The American Jewish Year Book, which spans three different centuries, is the annual record of the North American Jewish communities and provides insight into their major trends. Part I of the current volume contains the lead article: Chapter 1, “Pastrami, Verklempt, and Tshoot-spa: Non-Jews’ Use of Jewish Language in the US” by Sarah Bunin Benor. Following this chapter are three on domestic and international events, which analyze the year’s events as they affect American Jewish communal and political affairs. Three chapters analyze the demography and geography of the US, Canada, and world Jewish populations. Part II provides lists of Jewish institutions, including federations, community centers, social service agencies, national organizations, synagogues, Hillels, camps, museums, and Israeli consulates. The final chapters present national and local Jewish periodicals and broadcast media; academic resources, including Jewish Studies programs, books, journals, articles, websites, and research libraries; and lists of major events in the past year, Jewish honorees, and obituaries. While written mostly by academics, this volume conveys an accessible style, making it of interest to public officials, professional and lay leaders in the Jewish community, as well as the general public and academic researchers. The American Jewish Year Book has been a key resource for social scientists exploring comparative and historical data on Jewish population patterns. No less important, the Year Book serves organization leaders and policy makers as the source for valuable data on Jewish communities and as a basis for planning. Serious evidence-based articles regularly appear in the Year Book that focus on analyses and reviews of critical issues facing American Jews and their communities which are indispensable for scholars and community leaders. Calvin Goldscheider, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Ungerleider Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies, Brown University They have done it again. The American Jewish Year Book has produced yet another edition to add to its distinguished tradition of providing facts, figures and analyses of contemporary life in North America. Its well-researched and easily accessible essays offer the most up to date scrutiny of topics and challenges of importance to American Jewish life; to the American scene of which it is a part and to world Jewry. Whether one is an academic or professional member of the Jewish community (or just an interested reader of all things Jewish), there is not another more impressive and informative reading than the American Jewish Year Book. Debra Renee Kaufman, Professor Emerita and Matthews Distinguished University Professor, Northeastern University

In the tradition of The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs and Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feiler comes Abigail Pogrebin’s My Jewish Year, a lively chronicle of the author’s journey into the spiritual heart of Judaism. Although she grew up following some holiday rituals, Pogrebin realized how little she knew about their foundational purpose and contemporary relevance; she wanted to understand what had kept these holidays alive and vibrant, some for thousands of years. Her curiosity led her to embark on an entire year of intensive research, observation, and writing about the milestones on the religious calendar. Whether in search of a roadmap for Jewish life or a challenging probe into the architecture of Jewish tradition, readers will be captivated, educated and inspired by Abigail Pogrebin’s My Jewish Year.

Offers prayers, sources, rituals, and stories to help understand and celebrate the Jewish holidays.

Part I of each volume will feature 5-7 major review chapters, including 2-3 long chapters reviewing topics of major concern to the American Jewish community written by top experts on each topic, review chapters on "National Affairs" and "Jewish Communal Affairs" and articles on the Jewish population of the United States and the World Jewish Population. Future major review chapters will include such topics as Jewish Education in America, American Jewish Philanthropy, Israel/Diaspora Relations, American Jewish Demography, American Jewish History, LGBT Issues in American Jewry, American Jews and National Elections, Orthodox Judaism in the US, Conservative Judaism in the US, Reform Judaism in the US, Jewish Involvement in the Labor Movement, Perspectives in American Jewish Sociology, Recent Trends in American Judaism, Impact of Feminism on American Jewish Life, American Jewish Museums, Anti-Semitism in America, and Inter-Religious Dialogue in America. Part II-V of each volume will continue the tradition of listing Jewish Federations, national Jewish organizations, Jewish periodicals, and obituaries. But to this list are added lists of Jewish Community Centers, Jewish Camps, Jewish Museums, Holocaust Museums, and Jewish honorees (both those honored through awards by Jewish organizations and by receiving honors, such as Presidential Medals of Freedom and Academy Awards, from the secular world). We expand the Year Book tradition of bringing academic research to the Jewish communal world by adding lists of academic journals, articles in academic journals on Jewish topics, Jewish websites, and books on American and Canadian Jews. Finally, we add a list of major events in the North American Jewish Community.

