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Notes

  1. Hugh Hawkins, Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874-1889 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960):34.
  2. Lewis S. Feuer, "The Stages in the Social History of Jewish Professors in American Colleges and Universities," in American Jewish History 71:4 (June, 1982): 432.
  3. Baltimore Jewish Times (Jan., 9, 1920): 2
  4. William Rosenau, Semitic Studies in American Colleges (1896, repr. Chicago: Bloch & Newman): 15-7.
  5. Paul Ritterbrand and Harold S. Wechsler, Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994): 67-77; see also Cyrus Adler, "The Semitic Seminary of Johns Hopkins University," in Lectures, Selected Papers, Addresses (Philadelphia, 1933):162-71.
  6. Samuel Grand, A History of Zionist Youth Organizations in the United States From Their Inception to 1940 (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University Faculty of Political Science, 1958): 75-90.
  7. For a general overview of what early Jewish life was like at Johns Hopkins, see a study done in Philadelphia, Marvin Nathan, The Attitude of the Jewish Student in the Colleges and Universities Towards His Religion: A Social Study of Religious Changes (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania Faculty of Sociology, 1932).
  8. Cyrus Adler, I Have Considered the Days (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1941): 54ff.
  9. Some students kept kosher, for example see Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM) OH183 Hymen Saye (MA '31) tape 2 side A, who says that "we brown bagged our food" in response to the Hopkins cafeteria's non-kosher food.  However, most seem to have not had a problem with non-kosher food but were aware of their Jewish identity.  See, e.g., JMM MS. 161 Friedenwald Letter from Jonas Friedenwald to "Toots," 1915, folder 253, in which he talks about traveling "after Shabbos," but eating at a (non-kosher) restaurant Friday night.  Robert Spielmann ('59) reports that in the 50s there were no kosher-observant kids, even in the Alpha Epsilon Pi kitchen, Robert Spielmann, interview with the curator, July 14, 2017.
  10. In the early 70s, the KDH was almost closed because of lack of student enrollment, see JHU Archives RG. 002 Office of the President box 36 Kosher Dining Hall 1967-71.  However, enrollment soon grew, as mentioned in an interview with Gail Kaden '81, interview with the curator, July 7, 2017.  On friendmaking, Efrem Epstein ('90), interview with curator, July 31, 2017.
  11. Phi Alpha had been formed slightly before, but it was not a purely social fraternity in the traditional term.
  12. Probably there were attempts to establish more Jewish fraternities in the 1950s due to the discontinuation of some of the smaller local chapters.  Nonetheless, the attempt to grow in the 1950s attests to Jewish fraternities' importance on campus.
  13. Discussed in Spielmann, interview.  On anti-Semitism, "Administration" and "Other Organizations."
  14. President Bowman established new quotas on Jewish students, limiting their percentage to approximately 9%, toward the end of his presidency.  As expected, Bowman's administration was remarkably careful to not leave any written records of the quota policy.  This is likely related to our current knowledge that such precentage based quotas always illegally violated applicants' civil rights, which would have endangered the University's accreditation, reputation, or even government funding.  For an overview with significant evidence of the quotas, see Jason Kalman, "Dark Places Around the Unversity: The Johns Hopkins University Admissions Quota and the Jewish Community, 1945-1951," in Hebrew Union College Annual 81 (2010):233-79.
  15. Steven Muller (President 1972-90) had a Jewish father, Daniel Nathans was an interim President (1995-6), and proudly Jewish Ron Daniels has been President since 2009.
  16. William Rosenau, "The Sonneborn Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects," in Johns Hopkins University Circular (June, 1903):67.
  17. Rosenau, Semitic Studies, 17, 24.
  18. Spielmann, interview.
  19. Kaden, interview.
Notes