Jewish American literature

Last updated

Jewish American literature holds an essential place in the literary history of the United States. It encompasses traditions of writing in English, primarily, as well as in other languages, the most important of which has been Yiddish. While critics and authors generally acknowledge the notion of a distinctive corpus and practice of writing about Jewishness in America, many writers resist being pigeonholed as "Jewish voices." Also, many nominally Jewish writers cannot be considered representative of Jewish American literature, one example being Isaac Asimov.[ citation needed ] Modernism and speculative fiction are major focuses in post-Holocaust Jewish American literature.

Contents

Beginnings

Beginning with the memoirs and petitions composed by the Sephardic immigrants who arrived in America during the mid 17th century, Jewish American writing grew over the subsequent centuries to flourish in other genres as well, including fiction, poetry, and drama. The first notable voice in Jewish- American literature was Emma Lazarus, whose poem "The New Colossus" on the Statue of Liberty became the great hymnal of American immigration. [1] Gertrude Stein became one of the most influential prose-stylists of the early 20th century. [2]

The early twentieth century saw the appearance of two pioneering American Jewish novels: Abraham Cahan's "The Rise of David Levinsky" and Henry Roth's "Call It Sleep". It reached some of its most mature expression in the 20th century "Jewish American novels" by Saul Bellow, J. D. Salinger, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Chaim Potok, and Philip Roth. Their work explored the conflicting pulls between secular society and Jewish tradition which were acutely felt by the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island and by their children and grandchildren.[ citation needed ]

Present day

More recent authors like Paul Auster, Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, Joshua Cohen, Helen Epstein, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alan Kaufman, Nicole Krauss, Lev Raphael, and Art Spiegelman have continued to examine dilemmas of identity in their work, turning their attention especially to the Holocaust and the trends of both ongoing assimilation and cultural rediscovery exhibited by younger generations of American Jews. Arguably the most influential of all American Jewish novels was Leon Uris' Exodus .[ citation needed ] Its story of the struggle to create the modern state of Israel translated into Russian became the inspiration for hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants to Israel. Modern Jewish American novels often contain (a few or many) Jewish characters and address issues and themes of importance to Jewish American society such as assimilation, Zionism/Israel, and antisemitism, along with the recent phenomenon known as "New antisemitism."

Four Jewish-American writers have won the Nobel Prize in Literature: Saul Bellow, Joseph Brodsky, Bob Dylan, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Magazines such as The New Yorker have proved to be instrumental in exposing many Jewish American writers to a wider reading public.

Modernism

Modernism is a critical component to contemporary Jewish American literature. Fleeing the persecution of pogroms and anti-Semitic policies in Europe, two million Jews settled in the United States between 1880 and 1924, marking a significant cultural break with the past. [3] Themes in modern Jewish American literature expresses the difficulties of assimilation: while Jewish-Americans embraced American identity, they sought a decidedly Jewish approach to their literature. [4] Books like Saul Bellow's Dangling Man portrays the difficulty of assimilation and adapting to materialist urban consciousness. [5]

Post-1945 Jewish-American literature embrace approaches to writing centered in the postmodern. Didacticism, or telling stories for the purpose of teaching a moral lesson, is important to the writers Meyer Liben, Lionel Trilling, and Delmore Schwartz, who interweave Jewish philosophical discussion with self-identity as a basis for critiquing post-war America. [6] For instance, Liben adopts a meta-fiction as a means of exploring art and sensibility and their connection with Jewish identity. [7] Self-portraiture is another way Jewish-American writers confront identity, with Robert Mezy and Henry Roth investigating the conflicts between secular and religious life, English against Hebrew and Yiddish, and community transcending language. [8] Since the 1960s, different facets of Judaism, such as the orthodox, reform, and secular, are further stratified and entangled through the works of Saul Bellow and Chaim Potok. [9] These forms of literature are partly in response to antisemitism, reclaiming the tropes and histories that instigated the exodus to The United States, and ultimately transforming language to reflect the experiences of the Jewish diaspora. [10]

Jewish residents of New York City celebrate the Jewish New Year in a tenement converted into a synagogue. Tenement as synagogue. LCCN2016650853.jpg
Jewish residents of New York City celebrate the Jewish New Year in a tenement converted into a synagogue.

