Woven into the Fabric: 250 Years of Jewish Life in America

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life reminds us how deeply Jewish history is woven into the American story. The objects in the collection tell a powerful narrative about the many ways Jewish people, art, and culture helped build the country. They help bring the traditional American motto, E Pluribus Unum (“Out of Many, One”), to life—reflecting a shared history while honoring the distinct cultural differences that shape it.

From a small colonial population of Jews of Sephardic descent to waves of European, Mediterranean, North African, Middle Eastern, and Asian immigrants, the American Jewish experience is a rich tapestry of distinct communities continuously shaping, and being shaped by, the American experiment.

Illuminating Pluralism

Arthur Szyk’s The United States of America (1945–1951) serves as a visual anchor for this anniversary. Topped by the Great Seal and E Pluribus Unum, Szyk’s illustration juxtaposes 19th-century marvels like the Mississippi steamboat with 20th-century triumphs like the Golden Gate Bridge. As a Polish Jewish refugee who fled Nazi totalitarianism, Szyk recognized that America’s greatest strength lay in its diversity. He captured this value by surrounding industrial monuments with portraits of the people who built them—including a farmer, factory worker, soldier, sailor, Native American, and African American—weaving a celebration of a multi-ethnic democracy into the country’s success story.

Materializing a Dual Identity

The balance between faith and patriotism is seen in this mid-19th-century challah cover crafted for Gedalyah Ullman in 1852. At its center, the American bald eagle rises over the motto E pluribus unum, surrounded by Hebrew inscriptions quoting Exodus 16:29: “See that the Lord has given you the Sabbath.” As historian Hasia Diner notes, 19th-century American Jews consistently sought to “balance the dictates of their Judaism with the dictates of their Americanism.” By dressing their weekly Shabbat table in the iconography of democracy, the Ullman family gave physical form to this blended heritage.

Fractures of Freedom

The collection also preserves the painful fractures of the country’s history. In 1861, a lithograph of Rabbi Max Lilienthal—a champion of Reform Judaism and an outspoken abolitionist—became a canvas of political rage. Angered by Lilienthal’s defense of the Union, Jacob A. Cohen of New Orleans defaced the portrait, writing that the rabbi had “discarded the Lord and taken up the sword in defense of a Negro government.” Cohen crossed out Lilienthal’s handwritten autograph, “The Lord is my Banner,” replacing it with “Abraham Lincoln is your banner.” Cohen later fought and died for the Confederacy. This artifact stands as a raw testament to how the struggle over liberty and human rights divided communities, religious groups, and families.

Global Responsibility and Unity

As the nation grew, its promise of liberty became intertwined with global humanitarian relief. The 1917 World War I poster Share, created for the Jewish Relief Campaign, depicts the United States as a maternal figure serving a bountiful meal to European refugees against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty, appealing to recent immigrants to give back.

This call for unity echoes in another Szyk artwork, The Common Cause, which depicts three World War II soldiers—one white, one Black, and one Jewish—working together on a tank. By highlighting the multiracial and multiethnic fabric of the war effort, Szyk positioned America’s diversity in defiant contrast to Nazi supremacy, reminding us that defending freedom requires a collective effort across lines of race and faith.

Justice and the Law

This dedication to American ideals is mirrored in the highest courts of law through the legacies of two pioneering Supreme Court Justices. Justice Benjamin N. Cardoza (1870–1938), who descended from prominent Sephardic families that arrived before the Revolution. He was a lifelong member of Manhattan’s historic Congregation Shearith Israel, grounding his legal career in the earliest roots of American Jewish life. Decades later, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020) carried this legacy forward. Born in Brooklyn to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, Ginsburg became a cultural icon and a fierce champion of gender equality. In her chambers, she famously displayed the Hebrew words from the Torah, “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof” (“Justice, justice shall you pursue”), powerfully weaving her Jewish values directly into the fabric of American constitutional law.

Pop Culture

In the 20th century, the blending of time-honored traditions with mainstream American culture continued to evolve, finding new expression in mass production and popular media. The Manischewitz company, founded in 1888, revolutionized the American Jewish home by mass-producing holiday staples, while mid-century cookbooks like Tempting Kosher Dishes: Prepared from World Famous Manischewitz’s Matzo Products attempted to help Jewish families balance ritual observance with a fast-paced American lifestyle.

At the same time, ancient traditions entered mainstream pop culture. Leonard Nimoy’s photograph Hands: Blessing (2002) captures the split-fingered gesture used by the Kohanim (priests) during the traditional priestly blessing. Raised in an Orthodox immigrant family, Nimoy famously adapted this childhood memory into Mr. Spock’s Vulcan salute on Star Trek. Reimagined alongside the phrase “Live long and prosper,” the ancient blessing became a global symbol of hope and tolerance.

Together, these objects of fine art, daily life, and legal history demonstrate that the story of the United States cannot be fully told without the stories carried across the Jewish diaspora. From a patriotic eagle on a 19th-century Shabbat table to the frontiers of modern science fiction and the halls of the Supreme Court, the Magnes offers an enduring reminder of a 250-year journey of distinct cultures seeking common ground, continuously shaping, and being shaped by, the American experiment.

Image at top: Arthur Szyk, The United States of America (Heritage of the Nations Series) [detail], New York, 1945. Taube Family Arthur Szyk Collection, Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, UC Berkeley, 2017.5.1.180