The Student Bookshelf has resources that your students and you may find useful and that are either primary sources or are age appropriate for middle school readers. The items below are written for adults but are accessible for non-specialists.
Books (GREEN = free ONLINE or FREE during pandemic from national emergency library)
Mordechay Arbell
Martin A. Cohen
Hasia Diner
- A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration, 1820-1880
- A New Promised Land: A History of Jews in America
- Jews in America [for children]
- The Jews of the United States, 1654-2000
Eli Faber
Saul S. Friedman
Laura A. Leibman
- The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects
- Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life
Seymour B. Liebman
Pamela Nadell
Joseph R. Rosenbloom
Jonathan Sarna
Irene Silverblatt
Ilan Stavans
Videos
- Lecture 1, “Pieces of Silver,” The Art of the Jewish Family: Material Culture in Early New York.
- Lecture 2, “Portrait in Ivory,” The Art of the Jewish Family: Material Culture in Early New York.
- Lecture 3, “Commonplace Things,” The Art of the Jewish Family: Material Culture in Early New York.
Websites
- AJHS Online Catalog
- Loeb Portrait Database
- Stern, First American Jewish Families
- Jewish Atlantic World Database
- Jewish Women’s Archive
Journal Articles
- Publications of American Jewish Historical Society (search by subject or person)
About and By Rebecca Gratz
- Dianne Ashton “Rebecca Gratz, 1781-1869” (JWA)
- Dianne Ashton, Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America (2015)
- Sarah Ann Hays Mordecai, Recollections of My Aunt, Rebecca Gratz (1893)
- Rebecca Gratz, The teachers’ and parents’ assistant, or, Thirteen lessons conveying to uninformed minds the first ideas of God and his attributes (1845)
- Isaac Leeser, Catechism for younger children (1839)
- Henry S. Morais, The Jews of Philadelphia: their history from the earliest settlements to the present time; a record of events and institutions, and of leading members of the Jewish community in every sphere of activity (1894)
- Rabbi David Philipson, Letters Of Rebecca Gratz (1929)
- Rebecca Gratz Blog