Jonathan D. Sarna


Man, Oh, Manischewitz

By Jonathan D. Sarna

Man, Oh, Manischewitz
The Moroccan-born executives of an iconic brand that once symbolized the emergence of Eastern-European Jews in America represent a new wave of Mizrahi Jews.Read More

What the Civil War Meant for American Jews

By Jonathan D. Sarna

What the Civil War Meant for American Jews
The 150th anniversary of the Civil War is upon us. April 12 is the anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter, the war’s opening shot. From then, through the sesquicentennial anniversary on April 9, 2015 of Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House and five days later of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, every major event in the “ordeal of the union” seems likely to be recounted, re-enacted, reanalyzed and, likely as not, verbally re-fought.Read More

Returning to Moscow, Where Jews Are Building, Not Fleeing

By Jonathan D. Sarna

I last visited Russia in 1986. I came then, along with the late Judaic studies scholar Benny Kraut, to meet with refuseniks, the courageous Jews who demanded the right to emigrate to Israel. Our activities were covert, and during the course of a single week Benny and I experienced the fear that constantly accompanied the Soviet Union’s Jews at that time. Our hotel room was bugged and, on one occasion, we were hidden in a closet while the KGB interrogated our hosts.Read More

New Museum on Independence Mall Is a Sign That Jews Have Arrived

By Jonathan D. Sarna

New Museum on Independence Mall Is a Sign That Jews Have Arrived
The first time I traveled to the National Museum of American Jewish History, I got lost.Read More

When Shuls Were Banned in America

By Jonathan D. Sarna

When New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood on Governors Island, in sight of the Statue of Liberty, and forcefully defended the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, he expressly made a point of distancing himself from an earlier leader of the city: Peter Stuyvesant, who understood the relationship between religion and state altogether differently than Bloomberg does.Read More



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