On May 4, 2025, the Zahava and Moshael J. Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought sponsored a field trip to Plimoth Patuxet Museums for an undergraduate honors elective. The course, 鈥淧uritan New England: From Settlement to Salem,鈥 taught by Dr. Yisroel Benporat and offered under the auspices of the Robert M. Beren Department of History at both Yeshiva College and Stern College for Women, explored the rise and fall of Puritanism in England and America.
Plimoth Patuxet Museums, formerly known as Plimoth Plantation, is a living history museum of the Pilgrims, who established the first Puritan colony in New England. It offers a period-accurate replica of both a native and colonial village in the year 1627, complete with actors representing real historical figures speaking the way English sounded in the seventeenth century. This immersive experience, alongside historical commentary from museum docents, provided a powerful opportunity for the students to solidify and deepen their knowledge of the period.
For example, students engaged in long conversations with actors portraying various figures such as the wife of Isaac Allerton (a passenger on the Mayflower), Edward Winslow (a leading diplomat and three-time governor of Plymouth Colony) and the son of John Billington (the first colonist convicted and executed for murder). Students also had the opportunity to dress up in pilgrim clothing and learn ditties from the period.
In addition to experiencing the museum, students witnessed a replica of the Mayflower at Plymouth Harbor, and they visited the location of the famed Plymouth Rock. Dr. Benporat, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Puritan New England, provided additional historical context for the students, noting that the existence of this shrine-like structure ironically contradicted the pilgrims鈥 own aversion to idolatry.
The day concluded with a thoughtful discussion on the bus ride home, as students reflected on the nature of Puritanism and the differences between life in the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries. The trip exemplified the Straus Center鈥檚 mission by bringing to life seminal texts from American history and enabling students to encounter Puritanism鈥檚 enduring legacy in Western thought.
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