Tablet Article on 19th Century American Jews

 Phenomenal article today from Tablet (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/197758/subversive-jews-american-culture) about an exhibit at Princton University Art Museum (http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/1655). If you are still looking for someone to do a eulogy on, this would be a good place to start. The section on author Samuel Benjamin Helbert Judah is great. He sent a copy of his magnum opus to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and their letters back to him are hilarious (TLDR: they didn't like it).

Two favorite excerpts from the article:
"The collection encourages a shift away from the all-too-prevalent focus upon the “image of the Jew”—meaning the study of the Jew as object—and underscores the agency of Jews, their role as creators and shapers of the nascent national culture."

"The bulk of Jews in antebellum America, even if they differed from the mainstream in matters of religion, were, of course, far from subversive. They kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Seeking to win their neighbors’ respect, they strove mightily to behave well. But they too paid a price. Their names go unrecorded in the annals of American Jewish culture and they left nothing for Leonard Milberg to collect. The moral, proclaimed by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich with respect to women, is no less true with respect to Jews: the well-behaved ones seldom made history."