The participation of American Jews in the nation’s bicentennial celebration will be spearheaded by experts who are being mobilized by the American Jewish Historical Society. Plans for this mobilization were formalized here this week-end at the AJHS’s 81st annual meeting.
Dr. Abraham J. Karp, professor of Jewish studies at the University of Rochester, N.Y., who was re-elected president of the society, announced that the AJHS Executive Council is making plans to hold bicentennial celebrations in 1975 in Boston, a year earlier than the national celebrations, and in Philadelphia in 1976.
The meeting marked two historic events: the centennial of Reform Judaism in America, and the 150th anniversary of the Jewish press in this country. To mark the latter event, the AJHS presented citations to Bernard Postal, associate editor, Jewish Week and American Examiner of New York; Philip Slomovitz, editor, Jewish News of Detroit; and Joseph G. Weisberg, co-publisher and executive editor, The Jewish Advocate of Boston. The presentation to Weiberg was made in absentia. All three honorees are members of the AJHS executive council.
Bicentennial plans formalized here include: publication of four special editions of the American Jewish Quarterly, devoted to historical background on the role of the Jew in American history; publication of books related to the anniversary; setting up of a mobile documentary exhibition; and preparation of data needed to research factual material for the celebrations as aids to historians and lecturers.
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