Fermaglich (New York University Press). Together, the two books offer insights into American Jewish history and the changing perception of Jews by their fellow citizens.
See the rest of my review at http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...