Essay - We are a Secular Nation. Our Constitution - that Document...

We are a secular nation. Our Constitution - that document that more than anything else defines what it is to be an Americ***** ***** tells us this. And yet, throughout the his*****ry of our nation religion has been an important part of both private and public life. That relationship - between faith, private acts, and ***** behavior varies in substantial ways from one era to another and ***** the members of one religion to another, but there are also common elements in the behavior of all of those who seek to keep a sense of personal identity while also participating in the ***** culture of the nation.

***** degree to which private religious identity and public political participation can be integrated ***** very much on the religion itself, as Joselit's The Wonders of America and Hart's That Old-Time Religion in Modern ***** outline. ***** depiction of life for Jews in America demonstrates the greater cost (in terms ***** ***** religious *****) that members of minority religions must make: Jews have had to be less Jewish ***** be more American in a way ***** is not true ***** Christians. (It is difficult to imag*****e, for example, that if the United States were to ***** a Jewish president ***** he or s***** would h*****ve daily Talmudic *****tudy sessions in ***** ***** that George W. Bush has daily Bible study classes in the current White House.)

***** yet, as Joselit also demonstrates, this subjugation of Jewish identity ***** America ***** h***** not produced emotional or psychological impoverishment. Jews from many different cultural traditions have created an identity as *****n Jews ***** is joyous. In coming to ***** country and in choosing to become American Jews ra*****r than Jewish Americans, Joselit argues that generations ***** American Jews have had to ***** intentional and explicit choices about what was w*****th choosing from their past. Like immigrants knowing that they could carry only a few precious things with them as ***** left the Old World for the New, American Jews ***** been able ***** select only some of the traits ***** their p*****t ***** as European *****.

***** American Jews have managed to maintain a sense of identity that allows them a certain separateness even as it allows them to join in the larger ***** life of America. Joselit argues that this ability ***** accommodate themselves to a new kind of ***** *****rises in large me*****ure from the history of ***** Jewry as ***** have over the centuries moved many times. Jews have learned to carry their identity with them as ***** of ***** few precious, if heavy pos***** that the immigrant cannot leave beh*****d. American ***** have settled for - and have selected - an identity ***** allows them to pass as "normal" ***** most of the time. But even as Jewish ********** blend in with Americ*****s of very different experiences ***** systems of belief ***** of the time, they create a ***** of identity that sets them apart by ***** together ***** a community