Excerpt from History of the Settlement of Jews in Paducah and the Lower Ohio Valley My Dear Mr. Benedict: The History of the Settlement of Jews in Paducah and in the Lower Ohio Valley has received its finishing touches and is being forwarded by mail to your address. Kindly present it, with my best wishes, to the Jewish Congregation, whose president I had the honor to be many, many years ago. The old town and its kindly people have ever occupied a soft spot in my memory, and if the little sketch - unvarnished and truthful - pleases them and fills a useful place in the local history, I shall feel not only gratified, but amply compensated for the many hours of my leisure time in compiling it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

“An engaging regional history with immense national significance . . . An excellent chronicle of the minority experience in small town America.” —Ava F. Kahn, author of Jewish Voices of the California Gold Rush In Jewish Communities on the Ohio River, Amy Hill Shevitz chronicles the settlement and development of small Jewish communities in towns along the river. In these small towns, Jewish citizens created networks of businesses and families that developed into a distinctive, nineteenth-century middle-class culture. As a minority group with a vital role in each community, Ohio Valley Jews fostered American religious pluralism as they constructed a regional identity. Their contributions to the culture and economy of the region countered the anti-Semitic sentiments of the period. Shevitz discusses the associations among the towns and the big cities of the region, especially Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Also examined are Jewish communities’ relationships with, and dependence on, the Ohio River and rail networks. Jewish Communities on the Ohio River demonstrates how the circumstances of a specific region influenced the evolution of American Jewish life. “Far better composed and contextualized than most local histories of smaller Jewish communities now in print, Amy Shevitz’s book does a commendable job of detailing local developments in terms of the broader picture of both American Jewish history and Ohio Valley history.” —Lee Shai Weissbach, author of Jewish Life in Small-Town America: A History “Shevitz’s study provides both corroboration, and corrective, to the standard historiography of American Jewry . . . Shevitz provides a fascinating glimpse into the nature of small-town Jewish life, and the role Jews played in shaping their world.” —Ohio Valley Quarterly

Lee Shai Weissbach's innovative study sheds light on the functioning of smaller Jewish communities in a state representative of many in the Midwest and South. The synagogue buildings of Kentucky tell much about the experience of Kentucky Jewry. Synagogues, especially in smaller towns, have often served as the only setting available for a wide variety of communal activities. Weissbach outlines the history of every congregation established in Kentucky and every house of worship that has served Kentucky Jewry over the last 150 years, considering such issues as the financing of construction, the selection of architects, the way synagogue buildings reveal congregational attitudes, and the way local synagogue design reflects national trends. Eighty-two photographs show every one of Kentucky's synagogues, including buildings that are no longer standing or have been converted to other uses. This pictorial record documents the variety, distinctiveness, and significance of these buildings as a part of the Commonwealth's architectural, cultural, and religious landscape.

On December 17, 1862, just weeks before Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, General Grant issued what remains the most notorious anti-Jewish order by a government official in American history. His attempt to eliminate black marketeers by targeting for expulsion all Jews "as a class" from portions of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi unleashed a firestorm of controversy that made newspaper headlines and terrified and enraged the approximately 150,000 Jews then living in the United States, who feared the importation of European anti-Semitism onto American soil. Although the order was quickly rescinded by a horrified Abraham Lincoln, the scandal came back to haunt Grant when he ran for president in 1868. Never before had Jews become an issue in a presidential contest and never before had they been confronted so publicly with the question of how to balance their "American" and "Jewish" interests. Award-winning historian Jonathan D. Sarna gives us the first complete account of this little-known episode—including Grant's subsequent apology, his groundbreaking appointment of Jews to prominent positions in his administration, and his unprecedented visit to the land of Israel. Sarna sheds new light on one of our most enigmatic presidents, on the Jews of his day, and on the ongoing debate between ethnic loyalty and national loyalty that continues to roil American political and social discourse. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)

An “invaluable” collection of essays revealing the experience of Jewish soldiersand civilians during the Civil War: “Essential and illuminating.” —Harold Holzer, Moment Magazine At least 8,000 Jewish soldiers fought for the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War. A few served together in Jewish companies while most fought alongside Christian comrades. Yet even as they stood “shoulder-to-shoulder” on the battlefield, they encountered unique challenges. In Jews and the Civil War, Jonathan D. Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn assemble for the first time the foremost scholarship on the subject, little known even to specialists in the field. These accessible and far-ranging essays from top scholars are grouped into seven thematic sections—Jews and Slavery; Jews and Abolition; Rabbis and the March to War; Jewish Soldiers during the Civil War; The Home Front; Jews as a Class; and Aftermath—each with an introduction by the editors. Together they reappraise the war’s impact on Jews in the North and the South, offering a rich and fascinating portrait of the experience of Jewish soldiers and civilians from the home front to the front lines.