Q&A with Pamela S. Nadell

 

 

 

Pamela S. Nadell is the author of the new book Antisemitism, An American Tradition. Her other books include America's Jewish Women. She holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's and Gender History at American University, and she lives in North Bethesda, Maryland. 

 

Q: Why did you decide to write Antisemitism, An American Tradition?

 

A: Let me emphasize that Antisemitism, An American Tradition is not a post-October 7th book. My journey to writing this book began after the murder of 11 Jews at prayer on a Shabbat morning at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue building. The horror of that antisemitic attack swirled beyond Pittsburgh to Jews across the U.S. 

 

My small circle of historians was stunned. We had written scores of books about America's Jews—their achievements, communities, religion, and contributions to American life. As products of the purported golden age of American Jewry, we had missed the story of American antisemitism.

 

When I realized that the last good history of this topic, Antisemitism in America, written by Leonard Dinnerstein, was published in 1994, I had found the topic for my next book.

 

Q: The author and historian Michael Brenner said of the book, “No book could be more timely than Pamela S. Nadell’s magisterial history of American antisemitism. Reading her meticulous account of this country’s anti-Jewish rhetoric, agitation, and physical violence helps us to better understand the nature of today’s antisemitism.” What do you think of that description?

A: I am grateful to my colleague Professor Michael Brenner. Prof. Brenner is the eminent historian of the German Jewish experience and author most recently of In Hitler's Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism. 

 

He appreciates how displays of Jew hate, which he knows so well from German Jewish history, also manifested themselves in the U.S. They never led to genocide in America, but that does not mean that American antisemitism should be dismissed as insignificant.

 

Historians know that while the past does not repeat in the present, its echoes reverberate across time. I expect people to read this book hoping that by understanding the past and how Jews responded to antisemitism before them, they will develop ideas and strategies for how to respond to it today.

 

Q: In the course of your research for the book, did anything particularly surprise you?

 

A: Writing this book in the 21st century enabled me to use new sources that I would not have had access to previously.

 

The remarkable database newspapers.com has digitized local newspapers, including Jewish newspapers, from across the country. They enabled me to discover antisemitic attacks on synagogues, Jewish institutions, and individuals that occurred during the purportedly golden age of American Jewry.   

 

This antisemitic violence had gone under historians’ radar because they were only reported locally and often depicted as perpetrated by hoodlums. But reading those sources I discerned a pattern of agitation and violence that continued across the latter part of the 20th century.

 

Q: How would you describe the level of antisemitism in the United States today, and are you able to get a sense of what might lie ahead?

 

A: As a historian I know a lot about the past, a modicum about the present, and nothing about the future. Nevertheless I am always asked about the future. 

 

I remain convinced, as I have said for several years, that we are living in the midst of the high tide of American antisemitism. I see no signs of it abating. Nevertheless, I hope that with our allies we will in years to come to mitigate the rage against the Jewish people that has burst out.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: It is too early to start another book. I am writing articles about contemporary antisemitism.

 

You might have noticed that the book’s penultimate paragraph reports on the murders of Sarah Milgram and Yaron Lischinsky as they left the Capital Jewish Museum last May. As an author you know it is unusual to include such a recent episode in a history book appearing just a few months later.   

 

Sadly, I imagine that this will not be the last antisemitic attack that must find its place in this history.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: We live in a moment where the government is demanding that history be rewritten to emphasize a proudly patriotic history that minimizes strands of American history like the depredations of slavery.

 

I consider Antisemitism, An American Tradition to be a patriotic history. It relates the strain of Jew hatred that immigrants brought to America alongside their rucksacks and which, even as it morphed over time, continues to this day.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Pamela S. Nadell.