Registration
Tuition for this course is $50. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.
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This program is for those 18 and older.
Description
Join the Rosenbach for a special seminar on Jewish women’s history in the beautiful parlor of the Rosenbach brothers’ home on Delancey Place. Led by gifted teacher and scholar Melissa Klapper, the course explores the new book The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai.
The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai offers a vivid look at the distinctive wartime experiences of a complicated Southern Jewish white woman, a slaveholder who was forced to leave her Virginia home due to the upheavals of the Civil War but maintained a fierce devotion to her family, faith, and Confederate values. The book combines an extensive scholarly introduction with the full text of the 1864-1865 diary itself, one of the few surviving Civil War diaries by a Jewish woman. This book was initiated by the late Dr. Dianne Ashton, Professor Emerita of Philosophy and World Religion at Rowan University, and completed after her passing by Dr. Melissa R. Klapper, Professor of History at Rowan University.
Emma Mordecai lived an unusual life. She was Jewish when Jews comprised less than one percent of the population of the Old South and unmarried in a culture that offered women few options other than marriage. She was American born when most American Jews were immigrants. She affirmed and maintained her dedication to Jewish religious practice and Jewish faith while many family members embraced Christianity. Yet she also lived well within the social parameters established for Southern white women, espoused Southern values, and owned enslaved African Americans. The diary charts her daily life and her evolving perspective on Confederate nationalism and Southern identity, Jewishness, women’s roles in wartime, gendered domestic roles in slave-owning households, and the centrality of family relationships. While never losing sight of the racist social and political structures that shaped Emma Mordecai’s world, the book chronicles her experiences with dislocation and the loss of her home.
In this course, students will discuss Mordecai’s diverse identities and life experiences and consider their implications for modern America. Students are encouraged to purchase a copy of the book from H&H Books, the Rosenbach’s nonprofit bookstore partner, before the course.
Readings for this session (please read before we meet)
Dianne Ashton, “Shifting Veils”
Instructor
Melissa R. Klapper is Professor of History and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rowan University. She is the author of Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860–1920; Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890–1940; Small Strangers: The Experiences of Immigrant Children in the United States, 1880–1925; Ballet Class: An American History; and with Dianne Ashton, The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai. In 2024, Dr. Klapper led a seminar at the Rosenbach on Ballots, Babies and Banners of Peace.