Last Tuesday, Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna ’75 (NEJS) released his newest book, Lincoln and the Jews: A History. The book is co-authored by Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, the founder of the Shapell Manuscript Foundation.

The book launch was accompanied by an exhibition with the same title, which opened Friday at the New York Historical Society. According to the New York Times, the exhibit includes over 100 letters, photographs and artifacts that trace Lincoln’s life and highlight his interactions with the Jewish community from the Shapell Manuscript Collection, many of which were “never previously exhibited,” according to the Times. The exhibit is on display at the Society through June 7. University President Frederick Lawrence attended the launch, according to Provost Lisa Lynch at the faculty meeting on Thursday.

A review in the New York Times says the book “illustrates how President Abraham Lincoln … intended to secure equality and freedom for all Americans, including another growing minority group in Civil War-era America: The Jews.” In addition to this, the Times said that both the book and the accompanying exhibit “explore how Lincoln’s remarkable regard for and friendships with American Jews directly and indirectly impacted both his path to the presidency and his policy decisions once in the White House.”

“Lincoln played an important role in turning Jews from outsiders in America to insiders,” Sarna told the Times. “It’s a subject that has really been overlooked.”

Sarna, a historian of American Judaism, is the chair of the University’s Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. Sarna has written more than 30 books, including When General Grant Expelled the Jews and American Judaism: A History, which was a winner of the Jewish Book Council’s Jewish Book of the Year Award in 2004. He is also a Brandeis University alum, and graduated summa cum laude with highest honors in Judaic Studies and History in 1975.