Daily Podcasts Video Research

Is There Anything More American Than The Ten Commandments?

JL;DR SUMMARY Historian Jenna Weissman Joselit's book, "Set in Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments," explores the extensive cultural significance of the Ten Commandments in America. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

ReligionReligious IdentityPublic DisplaysAmerican CultureAmerican HistoryTen CommandmentsCultural ArtifactsCultural SymbolismJenna Weissman JoselitHistorical Interpretation

Places mentioned

United States
"But for historian Jenna Weissman Joselit, who wrote the column Wonders of America for the Forward for 16 years, theyre a focal point for American culture."
Alabama, United States
"this one a 5,280-pound version which had been forcibly dislodged from the Alabama courthouse, on the road."
Ohio, United States
"was the discovery of an alleged ancient version of the Ten Commandments buried really deep in a burial mound in central Ohio."
Manhattan, New York, United States
"That really came to the fore in the chapter about the shul politics down on Norfolk Street [on Manhattans Lower East Side]."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 48129
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-04-03 05:31:12 UTC
Curated 2025-04-03 19:01:37 UTC