American Jewish History

From its founding in 1892, the American Jewish Historical Society has encouraged the scholarly study of the American Jewish experience. At first, Jewish communal leaders, rabbis and a handful of scholars worked virtually alone to study and present American Jewish history, especially in the pages of the Society’s journal. In the 1950s, the first historians with graduate training in the field of American Jewish history attained positions at universities.

The Society’s Peekskill Conference in 1954, held to mark the 300^th anniversary of Jewish settlement in North America, served as a stimulus to professionalization and specialization of the field parallel to other social science disciplines. In 1973, the Society created the AJHS Academic Council to serve as advisors to the Board of Trustees and to provide a forum in which historians of the American Jewish experience could exchange ideas and research findings. To date, more than one hundred scholars from universities worldwide as well as independent scholars, all recognized for their writings on the American Jewish experience, have been elected to the Academic Council. Because of this growth, an Executive Committee administers the Council’s activities.

The 2010 Biennial Scholars' Conference was held in New York City in 2010.

The AJHS Academic Council’s scholarly activities include:

Editorial oversight of the Society’s flagship quarterly journal, American Jewish History Awarding of fellowships for the use of the AJHS collections Awarding prizes to recognize excellence in American Jewish history research and scholarship Certification of books, monographs, and reference works for publication Conferences and seminars for historians Lectures for general audiences Exhibition planning