By Donald H. Harrison

LONG BEACH, Calif.— Prof. Hasia Diner, director of New York University's Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History, finds herself in an anomalous situation.  On the one hand, colleagues in the field of American Jewish History honor her so often as a trailblazer, she gets embarrassed.  On the other hand, she feels that professors from such related fields as American History and Modern Jewish History rarely give American Jewish History its due as a separate discipline.

Both aspects of the NYU professor's career came into focus yesterday when participants of the 12th annual conference of the Western Jewish Studies Association dined twice with Diner—at a luncheon where four colleagues paid tribute to her innovation in the field of American Jewish History, and later at a dinner at which Diner addressed the issues confronting her academic discipline.  The conference was held at California State University, Long Beach.


Hasia Diner enjoys a light moment with a colleague at Western Jewish Studies Association

Ava Kahn, who has authored such books as California Jews and Jews of the American West, told the luncheon guests that Diner had taught her to seek "non-traditional sources" in addition to traditional ones when writing histories.  Among Diner's books, for example is Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in their Age of Migration, for which, among other sources, the professor pored over cookbooks as she conducted her research.

Prof. Ellen Eisenberg of Willamette University, who has written scholarly articles about the silence of the Jewish community when Japanese-Americans were being sent to interment camps, said when structuring her research she looked to such Diner works as  In the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks, 1915-1935.

Eisenberg credited Diner with influencing her in the belief  that American Jewish History must not be insular—that the experiences of Jews should be evaluated within broader contexts.  She noted that Diner has written not only about the Jewish experience, but about those of other immigrant groups, for example Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century.

Prof. David Myers of UCLA, whose specialty is Modern Jewish History, said that Diner has "introduced new rigor to American Jewish Historians" while expanding "the pallet of colors" used by the historians in painting their subjects.  He noted that she draws upon articles in the Yiddish press, in children's books, and recipes.  Further, he said, Diner recognizes the "transnational experience" in Jewish history—how the lives of American Jews were affected not only by events and experiences on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean but also on the eastern side.  However, he warned, "exceptionalism," the notion that the American Jewish experience was an "exceptional" one, "besieges all our work, even Hasia's."

Joshua Perelman, a doctoral candidate studying under Diner and also working at the National Museum of American History in Philadelphia, said  Diner as a teacher  "is not a teller, she encourages discovery."  When a friend turned in his first draft of a doctoral dissertation, Diner told him, "let's pretend we don't know each other," and then discussed the faults of his work in such a way that he walked out feeling really great, Perelman said.  As for himself, he is now completing a dissertation on "left-wing American Jewish dancers," which he described as a "journey" which Diner inspired him to take.

Responding briefly at lunch—as she was scheduled to be the dinner speaker—Diner confessed that she is one who doesn't like attention directed at her, who would "rather make a party for someone else."  She said that she did not know that American Jewish History would become her field; that, when she was seeking direction as a graduate student, an advisor asked her if she knew any "immigrant languages."  Yiddish had been spoken in her home, she replied. "It never dawned on me that would be the entry point to the world which I aspired."

Since then she has become a proponent of the idea that "people should be risk takers in scholarship; that there is no project not worth studying."  She recalled this attitude was in contrast to a senior historian who, upon hearing she was working on a book dealing with food, responded, "I thought you were a serious historian." 

Having written books on a variety of subjects, she observed that she likes to think of each new project as something to learn from the ground up, to learn de novo.   Furthermore, she said, she doesn't fret and urges her students not to become stressed over whether their book will be perfect, or the ultimate word on a subject.  If that were possible, history would be unbelievably boring.  Better that a book by one scholar prompts books to be written by other scholars "to prove that you're wrong."

Diner was more somber over dinner.  Notwithstanding her efforts and those of her colleagues, the purpose of studying American Jewish History still is not well understood, neither by students nor by professors in other areas of history, she said.  

Jewish students often comprise a majority of those taking American Jewish History classes and they sometimes mistakenly believe the purpose of the class is to confirm their identities or "to make them better Jews," Diner said.  These students approach the class as if they are "insiders," then are surprised to learn that "a class with me has no connection to identity building." The professor told of a student eating a bagel in class during Passover week who self-consciously apologized for consuming a bread-rather than matzoh.  Diner responded that she didn't like students eating any food in class, but as to what he ate, she had no preferences.  This simply is outside the academic scope of their work.

