Synopses & Reviews
Engaging media has been an ongoing issue for American Jews, as it has been for other religious communities in the United States, for several generations.
Jews, God, and Videotape is a pioneering examination of the impact of new communications technologies and media practices on the religious life of American Jewry over the past century. Shandler's examples range from early recordings of cantorial music to Hasidic outreach on the Internet. In between he explores mid-twentieth-century ecumenical radio and television broadcasting, video documentation of life cycle rituals, museum displays and tourist practices as means for engaging the Holocaust as a moral touchstone, and the role of mass-produced material culture in Jews' responses to the American celebration of Christmas.
Shandler argues that the impact of these and other media on American Judaism is varied and extensive: they have challenged the role of clergy and transformed the nature of ritual; facilitated innovations in religious practice and scholarship, as well as efforts to maintain traditional observance and teachings; created venues for outreach, both to enhance relationships with non-Jewish neighbors and to promote greater religiosity among Jews; even redefined the notion of what might constitute a Jewish religious community or spiritual experience. As Jews, God, and Videotape demonstrates, American Jews' experiences are emblematic of how religious communities' engagements with new media have become central to defining religiosity in the modern age.
Review
"All I know is that after making my way through this wide-ranging and incisive book, I will never listen to music, surf the net, send a greeting card, screen a film, watch TV, or take a photograph, let alone a trip, in quite the same way again."-American Jewish History,
Review
"Shandler's mastery of the relevant scholarly literature, his penetrating eye, and his sharp ear for a telling anecdote make this volume fascinating and illuminating. It is a valuable balance to the many institutional histories on American Jewry or analyses of American Jewish thought. It is equally important as a model of how new methodologies can offer valuable insights into phenomena that are well known but rarely understood."-Scott Ury,Religious Studies Review
Review
"The message that this richly theorized, well-researched, and crisply written book delivers to historians is that communication, no less than politics and economy, society and culture, can and should become a major venue of historical research."
-Menahem Blondheim,The Journal of American History
Review
“In Jews, God, and Videotape, Shandler provides a fresh and fascinating account of the impact of technology on the religious life of American Jews during the last one hundred years.”
-Philadelphia Inquirer,
Review
“[An] insightful analysis of the impact of modern media on religious beliefs and practices.”
-Library Journal,
Synopsis
The Los Angeles riot of 1992 marked America's first high-profile multiethnic civil unrest. Latinos, Asian Americans, whites, and African Americans were involved as both victims and assailants. Nearly half of the businesses destroyed were Korean American owned, and nearly half of the people arrested were Latino.
In the aftermath of the unrest, Los Angeles, with its extremely diverse population, emerged as a particularly useful site in which to examine race relations. Ethnic Peace in the American City documents the nature of contemporary inter-ethnic relations in the United States by describing the economic, political, and psychological dynamics of race relations in inner-city Los Angeles. Drawing from local as well as international examples, the authors present strategies such as coalition building, dispute resolution, and community organizing.
Moving beyond the stereotyped focus on negative interactions between minority groups such as Korean-owned businesses and the African American community, and countering the white-black or bi-racial paradigms of American race relations, the authors explore practical means by which ethnically fragmented neighborhoods nationwide can work together to begin to address their common concerns before tensions become explosive.
Synopsis
The Los Angeles riot of 1992 marked America's first high-profile multiethnic civil unrest. Latinos, Asian Americans, whites, and African Americans were involved as both victims and assailants. Nearly half of the businesses destroyed were Korean American owned, and nearly half of the people arrested were Latino.
In the aftermath of the unrest, Los Angeles, with its extremely diverse population, emerged as a particularly useful site in which to examine race relations. Ethnic Peace in the American City documents the nature of contemporary inter-ethnic relations in the United States by describing the economic, political, and psychological dynamics of race relations in inner-city Los Angeles. Drawing from local as well as international examples, the authors present strategies such as coalition building, dispute resolution, and community organizing.
Moving beyond the stereotyped focus on negative interactions between minority groups such as Korean-owned businesses and the African American community, and countering the white-black or bi-racial paradigms of American race relations, the authors explore practical means by which ethnically fragmented neighborhoods nationwide can work together to begin to address their common concerns before tensions become explosive.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-169) and index.
About the Author
Jeffrey Shandler is Professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. His books include While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust, Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture, and (with J. Hoberman) Entertaining America: Jews, Movies and Broadcasting. He lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
America's first multiethnic "civil unrest" -- New urban crisis: Korean-African American relations -- The media, the invisible minority, and race -- Building immigrant communities in Los Angeles: Koreatown and Pico Union -- Building cross-cultural coalitions: the Black-Korean Alliance (BKA) and the Latino-Black Roundtable (LBR) -- Conflict resolution and community development in multicultural urban centers.