In honor of Temple Emanuel’s 150th Anniversary, we are offering this class which is Melton’s version of a Jewish-American “Stuff You Missed in History Class”! In 10 engaging sessions, learners will discuss seminal developments in American life, such as the Jewish contributions to American culture, American literature, and the Civil Rights Movement, through the lens of Jews straddling their status as both insiders and outsiders. The course will also examine antisemitism and the Holocaust, and the changing place of Zionism in the shaping of Jewish American identity. Sharing tales from immigrants, their children, and grandchildren, learners will debate the meaning of this ongoing saga. 

Lesson 1 - Timeline of American Judaism 
Lesson 2 - The Three-Generation Hypothesis: Immigrants, Their Children, and Grandchildren 
Lesson 3 - Jewish Commitments Enriched and Weakened 
Lesson 4 - General Education, Jewish Education, and Jewish Americanization 
Lesson 5 - Jews as Creators of American Culture 
Lesson 6 - Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and American-Jewish Self-Understanding 
Lesson 7 - Zionism and the State of Israel Through the Eyes of American Jewry 
Lesson 8 - More American Than Americans 
Lesson 9 - American Jewish Fiction 
Lesson 10 - Is the American Jewish Cup Half-Empty or Half-Full? 

Taught by: Sue Parker Gerson 
Sue Parker Gerson is the Senior Associate Director of the Anti-Defamation League Mountain States Region, serving Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Her work at ADL includes directing the annual Governor’s Holocaust Remembrance Program, incident response, antisemitism education and community outreach. Prior to joining ADL in 2013, Sue worked in the field of Jewish Education. She served for many years as the Colorado director of the Florence Melton School for Adult Jewish Learning and for four years as a Melton Regional Director working with schools throughout the US and Canada. Sue earned her MA from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in Jewish History and Jewish Education and is the coauthor of Teaching Jewish History (Behrman House, 2006).