Modernism in Jewish American Literature shows how Jewish immigrants struggled with adjusting to American life and values, as well as their impact on personal identity. Saul Bellow’s “Dangling Man” expresses these themes, noting how difficult it is to adapt to another way of life, with little to no preparation, while trying to hold on to traditions and beliefs. After 1945, writers like Meyer Liben and Lionel Trilling fully took on postmodern ideas, using Jewish philosophy with some critiquing of America post- World War 2. [11] Even in the works of Robert Mezy and Henry Roth we see themes of self-portraiture, while also diving into topics of religion and secularism. [12] The works of Michael Chabon and Johnathan Safran Foer, uses Jewish speculative literature, and reimagines Jewish identity, all the while dissociating from Israel to show what it means to be a survivor of the Holocaust, and challenge the tropes of Jewish tradition. [13]

Stereotypes of Jewish People

Although Jewish stereotypes first appeared in works by non-Jewish writers, after World War II, it was often Jewish American writers themselves who evoked such fixed images. The prevalence of antisemitic stereotypes in the works of such authors has sometimes been interpreted an expression of self-hatred; however, Jewish American authors have also used these negative stereotypes in order to refute them. [14]

However, American-Jewish literature has also strongly celebrated American life. It has been primarily more an American than a Jewish literature. Perhaps the preeminent example of this is the great breakthrough novel of Saul Bellow: The Adventures of Augie March .

According to Sanford V. Sternlicht, the first generation of Jewish-American authors presented "realistic portrayals - warts and all" of Jewish immigrants. In contrast, some second or third-generation Jewish-American authors deliberately "reinforced negative stereotypes with satire and a selective realism". [15]

Speculative Literature

Speculative genres, like fantasy and science fiction, are important in post-Holocaust Jewish American literature. However, science fiction produced by a Jewish writer does not automatically suggest a work of "Jewish science fiction," as it should concern issues of Jewishness or feature prominent Jewish characters. [16] For example, Isaac Asimov is an iconic science fiction writer with a Jewish background, yet his stories do not necessarily contain a Jewish element to them. [16] Examples of foundational speculative Jewish literature include Michael Chabon's 2007 book, The Yiddish Policeman's Union , and Jonathan Safran Foer's 2016 novel, Here I Am. [17] Nonetheless, the earliest science fiction writers were New York Jews, including Jerry Sigel and Joe Shuster. These early science fiction Jewish writers based in New York City led to works like Iron Man and I, Robot, having tremendous influence on the trajectory of speculative literature. [18]

Michael Chabon's book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, imagines an alternate history where Israel is destroyed in the 1950s and Sitka, Alaska becomes the world's foremost Jewish city. Sitka (15854110325).jpg
Michael Chabon's book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, imagines an alternate history where Israel is destroyed in the 1950s and Sitka, Alaska becomes the world's foremost Jewish city.

A core theme in Jewish speculative literature is the literal and metaphorical destruction of Israel. American Jewish writers often depict Israelis in a disparaging manner, as Zionistic idealism is converted to aggressive self-righteousness targeting minorities, featuring the moral and political crisis in the country. [19] Yet, Israel remains a symbol of Jewish power and independence. In response, Jewish-American writers have marked a disassociation from Israel and Israeli Jews in an effort to redefine post-Holocaust identity. [19] Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, for instance, imagines a reality where Israel is destroyed soon after its formation, and Jews establish a homeland in Alaska with Yiddish as the central language. Chabon's book challenges the trope of suffering Jew and images of ghettos and concentration camps by creating a "tough Jew" character, along with presenting Jews as mobsters, swordsmen, and American soldiers, intentionally refraining from the Israeli Jew framework. In this way, Jewish American writers have sought to liberate themselves from being defined around Israel, despite its wide-reaching influence. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Bashevis Singer</span> Jewish American author (1903–1991)

