Maryland at 250Religious Divisions and Tolerance: The Politics of Slavery on the Eve of the Civil War
As the Civil War approached, Maryland’s Jewish community found itself divided over one of the nation’s most urgent moral questions: slavery. In his presentation, acclaimed author of Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery, Richard Kreitner explores how Jewish Marylanders, many of them recent immigrants navigating a changing and diverse society, responded to debates over slavery, abolition, religious identity and belonging. Joined by Fatimah Fanusie, PhD, Historian at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, and Anna Majeski, PhD, Lilly Curator of Religious History at MCHC, Kreitner will examine how the struggles of religious, racial, and immigrant communities shaped the ongoing pursuit of pluralism in America and the unfinished promise of equality.
Maryland at 250 is a four-part lecture series on The Values That Shape Us: Freedom, Citizenship, Free Speech, and Religion. Organized by the Maryland Center for History and Culture, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, and Maryland’s Four Centuries Project. This series is generously sponsored by Baltimore Community Foundation, Delaplaine Foundation, the Maryland 250 Commission, and Maryland’s Four Centuries Project.
