The first comprehensive history of American Jewish philanthropy and its influence on democracy and capitalism

For years, American Jewish philanthropy has been celebrated as the proudest product of Jewish endeavors in the United States, its virtues extending from the local to the global, the Jewish to the non-Jewish, and modest donations to vast endowments. Yet, as Lila Corwin Berman illuminates inThe American Jewish Philanthropic Complex, the history of American Jewish philanthropy reveals the far more complicated reality of changing and uneasy relationships among philanthropy, democracy, and capitalism.

With a fresh eye and lucid prose, and relying on previously untapped sources, Berman shows that from its nineteenth-century roots to its apex in the late twentieth century, the American Jewish philanthropic complex tied Jewish institutions to the American state. The governments regulatory effortsmost importantly, tax policiessituated philanthropy at the core of its experiments to maintain the public good without trammeling on the private freedoms of individuals. Jewish philanthropic institutions and leaders gained financial strength, political influence, and state protections within this framework. However, over time, the vast inequalities in resource distribution that marked American state policy became inseparable from philanthropic practice. By the turn of the millennium, Jewish philanthropic institutions reflected the states growing investment in capitalism against democratic interests. But well before that, Jewish philanthropy had already entered into a tight relationship with the governing forces of American life, reinforcing and even transforming the nations laws and policies.

The American Jewish Philanthropic Complexuncovers how capitalism and private interests came to command authority over the public good, in Jewish life and beyond.

US"Winner of the Saul Viener Book Prize, American Jewish Historical Society""Winner of the Ellis W. Hawley Prize, Organization of American Historians"Lila Corwin Bermanis the Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewish History at Temple University, where she directs the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History. She is author ofMetropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar DetroitandSpeaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity."A meaningful addition to the fields of Jewish studies and philanthropy.""This is a solid academic work published by an academic press, but Bermans lively prose serves her argument well."---Anne Nelson,Times Literary Supplement"In the meticulously researched work, Berman  a professor of American Jewish history at Temple University  traces the history and the transformation of the extensive network of Jewish charitable organizations, exploring how they developed over time, and how that evolution was inextricably interconnected to both changing U.S. tax law and growing capitalistic sentiments.""Professor Berman takes a deep  and brave  dive into the inner financial workings of the American Jewish community role in contributing to the entire American philanthropy industry."---Sam Bahour,Sam Bahour blog"[Lila Corwin] Bermans book provides an excellent lens to understand how the American political system and the creative approach to evolving tax laws enabled the development of a philanthropic system that is now a model for philanthropy beyond the Jewish community.""In this supremely intelligent book, Lila Corwin Berman finds in Jewish charitable institutions, legal experts, and magnates a case study of the financialization of American philanthropy over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This timely and provocative work merits careful reading and serious discussion by activists in, as well as scholars of, American philanthropy."Derek Penslar, Harvard University