History Film / TheJewishAmericans

* Retirony: Marcus Spiegel dies in his brother's arms after being mortally wounded in battle one year before the war ended. Right before stating that he died, the narrator stated that he looked forward to going home and opening a war with his brother.

* {{Irony}}: One of the people interviewed described how Aristocratic American Jews living in the Antebellum South were slave owners just like Southern Aristocratic Gentiles. He points out the Irony of these Jews celebrating passover (a holiday about Jews being freed from slavery in Egypt) while being served the food by their own slaves.

* JewishHolidays: These are mentioned at several points. Notably, Hank Greenberg missed a major baseball game to celebrate Yom Kippur.

* [[RealMenLoveJesus RealMenLoveYahweh]]: Played with. Some American Jews held to their faith and took it seriously. Others became atheists or neglected the customs of their faith.

* ShiksaGoddess: There are a couple instances mentioned of Jews marrying gentiles. Deconstructed in that this on occasion put a strain on their relationships with their parents, and in fact Abigail Franks even disowned her daughter for marrying a christian boy.

''The Jewish Americans'' is a 2008 [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/PBS PBS]] documentary miniseries covering 350 years in the lives of UsefulNotes/{{J|udaism}}ewish people in [[UsefulNotes/UnitedStates America]], beginning with the arrival of the first 23 Jewish refugees in New Amsterdam (now UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) in 1654 and ending in the present day.

-> "They wanted to maintain their identity as Jews. They wanted to be fully accepted as Americans."

-->-- ''Narration'''

--> "They wanted to maintain their identity as Jews. They wanted to be fully accepted as Americans."
->- Narration

''The Jewish Americans'' is a 2008 [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/PBS PBS]] documentary miniseries covering 350 years in the lives of Jews living in America, beginning with the arrival of the first 23 Jewish refugees in New Amsterdam (now New York) in 1654 and ending in the present day.

The central themes in this documentary are the struggles of American Jews to live in a country that often did not accept them, as well as the tug of war American Jews faced between assimilating into American culture and holding onto their Jewish heritage.

* YiddishAsASecondLanguage: Many American Jews immigrated from Europe and therefore spoke Yiddish. Their children as a result picked up Yiddish as a second language even while speaking English as their first.

* ProudScholarRaceGuy: Many American Jews mentioned were Educators and Legal Officials.

* AdultFear: As this documentary follows the history of American Jews, it mentions many hardships and tragedies they faced.
** Fleeing your home and coming to a strange and unwelcoming land because people in your birth country are trying to force you to abandon your religion or are trying to outright kill you.
** Watching your brother bleed out and die in your arms.
** Being murdered by an angry mob for a crime you didn't commit.
** Being trapped on the ninth story of a burning building, with the only choices being to stay and die by burning or jump and die from the impact of the fall.
** A major world power trying very hard to murder every single member of your race, including you and your entire family.

* YiddishAsASecondLanguage: Many American Jews immigrated from Europe and therefore spoke Yiddish. Their children as a result picked up Yiddish as a second language even while speaking English as their first.
* YouHaveToHaveJews: Justified, considering this is a documentary about American Jews. Also enforced in the beginning (the first Jews to arrive on the continent were permitted to stay in New Amsterdam because the colonial officials thought they would be integral to the welfare of the colony), and unsuccessfully defied throughout the documentary by Americans who tried to discriminate against Jewish Americans by terrorizing them and treating them as second class citizens.

* JewishAndNerdy: Some of the American Jews mentioned are indeed nerdy, most notably Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the two authors of the Superman comics). Though this is also inverted in that American Jews are mentioned as doing some decidedly unnerdy things, most notably Hank Greenberg who was a baseball player for the Detroit Tigers and was very much a Jewish Jock.

''The Jewish Americans'' is a [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/PBS PBS]] documentary covering 350 years in the lives of Jews living in America, beginning with the arrival of the first 23 Jewish Refugees in New Amsterdam in 1654 and ending in the present times.

The central themes in this documentary is the struggle of American Jews to live in a country that often did not accept them, as well as the tug of war American Jews faced between assimilating into American Culture and holding onto their Heritage.

The documentary is divided into four parts: "They Came to Stay", "A World of Their Own", "The Best of Times, The Worst of Times", and "Home". It was written and directed by David Grubin, narrated by Liev Schreiber, and several jewish americans were interviewed for this documentary.

You can view this documentary on youtube in four parts.

Part 1 and 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M52S1A6k4c0

Part 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-jtAB8D26U

Part 4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czqd6B7JghQ&t=1184s

* TheColonialPeriod: This is when the first 23 Jews arrived in America, arriving in New Amsterdam in 1654.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Averted. Joseph Seligman, despite being extremely wealthy and influential, was still a Jew and therefore was still banned from staying at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga.

* JewishAndNerdy: Some of the American Jews mentioned are indeed nerdy, most notably Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the two authors of the Superman comics). Though this is also inverted in that American Jews are mentioned as doing some decidedly unnerdy things, most notably Hank Greenberg who was a baseball player for the Detroit Tigers and was very much a Jewish Jock.
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony Irony]]: One of the people interviewed described how Aristocratic American Jews living in the Antebellum South were slave owners just like Southern Aristocratic Gentiles. He points out the Irony of these Jews celebrating passover (a holiday about Jews being freed from slavery in Egypt) while being served the food by their own slaves.

* NightmareFuel: When discussing the Holocaust, the documentary shows graphic images of the atrocity including emaciated corpses and piles of severed limbs.

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: American and European Society considered Jews to be this, which resulted in Jews being discriminated against and persecuted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-jtAB8D26U Part 4:

The documentary is divided into four parts: "They Came to Stay", "A World of Their Own", "The Best of Times, The Worst of Times", and "Home". It was written and directed by David Grubin, narrated by Liev Schreiber, and it includes inter