<p> In 1947, the National Panhellenic Conference invited Jewish sororities to join its ranks, constituting the first time in the organization's history that non-Jewish sororities officially recognized their Jewish counterparts. The period of 1947-1964, I argue, became an era based on a new understanding between the Jewish and non-Jewish sororities, a "Gentlewoman's Agreement." This unspoken arrangement offered Jewish sororities unprecedented status in Greek affairs and a more visible presence within student life on college campuses across the country. However, membership came at a cost; the Jewish women had to ensure that their individual organizations' spoken beliefs conformed to those articulated by the larger, socially conservative non-Jewish groups. This significantly impacted the ways in which they responded to civil rights and the anticommunist hysteria that enveloped American society in these years. In addition to offering an appraisal of the ways in which gender shaped Jewish encounters with American higher education, the postwar Jewish sorority experience serves as a previously unexplored entry point into an examination of the limits of Jewish liberalism and provides a reevaluation of Jewish-Christian relationships during the period scholars have deemed the "Golden Age" of American Jewry </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3591262 |
| Date | 28 September 2013 |
| Creators | Kohn, Shira |
| Publisher | New York University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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