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born Jewish-American novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated his own works into English with the help of editors and collaborators. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. A leading figure in the Yiddish literary movement, he was awarded two U.S. National Book Awards, one in Children's Literature for his memoir A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw (1970) and one in Fiction for his collection A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories (1974).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saul Bellow</span> Canadian-American writer (1915–2005)

Saul Bellow was a Canadian–American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times, and he received the National Book Foundation's lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Chabon</span> American author and Pulitzer Prize winner

Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Roth</span> American novelist (1933–2018)

Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "sensual, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of American identity. He first gained attention with the 1959 short story collection Goodbye, Columbus, which won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Ten years later, he published the bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's literary alter ego, narrates several of his books. A fictionalized Philip Roth narrates some of his others, such as the alternate history The Plot Against America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Malamud</span> American writer (1914–1986)

Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irving Howe</span> American writer, literary and social critic and socialist activist

Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israeli literature</span> Literature written in Israel by Israelis

Israeli literature is literature written in the State of Israel by Israelis. Most works classed as Israeli literature are written in the Hebrew language, although some Israeli authors write in Yiddish, English, Arabic and Russian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish culture</span> Culture of Jews and Judaism

Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not simply a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance. Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with host populations, and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community. Before the 18th century, religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life, and infused culture. Since the advent of secularization, wholly secular Jewish culture emerged likewise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish literature</span>

Jewish literature includes works written by Jews on Jewish themes, literary works written in Jewish languages on various themes, and literary works in any language written by Jewish writers. Ancient Jewish literature includes Biblical literature and rabbinic literature. Medieval Jewish literature includes not only rabbinic literature but also ethical literature, philosophical literature, mystical literature, various other forms of prose including history and fiction, and various forms of poetry of both religious and secular varieties. The production of Jewish literature has flowered with the modern emergence of secular Jewish culture. Modern Jewish literature has included Yiddish literature, Judeo-Tat literature, Ladino literature, Hebrew literature, and Jewish American literature.

Edward Lewis Wallant was an American novelist who wrote The Pawnbroker (1961). It was adapted into an award-winning film of the same name, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Rod Steiger. He also worked in the 1950s an art director at advertising firm McCann-Erickson.

<i>The Yiddish Policemens Union</i> Novel by Michael Chabon

The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a 2007 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The novel is a detective story set in an alternative history version of the present day, based on the premise that during World War II, a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Sitka, Alaska, in 1941, and that the fledgling State of Israel was destroyed in 1948. The novel is set in Sitka, which it depicts as a large, Yiddish-speaking metropolis.

Sarah Blacher Cohen was an American writer, scholar, and playwright, and a professor at SUNY Albany for 30 years. Her area of specialty was Jewish American fiction. Her published books include Comic Relief: Humor in Contemporary American Literature, Saul Bellow's Enigmatic Laughter (1974), and Cynthia Ozick's Comic Art: From Levity to Liturgy. She edited From Hester Street to Hollywood: The Jewish-American Stage and Screen, Making a Scene: The Contemporary Drama of Jewish-American Women, and Jewish Wry: Essays on Jewish Humor. Her plays include The Ladies Locker Room, and Molly Picon's Return Engagement, a biographical play with music on the star of Yiddish theater. She collaborated with Joanne Koch, starting in 1989 on Sophie, Totie, and Belle, a musical on performers Sophie Tucker, Totie Fields, and Belle Barth. 'She and Joanne Koch also co-authored the plays Danny Kaye: Supreme Court Jester, Soul Sisters, Henrietta Szold: Woman of Valor, an adaptation of Saul Bellow stories entitled Saul Bellow's Stories Onstage: The Old System and a Silver Dish, and the multicultural musical Soul Sisters. Cohen and Koch co-edited an anthology of ten plays Shared Stages: Ten American Dramas of Blacks and Jews, including Driving Miss Daisy, Fires in the Mirror, and Soul Sisters. She collaborated with Isaac Bashevis Singer on the off-Broadway play Schlemiel the First. Cohen also gave talks and delivered papers, including "The Unkosher Comediennes: From Sophie Tucker to Joan Rivers." Her husband was Gary Cohen. She died of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease on November 10, 2008 age 72.

