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What is the relationship between American identity and Jewish identity? Are these identities in conflict, or are they completely compatible? These were some of the questions addressed in a talk by Dennis Klein, director of the Jewish Studies Program at Kean University, at the JCC of Central New Jersey in Scotch Plains on March 4.

"One can make the argument, and many do, that America introduced an entirely new chapter in Jewish history," Klein said in his lecture, "Jewish in America: Am I Giving Up Something?"

Thursday's talk was the first of a three-part University Lecture Series at the JCC, a program begun this year to bring university professors to the local community, with this year's theme being "Jews and America."

Klein discussed whether the United States can be understood as an "exceptional" country, where Jews are able to fully maintain their Jewish identities while engaging fully with the wider culture.

Two developments that Klein described as "accidents of history," support the narrative of "American exceptionalism," he said.

The first is the formation of the American colonies as a capitalist enterprise, where meritocracy was valued over one's particularistic identity.

Klein provided as an example a series of letters between Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York) when the first Jewish community arrived in the U.S. in 1654, and his employer the Dutch West India Company.

In a letter to the Dutch West India Company, Stuyvesant pronounces his disdain for the newly arrived Jews, suggesting that they be banished from the colony.

In a response, the company instructs him to tolerate the Jewish community because, as Klein paraphrased the letter, "we're in business."

"If Jews are a source of productivity and prosperity, let's not create problems," Klein said, explaining the Dutch company's position.

These letters, he said, are "a record of a transition to something entirely new."

The second development that supports the theory of American exceptionalism derives from the fact that the United States emerged during the Reformation Period, where in Europe churches competed for the mantle of "true Christianity."

Due to these schisms in Europe, America was established without an official church, Klein explained. This "accident of history," he said, anticipated the First Amendment that would guarantee Jews' freedom to practice their religion.

This pluralistic origin, Klein said, contrasted with contemporary developments in Western Europe.

Following the French Revolution of 1789, Jews were welcome into the new French state as full citizens, but "did so at a price," he said. "They had no choice, they had to accept the new French state or remain outsiders as Jews," Klein said. "Even though Jews were welcome into the new French state, they were not welcome as Jews."

In the European nation-state model, Klein suggested that the paradigm was assimilationist as opposed to the American one of pluralism (a term coined by American-Jewish intellectual Horace Kallen in the early 20th century).

"Jews bought into this; few challenged that paradigm," he said, noting that certain segments of what began to be described as "Orthodox" resisted in various ways this assimilationist paradigm.

Klein then spoke of a "counter-narrative" in American life that challenges the one of American exceptionalism.

"I refer to another argument that challenges the notion that we do not have to make this choice, that America is not as exceptional as we would like to believe," Klein said of the tradition of nativism in American history.

Nativism, he explained, is the "belief that the true America is the WASP-ish American -- white, protestant, male, and middle class." "There is a mainstream," he said of nativist attitudes, "and that mainstream doesn't include Jews."

A prominent example of this nativist strain that Klein pointed to was Henry Ford, who in his famous Model-T series placed a book in each car's glove compartment with a series of essays including one entitled "The International Jew," that argued that Jewish success in America was the result of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy.

These two ideas -- pluralism versus nativism -- Klein called "a clash of visions of America, a clash of civilizations," an allusion to political scientist Samuel Huntington's thesis on global conflict.

Exemplifying this "clash," Klein said, was the film industry during the first half of the 20th century. According to Klein, the leaders of this industry, an overwhelming number of whom were Jews, were very conscious of their own identities when making their films.

This awareness, he suggested, can be seen in how in the most popular film genre of the time, the Western, the Jewish producers and directors represented the "other," the Native American, in a sympathetic fashion.

"They portrayed [Native Americans] as a bit exotic, but sympathetically," Klein said -- a sympathy derived from their own experiences as Jews.

Klein contrasted these portrayals with another major studio, the Protestant-led Edison Trust, which "regarded Native Americans as subordinate to the white cowboy."

"This complicates our story because at its heart is the question: Is America an exceptional country or is it broken into factions into one that wants to think of it as exceptional or is it something entirely different?" he said.

Michele Dreiblatt, the director of cultural arts and education at the JCC, said that the impetus behind establishing the lecture series was to satisfy a demand in the community.

"We saw a need that people wanted to bring more intellectual programming to the community," Dreiblatt said.

Dreiblatt said that they had expected 25 people to attend the program and were pleased when 50 showed up.

The program, she said, also serves to expose the local community to the area's academic offerings.

"If we all work together and deliver what the community wants, it's a win-win," Dreiblatt said.

Upcoming events of the JCC's University Lecture Series include Gilbert Kahn, professor of political science at Kean University on "The U.S. and Israel Today: The Best of Times or The Worst of Times?" on March 11; and Edward Portnoy, adjunct professor at Rutgers University, on "Jewish Pop Culture on the Lower East Side in the 20th Century" on March 18.