Lessons on Anti-Semitism From Growing up in Rural America

Sociological Inquiry, 1991

Klein, Misha. 2014. “Teaching about Jewishness in the Heartland.” Special issue of Shofar, edited by Alan Levinson, 32(4): 89-104. Cultural anthropologist Misha Klein reflects on a Jewish Studies course, entitled Anthropology of Jews and Jewishness, taught at the University of Oklahoma. The recent explosion of interest in the anthropological study of Jews and Jewish cultures has occurred in large part because of the ways Jews provide a lens through which to examine core concepts and concerns within anthropology. As Klein conceives it, the course is an exploration of these core issues, including race, ethnicity, identity, kinship, migration, diaspora and transnationalism, gender and sexuality, religion and ritual, foodways, language, national identity, and globalization. A sample syllabus is provided.

The National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students, which covered a variety of topics, was conducted in spring 2014 by a research team from Trinity College. Of the 1,157 students in the sample, 54 percent reported instances of anti-Semitism on campus during the first six months of the 2013-2014 academic year. The data provide a snapshot of the types, context, and location of anti-Semitism as experienced by a large national sample of Jewish students at university and four-year college campuses.

Current Psychology, 2007

Few American college campuses have witnessed the number and intensity of anti-Semitic incidents reported at

Regimes of Vulnerability in Jewish American Media and Literature, 2015

INSS, 2021

Over the course of 370 years of Jewish life in America, antisemitism has fluctuated, punctuated at times by intermittent outbursts of violent acts against Jews or Jewish property. Sometimes non-Jews in America may harbor negative opinions about Jews, and it happens that they might verbalize or otherwise act upon those opinions. Those ideas, words, or deeds, however, have not assumed the form of publicly sanctioned and legalized discrimination or violence that other American groups, primarily Native Americans and African Americans, have suffered. Still, the history of Jewish life in America is replete with evidence that anti-Jewish sentiments and behavior are embraced by some of the non-Jewish