A leading cultural historian explores the complex interactions of Jewish and American cultures.

Traditionally, American Jews have been broadly liberal in their political outlook; indeed African-Americans are the only ethnic group more likely to vote Democratic in US elections. Over the past half century, however, attitudes on one topic have stood in sharp contrast to this group's generally progressive stance: support for Israel. Despite Israel's record of militarism, illegal settlements and human rights violations, American Jews have, stretching back to the 1960s, remained largely steadfast supporters of the Jewish "homeland". But, as Norman Finkelstein explains in an elegantly-argued and richly-textured new book, this is now beginning to change. Reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations, and books by commentators as prominent as President Jimmy Carter and as well-respected in the scholarly community as Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Peter Beinart, have increasingly pinpointed the fundamental illiberalism of the Israeli state. In the light of these exposes, the support of America Jews for Israel has begun to fray. This erosion has been particularly marked among younger members of the community. A 2010 Brandeis University poll found that only about one quarter of Jews aged under 40 today feel "very much" connected to Israel. In successive chapters that combine Finkelstein's customary meticulous research with polemical brio, Knowing Too Much sets the work of defenders of Israel such as Jeffrey Goldberg, Michael Oren, Dennis Ross and Benny Morris against the historical record, showing their claims to be increasingly tendentious. As growing numbers of American Jews come to see the speciousness of the arguments behind such apologias and recognize Israel's record as simply indefensible, Finkelstein points to the opening of new possibilities for political advancement in a region that for decades has been stuck fast in a gridlock of injustice and suffering.

Shows how American Jews developed a liberal political culture that has influenced their political priorities from the founding to today.

Who should count as Jewish in America? What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel? Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity? The situation of American Jews today is deeply paradoxical. Jews have achieved unprecedented integration, influence, and esteem in virtually every facet of American life. But this extraordinarily diverse community now also faces four critical and often divisive challenges: rampant intermarriage, weak religious observance, diminished cohesion in the face of waning anti-Semitism, and deeply conflicting views about Israel. Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity in light of these challenges? Who should count as Jewish in America? What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel? In this thoughtful and perceptive book, Robert H. Mnookin argues that the answers of the past no longer serve American Jews today. The book boldly promotes a radically inclusive American-Jewish community -- one where being Jewish can depend on personal choice and public self-identification, not simply birth or formal religious conversion. Instead of preventing intermarriage or ostracizing those critical of Israel, he envisions a community that embraces diversity and debate, and in so doing, preserves and strengthens the Jewish identity into the next generation and beyond.

This all-encompassing reference book covers virtually every subject pertaining to Jews in the United States. The sheer volume of information on the subjects and people relative to the Jewish experience in the United States is what makes this book so impressive. Arranged by subject -- from Feminism, Intermarriage and Conversion, Rituals and Celebrations, Business, Education, and Sports to Art and Entertainment -- chapters include A-Z and chronological listings of events, people, and more.Included in this book are descriptions of the many noteworthy Jewish Americans who had a profound effect on our country, including Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Harvey Milk, Calvin Klein, Peggy Guggenheim, Mark Rothko, Woody Allen and Gloria Steinem, just to name a few. This book brings together the issues and figures of contemporary Judaism in the United States in an adult manner unlike any other reference book of its kind.

This passionate polemic addresses itself to the ultimate questions of Jewish destiny and proclaims the primacy of Israel as the locus of the Jewish future. Hillel Halkin is an American-born Jew who has cast his personal and historical lot with Israel. Corresponding with an imaginary “American Jewish friend” who upholds the possibility of a viable Jewish life outside Israel, Halkin forcefully argues his case: Jewish history and Israeli history are two lines in the process of converging; and any Jew who chooses, in the absence of extenuating circumstances, not to live in Israel is removing himself to the peripheries of the struggle for Jewish survival and away from the center of Jewish destiny.