Synopses & Reviews
Lila Corwin Berman asks why, over the course of the twentieth century, American Jews became increasingly fascinated, even obsessed, with explaining themselves to their non-Jewish neighbors. What she discovers is that language itself became a crucial tool for Jewish group survival and integration into American life. Berman investigates a wide range of sources radio and television broadcasts, bestselling books, sociological studies, debates about Jewish marriage and intermarriage, Jewish missionary work, and more to reveal how rabbis, intellectuals, and others created a seemingly endless array of explanations about why Jews were indispensable to American life. Even as the content of these explanations developed and shifted over time, the very project of self-explanation would become a core element of Jewishness in the twentieth century.
Review
"This is an outstanding contribution to the literature on social science and the intellectual construction of Jewish identity in the U.S. The author has done a superb job of linking the Jewish missionary movement within the religious sector with the Jewish sociological trends and the dilemma of Jewish assimilation." Janet Jacobs, author of Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews
Review
"Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity, the innovative and deeply researched new book by Lila Corwin Berman, put me in mind of an old joke about elephants. As the story goes, scientists from around the world were gathering at a conference to present their research on elephants. The German delegate's paper was titled 'An Introduction to a Bibliography on the Classification of Elephants'; the French delegate's, 'The Love Life of the Elephant'; the American's, 'Hunting Elephants for Fun and Profit.' Finally came the Jewish scientist; his paper was called 'The Elephant and the Jewish Problem.' Adam Kirsch, The Nation (read the entire Nation review)
About the Author
Lila Corwin Berman is Assistant Professor of History and Religious Studies and Mal and Lea Bank Early Career Professor in Jewish Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Presenting Jews to America
1. Spiritual Missions after the Great War: The Reform Movement and the Jewish Chautauqua Society
2. The Ghetto and Beyond: The Rising Authority of American Jewish Social Science in Interwar America
3. The Sacred and Sociological Dilemma of Jewish Intermarriage
4. Serving the Public Good and Serving God in 1940s America
5. Constructing an Ethnic America: Oscar Handlin, Nathan Glazer, and Post-World War II Social Research
6. What Is a Jew? Missionaries, Outreach, and the Cold War Ethnic Challenge
7. A Jewish Marilyn Monroe and the Civil-Rights-Era Crisis in Jewish Self-Presentation
Conclusion: Speaking of Jews
Notes