Anarchism has been an undercurrent in the politics of Palestine and Israel for over a century. The anarchist ideology arrived in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century, carried by a big wave of emigrants from Eastern Europe. The ideas of Peter Kropotkin and Leo Tolstoy had remarkable influence on famous exponents of some Left Zionists. Anarchists organized themselves across Israel and Palestine, and influenced the worker movement in Israel. Anarchists often call for a zero state solution, to the Palestinian Israeli conflict, in reference to a complete abolition of the states of Israel and Palestine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Wisse</span> Canadian scholar of Yiddish literature

Ruth Wisse is a Canadian academic and is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University emerita. She is a noted scholar of Yiddish literature and of Jewish history and culture.

Jacob Glatstein was a Polish-born American poet and literary critic who wrote in the Yiddish language. His name is also spelled Yankev Glatshteyn or Jacob Glatshteyn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stereotypes of Jews</span> Generalized representations of Jewish people

Stereotypes of Jews are generalized representations of Jews, often caricatured and of a prejudiced and antisemitic nature.

Irving Malin was an American literary critic. Malin attended Thomas Jefferson High School and Jamaica High School and graduated magna cum laude from Queens College in 1955 and received his PhD from Stanford University in 1958. He married Ruth Lief in 1955 and they remained married until his death. He taught at the City College of New York from 1960 until his retirement in 1996. Malin did his dissertation on the fiction of William Faulkner and made his initial academic mark as a critic of American Jewish Literature, editing an early collection on the fiction of Saul Bellow as well as a critical book and a general anthology on Jewish literature in the US. He subsequently became interested in writers who practiced innovative techniques such as James Purdy and John Hawkes as well as writers who broke down the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction such as William Styron and Truman Capote. One of the pioneering academics to take an interest in metafiction and experimental writing, Malin was an early contributor to the Review of Contemporary Fiction, writing over five hundred book reviews for this and other publications. In the latter portion of his career, Malin edited several anthologies of essays on Henry James, Thomas Pynchon, William Goyen, George Garrett, Don DeLillo, Vladimir Nabokov, Leslie Fiedler, and William Gass. He was a fellow at Yaddo and the Huntington Library and served on many boards and award panels. Malin died December 3, 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Taylor (author)</span> American writer

Benjamin Taylor is an American writer whose work has appeared in a number of publications including The Atlantic, Harper's, Esquire, Bookforum, BOMB, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, The Georgia Review, Raritan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, Provincetown Arts and The Reading Room. He is a founding member of the Graduate Writing Program faculty of The New School in New York City, and has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis, the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, Bennington College and Columbia University. He has served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees of PEN American Center, has been a fellow of the MacDowell Colony and was awarded the Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger Residency at Yaddo. A Trustee of the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc., he is also a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University and a Guggenheim Fellow for 2012 - 2013. Taylor's biography of Marcel Proust, Proust: The Search, was published in October 2015 by Yale University Press as part of its newly launched Yale Jewish Lives series.

Hana Wirth-Nesher is an American-Israeli literary scholar and university professor. She is Professor of English and American Studies at Tel Aviv University, where she is also the Samuel L. and Perry Haber Chair on the Study of the Jewish Experience in the United States, and director of the Goldreich Family Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.

