Book description
When westward expansion began in the early nineteenth century, the
Jewish population of the United States was only 2,500. As Jewish
immigration surged over the century between 1820 and 1920, Jews began to
find homes in the Ohio River Valley. In Jewish Communities on the Ohio
River, Amy Hill Shevitz chronicles the settlement and evolution of
Jewish communities in small towns on both banks of the river-towns such
as East Liverpool and Portsmouth, Ohio, Wheeling, West Virginia, and
Madison, Indiana. Though not large, these communities influenced
American culture and history by helping to develop the Ohio River Valley
while transforming Judaism into an American way of life. The Jewish
experience and the regional experience reflected and reinforced each
other. Jews shared regional consciousness and pride with their Gentile
neighbors. The antebellum Ohio River Valley's identity as a cradle of
bourgeois America fit very well with the middle-class aspirations and
achievements of German Jewish immigrants in particular. In these small
towns, Jewish citizens created networks of businesses and families that
were part of a distinctive middle-class culture. As a minority group
with a vital role in each community, Ohio Valley Jews fostered religious
pluralism as their contributions to local culture, economy, and civic
life countered the antisemitic sentiments of the period. Jewish
Communities on the Ohio River offers enlightening case studies of the
associations between Jewish communities in the big cities of the region,
especially Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, and the smaller river towns that
shared an optimism about the Jewish future in America. Jews in these
communities participated enthusiastically in ongoing dialogues
concerning religious reform and unity, playing a crucial role in the
development of American Judaism. The history of the Ohio River Valley
includes the stories of German and East European Jewish immigrants in
America, of the emergence of American Reform Judaism and the adaptation
of tradition, and of small-town American Jewish culture. While relating
specifically to the diversity of the Ohio River Valley, the stories of
these towns illustrate themes that are central to the larger experience
of Jews in America. Amy Hill Shevitz teaches religious studies at
California State University, Northridge.
