Jews in Christian America The Pursuit of Religious Equality [Hardcover]

Separation of church and state has become a veritable creed in the American Jewish community. Focusing on the way in which Jewish actions have contributed to the development of separation, this book examines how American Jews have contended with living in a fundamentally Christian state. In the first part, Cohen covers this history hronologically from colonial times to the Second World War. Throughout this period, Jewish community leaders focused on legislation and judicial opinions that in any way bespoke established Christianity. They were principally concerned with test oaths, Sunday laws, religion in public schools, and Christianity in federal treaties--issues that in one form or another have lasted well into the twentieth century. Dealing with the period after World War II, the second part of the book consists of an in-depth analysis of Jewish participation in, and responses to, litigation on such issues as released time, prayer and bible readings in public schools, Sunday laws, and religious decorations in public places. Cohen also considers how separationism evoked differences of opinion among Jews and how it affected Jewish-Christian relations.

In the end this book stands on its own. It finally gives American Jewish historiography a picture of its varied legal and institutional response to being 'strangers in the land'. In a host nation that above all else reveres the law, that story is indispensable for understanding the American Jewish experience. --American Historical Review

A first-rate study that deserves a careful reading by all who are interested in the subtle ways American life has favored Protestantism and in the multifaceted struggle to translate the ideal of religious equality from theory into practice. --History: Reviews of New Books

A well-written and thoroughly documented book, and it has much to contribute not only to Jewish studies in America but to 19th- and 20th-century American history andl,