References

  1. ↑ "Emma Lazarus | Jewish-American, Immigrant Rights, Poet Laureate | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-02-26.
  2. ↑ "Gertrude Stein | American Writer, Modernist & Avant-Garde Poet | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2024-01-30. Retrieved 2024-02-26.
  3. ↑ Kent, Alicia A. (2007). "African, Native, and Jewish American Literature and the Reshaping of Modernism". SpringerLink: 117. doi:10.1057/9780230605107.
  4. ↑ Wade, Stephen (2022-02-15), "Jewish-American Writing since 1945", Jewish-American Writing since 1945, Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.1515/9781474473385, ISBN   978-1-4744-7338-5 , retrieved 2024-04-14. p. 53.
  5. ↑ Wade, Stephen (2022-02-15), "Jewish-American Writing since 1945", Jewish-American Writing since 1945, Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.1515/9781474473385, ISBN   978-1-4744-7338-5 , retrieved 2024-04-14. pp. 56-57.
  6. ↑ Wade, Stephen (2022-02-15), "Jewish-American Writing since 1945", Jewish-American Writing since 1945, Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.1515/9781474473385, ISBN   978-1-4744-7338-5 , retrieved 2024-04-14. pp. 54-56.
  7. ↑ Wade, Stephen (2022-02-15), "Jewish-American Writing since 1945", Jewish-American Writing since 1945, Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.1515/9781474473385, ISBN   978-1-4744-7338-5 , retrieved 2024-04-14. p. 55.
  8. ↑ Flinker, Noam. "The Dying of the Light American Jewish Self-Portayal in Henry Roth and Robert Mezey." "The Jewish Self-Portrait in European and American Literature", The Jewish Self-Portrait in European and American Literature, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2011-07-22, doi:10.1515/9783110941364, ISBN   978-3-11-094136-4 , retrieved 2024-04-14. p. 148.
  9. ↑ Wade, Stephen (2022-02-15), "Jewish-American Writing since 1945", Jewish-American Writing since 1945, Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.1515/9781474473385, ISBN   978-1-4744-7338-5 , retrieved 2024-04-14. p. 149
  10. ↑ Kent, Alicia A. (2007). "African, Native, and Jewish American Literature and the Reshaping of Modernism". SpringerLink: 160. doi:10.1057/9780230605107.
  11. ↑ Wade, Stephen (2022-02-15), "Jewish-American Writing since 1945", Jewish-American Writing since 1945, Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.1515/9781474473385, ISBN   978-1-4744-7338-5 , retrieved 2024-04-14. p. 55.
  12. ↑ Flinker, Noam. "The Dying of the Light American Jewish Self-Portayal in Henry Roth and Robert Mezey." "The Jewish Self-Portrait in European and American Literature", The Jewish Self-Portrait in European and American Literature, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2011-07-22, doi:10.1515/9783110941364, ISBN   978-3-11-094136-4 , retrieved 2024-04-14. p. 148.
  13. ↑ Gil, Noam (2020). "The Destruction of Israel and Other Fantasies in Jewish American Literature". Studies in American Jewish Literature. 39 (2): 161–181. ISSN   1948-5077.
  14. ↑ Nelson, Emmanuel Sampath (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature: I - M. Greenwood Publishing Company. p. 1175.
  15. ↑ Sternlicht, Sanford (2007). Masterpieces of Jewish American literature. Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 8. ISBN   978-0-313-33857-1. OCLC   76183866 . Retrieved November 22, 2011.
  16. 1 2 Words, Steven H. Silver in Uncanny Magazine Issue Twenty-Five | 2861. "Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Primer". Uncanny Magazine. Retrieved 2024-04-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ↑ Gil, Noam (2020). "The Destruction of Israel and Other Fantasies in Jewish American Literature". Studies in American Jewish Literature. 39 (2): 161–181. ISSN   1948-5077.
  18. ↑ Salter, Gabriel (2023-10-20). "Jewish Fantasy Worldwide: Trends in Speculative Stories From Australia to Chile, edited by Valerie Estelle Frankel". Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature. 42 (1): 227. ISSN   0146-9339.
  19. 1 2 3 Gil, Noam (2020). "The Destruction of Israel and Other Fantasies in Jewish American Literature". Studies in American Jewish Literature. 39 (2): 161–181. ISSN   1948-5077.

Further reading

These links are currently unavailable.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.