In his March 11 column “What the Civil War Meant to American Jews,” Jonathan Sarna argues correctly for the war’s significance to the Jewish community. He is right to bemoan the fact that Jewish organizations today have largely foregone the opportunity presented by the war’s sesquicentennial to commemorate its historic impact on Jewish life.
However, Sarna may not be aware that in 2012 the American Jewish Historical Society and the Yeshiva University Museum will mount a major New York exhibition on “Jews in the Civil War” to mark the 150th anniversary of General Grant’s Order #11 expelling Jews from the battlefield territories.
AJHS is proud to be continuing the work of Bertram Korn, who is cited by Sarna with reference to the 1961 exhibition “The American Jew in the Civil War” at the Jewish Museum. Korn, who was a driving force behind that landmark exhibition, was at the time AJHS’s president.
Jonathan Karp
Executive Director
American Jewish Historical Society
New York, N.Y.
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