This document-based historical study explores the nature of the Jewish social studies curriculum in American Jewish schools in the early 20th century (c.1910-1940), a period of significant growth and reform in the modern American Jewish education enterprise. "Jewish social studies" refers to school programs in which Jewish history, Jewish civilization, and/or Jewish life were taught. The article describes the types of ideological and pedagogical issues Jewish educators contemplated when devising the purposes and practices of American Jewish schooling overall and Jewish social studies in particular. More generally, the study illustrates the kinds of affordances and constraints social studies educators in almost any context face in the process of curriculum development and reform. (Contains 1 note.)