Cooperman, Jessica

OUR SYNOPSIS: Jessica Cooperman argues that religion was reshaped and redefined in American society during World War I, moving towards increased pluralism. The United States was previously considered a Protestant society, but the war brought increased acceptance for Jewish and Catholic Americans. Most directly, the U.S. War Department expanded its religious programming for soldiers to include Jewish and Catholic organizations through its Commission on Training Camp Activities (CTCA). She asserts “that although these policies were not implemented with the intention of challenging the cultural force of Protestantism or of the Protestant establishment, they unintentionally created space for Judaism and Catholicism to enter the pantheon of American religions.” (8) By focusing specifically on the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB), she sheds light on the Jewish context for these developments. The JWB was created within a week of the U.S. joining World War I to represent Jewish Americans in military welfare programs. Prior Jewish civic organizations came together in the JWB. However, this organization harnessed government power to go around the Jewish public and assert a particular vision of American Jewish life. She makes clear that JWB authority “always depended upon the CTCA rather than on popular consensus, and it structured itself as an autocratic institution resistant to popular opinion even within its own ranks.” (55) JWB leaders responded to YMCA efforts to impose Protestantism on soldiers with their own sectarian policies masked by appeals to American democracy.