The professor said she often  has to correct Jewish students who use the term "we," while discussing Jewish history.  There is no "we" in the class, except "we the students of this class want the windows open," Diner said.  She said she explains to her students that "none of us are subjects of this study," and, furthermore, there are students in the class who are not Jewish, so saying "we" tends to exclude them.  She asks the Jewish students to imagine that they were taking a class on medieval history, in which Christians in the class started saying "we," and Jews became marginalized.

Often,  at the start of the term, non-Jewish students will say to her, 'you probably are interested in why I take this class," to which she responds that there is no need to explain.  Furthermore, she asks, "Would you say this to a botany professor?"  It is not unusual for Christian students to say, "I'm not Jewish but..." and Diner said she wonders whether that is because in an American Jewish History class they feel like interlopers or  visitors rather than full participants.

Another situation that arises from time to time is when students say they are taking the class because they come from multiple backgrounds and want to sort out their identities.  She said she tells such students "maybe counseling would be a better place."

The Jewish community, said Diner, tends "to confuse Jewish studies with the Jewish continuity program."  This perhaps results from the fact that many professors in Jewish studies sit in chairs endowed by members of the Jewish community, "but we don't do it to advance a Jewish agenda," she said.  The historian's purpose is to discover facts and draw conclusions from them, and sometimes those conclusions may cause a "certain degree of discomfort."  

For example, in her class one encounters the thesis that inasmuch as the United States was a country where race was a formative issue, it was good fortune for the Jewish immigrants that they were considered on the  white side of the line.  And in a country that valued capitalism and making money, the mercantile metiér of Jews was praised—whereas, in other countries, where people scorned commercialism, Jews became objects of derision.

Students in her classes also are challenged by  facts that contradict their family's anecdotes, she said.  They may have heard that their family left Russia to escape the pogroms, but, in fact, most American immigrants came from parts of Russia where there were no pogroms, she said.

Among professors of American History, said Diner, "without reading anything we write" and regardless of how intellectually American Jewish Historians may frame their questions, "we are considered to be parochial, cheerleaders....We don't teach courses that they see as building blocks for American history."

She told of complaining once to an NYU colleague that few students seemed to be attracted to a course about the history of Jewish women in America.   The colleague responded, "Why don't you take 'Jewish' out?"  The colleague held the false view that it is possible to learn American History without learning about American Jewish History, she said.

Not knowing that Jews have played an important role in American History is like not knowing about Jews in the Labor Movement, she stated.  Sometimes, she said, she feels that to be accepted by American History colleagues, researchers in American Jewish History are required to they are Americans.

There also are problems with Modern Jewish Historians, so much so that American Jewish Historians consider themselves to be stepchildren of Modern Jewish History.  Notwithstanding the fact that all of her graduate students are required to pass an examination in Yiddish—so they can utilize numerous Jewish sources written in that language— American Jewish History is seen as "easy."  Unlike the Jews of Europe, Jews in America did not speak multiple languages, and the borders of their country didn't change.

She said she knows Modern Jewish Historians who believe falsely that anyone in the department could teach American Jewish History, notwithstanding the fact that "in other fields they recognize the fluidity of knowledge."  In this way, Modern Jewish Historians are not unlike Jewish students who believe, falsely, that because they lived as American Jews, they therefore know the subject matter.  

Whereas Modern Jewish Historians focus on such political issues as oppression and nationalism as determinative forces shaping the Jewish experience, they were not the principal forces shaping the lives of American Jews. Perhaps because of the differences in the subject matter,  American Jewish Historians "have turned to the social experience in a very creative way," she said.  For example, Diner and her colleagues have looked at class and gender as important forces shaping the American Jewish experience.

Modern Jewish Historians tend to dismiss American Jewish History as being "pale and derivative—Jewish History Lite," she said.  These colleagues believe falsely that American Jewish History is generally anecdotal rather than analytic.

"Despite marginalization by American Historians and Modern Jewish Historians, we have created a robust discipline," she declared.