Moses Rischin

Moses Rischin (1925-2020{{cite web |url=https://networks.h-net.org/node/28655/discussions/6353695/passing-professor-moses-rischin |title=Passing of Professor Moses Rischin |publisher=H-Judaic |date=2020-08-21 |access-date=2020-08-22}}) was an American historian, author, lecturer, editor, and emeritus professor of history at San Francisco State University.[http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/About_Jewish_History_Community/MemoryTO/LowerEastSide.htm My Jewish Learning: The Lower East Side] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080111040059/http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/About_Jewish_History_Community/MemoryTO/LowerEastSide.htm |date=2008-01-11 }}[http://www.lehrhaus.org/about/staff.html Lehrhaus Judaica – The Adult School For Jewish Studies] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514200126/http://www.lehrhaus.org/about/staff.html |date=2008-05-14 }} He coined the phrase new Mormon history in a 1969 article of the same name.http://www.sunstoneonline.com/magazine/issues/123/123-28-32.pdf{{dead link|date=February 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

Rischin is considered an authority on American ethnic and immigration history{{Cite web |url=http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointsessions/paperarchive/uppsala/ws20/manor.pdf |title=Utopia as a camouflage : The case of Abe Cahan and his legacy |access-date=2008-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607234605/http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointsessions/paperarchive/uppsala/ws20/manor.pdf |archive-date=2011-06-07 |url-status=dead }}{{cite news| url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4DD123BF934A35755C0A965958260 | work=The New York Times | title=Abigail Rischin, David A. Moss | date=1993-06-07 | accessdate=2010-05-13}} and a pioneer in the field of American Jewish history.[http://magnes.org/collections/wjhc.html Western Jewish History Center || The Magnes] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614001255/http://magnes.org/collections/wjhc.html |date=2006-06-14 }} Historian Selma Berrol, however, has challenged the minimal treatment Rischin has given to the tensions between earlier German Jews and later Russian Jews in America.[http://www.historymatters.appstate.edu/documents/leofrank.pdf Jason Schulman] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070628225306/http://www.historymatters.appstate.edu/documents/leofrank.pdf |date=2007-06-28 }}

Biography

Rischin was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. His undergraduate studies were at Brooklyn College.[http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/noindex/9496/faculty/fac-rs.htm Bulletin-Faculty R & S] Harvard University awarded him a Ph.D. in 1957.{{cite web |url=http://bss.sfsu.edu/history/Advising%20Materials/Program%20Booklets/Booklet-graduate.pdf |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2008-02-21 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070709213846/http://bss.sfsu.edu/history/Advising%20Materials/Program%20Booklets/Booklet-graduate.pdf |archivedate=2007-07-09 }}

Ruschin became a professor at San Francisco State University in 1964."Moses Rischin". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Gale. Farmington Hills, Mich.: 2001. Retrieved via Gale In Context: Biography database, 2020-08-22. In addition to his professorship, he sat on the board for the Journal of American Ethnic History and on the council of the American Jewish History Society.[http://iibp.chadwyck.com/infopage/publ/jae.htm Browse Journals][http://www.ajhs.org/academic/faculty_member.cfm?id=75 AJHS: Academic Council Member] During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Rischin was a signatory of "Historians in Defense of the Constitution" wherein 400 historians criticized efforts to impeach President Bill Clinton.[http://www.salon.com/news/1998/10/30newslist.html Salon Newsreal | "Historians in Defense of the Constitution"]{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/petition102898.htm | title=Historians' Statement on Impeachment |newspaper=The Washington Post | date=1998-10-30 | accessdate=2010-05-13}}

He was the longtime director of the Western Jewish History Center, at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, from its founding in 1967;{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/5309/edition_id/98/format/html/displaystory.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060510160405/http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/5309/edition_id/98/format/html/displaystory.html |archive-date=2006-05-10 |last=Katz |first=Leslie |date=1997-01-17 |title=Jewish History Center Marks Three Decades of Capturing the Past |work=J. The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California}}{{Cite web |title=Western Jewish History Center |date=15 March 2010 |publisher=The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley |url=https://magnes.berkeley.edu/scholars/magnes-history/people-and-institutions/institutions/western-jewish-history-center |accessdate=2020-08-22}} from 2005 until approximately 2010, an annual lecture was given there in his name.{{cite web |url=http://emanuelsf.org/downloads/chronicle/chron_dec05.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070710004656/http://emanuelsf.org/downloads/chronicle/chron_dec05.pdf |archive-date=2007-07-10 |date=2005-12-01 |work=The Temple Chronicle |place=San Francisco, Calif. |title=Mazel Tov! |page=13}} "To Dr. Moses Rischin and Dr. Ruth Rischin on the establishment of The Moses Rischin Annual Lecture at the Western Jewish History Center."

A collection of historical essays was published in Rischin's honor in 1996.An Inventory of Promises: Essays on American Jewish History: In Honor of Moses Rischin by Jeffrey S. Gurock and Marc Lee Raphael (Carlson Publishing, 1996)

A character in the 1967 novel Meyer Meyer by Helen Hudson may have been partly modeled after him.{{cite web |url=http://www.english.upenn.edu/~traister/mem.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303232141/http://www.english.upenn.edu/~traister/mem.html |archive-date=2016-03-03 |last=Traister |first=Daniel |title='You Must Remember This'; or, Libraries as a Locus of Cultural Memories |publisher=Daniel Traister's Home Page, University of Pennsylvania}}

Books

The Promised City: New York's Jews, 1870-1914 (Harvard University Press) {{ISBN|978-0674715011}}
Jews of the American West, with John Livingston (Wayne State University Press) {{ISBN|0-8143-2171-2}}
The American Gospel of Success, Individualism and Beyond, Edited with an Introduction by Moses Rischin (A Quadrangle Paperback)

Articles and essays

"The New Mormon History", The American West 6, March 1969, 49.
"The Jewish Experience in America: A View from the West"
Foreword to California Jews (2003) Brandeis University Press

Awards

1963: National Jewish Book Award in The Promised City: New York's Jews, 1870-1914{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners?category=30762|title=Past Winners|last=|first=|date=|website=Jewish Book Council|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-01-23}}