Introduction

This issue of American Jewish History, devoted to "Jews and Performance," seeks to expand the scope of the trajectory of Jews, Jewishness, and the performing arts. The seven essays included in it present a colorful mosaic of subject matter and points of reference. They are grounded in traditional disciplines such as dramatic criticism, theater history, and film studies, as well as in Performance Studies, a new field that advocates a synthetic view of the arts, and extends its inquiry to ritual, games, sports, museums, and tourism. Cultural anthropologist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has defined Performance Studies as a field of inquiry where "performance" functions as an organizing concept for the understanding of a wide array of activities in the cultural field, and noted its inclusionary nature, its interest in interculturalism, and the attention it pays to various cultural forms, thus challenging established aesthetic hierarchies.¹ It is this spirit that provides cohesion to this issue.

Each of the essays in this volume stands independently and as such requires no introduction. I wish, however, to underscore some points that emerge from the juxtaposition of materials that discuss such diverse topics as theatrical stereotypes, dramatic literature, virtuoso performers, film, religion, and propaganda wars. One case in point is the tension between literature and theater regarding the theatrical work's source of legitimacy. Commonly referred to as Page vs. Stage, it has long been a point of contention between two disciplines that differ in their respective view of either the written text or the theatrical performance as the source of ultimate authority. Julius Novick, who in his article "Death of a Salesman: Deracination and Its Discontents" addresses the question of the Jewish identity of Willy Loman, the protagonist of Arthur Miller's landmark drama, represents the traditional literary approach. It regards the written text as the source of all meaning, emphasizes authorial intent, and promotes the hegemony of the author. While Novick rejoices in Miller's belated acknowledgment that the Lomans are Jews, albeit removed from heritage and community, Eric Goldman, in his discussion of Avalon, Barry Levinson's 1990 film, discredits self-proclaimed authorial intent. He argues for the spectator's interpretive legitimacy, noting that, although Levinson insists that his film is not about the immigrant experience, that is simply not so. Ellen Schiff in her survey, titillatingly entitled "Sinners, Scandals, Scoundrels, and Scamps on the American Jewish Stage," practically eliminates the boundaries between literary text and performance. She navigates between such playwrights as Sholem Asch and Clifford Odets, and magnetic stage performers like Sophie Tucker, implicitly acknowledging that legitimacy can shift between playwright and performer.

And what about Paul Robeson, the focus of Jonathan Karp's article on the performance of Black-Jewish symbiosis? The emotional intensity and longevity of Robeson live and the recorded rendition of "The Hassidic Chant" raise the question of "ownership." Does it belong to its author, the Hassidic eighteenth-century Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, or to the twentieth-century black American activist and star performer who infused it with an experience that was historically alien to that of the chant's progenitor? Additionally, Karp reminds us that the meaning of performance hinges on the interactivity between performer and audience, suggesting the fluidity of the same "cultural product" as it is transformed in different contexts. Robeson's performance of the chant in different locales—black churches, the Soviet Union, New York's Carnegie Hall—and at different historical moments, endows the same musical piece with distinctive meanings ghosted by the past and imbued by present circumstances.

In addition to interculturalism, Robeson's performance of the Hassidic chant in secular venues connects with the other major topic that emerges from this issue, i.e., the nexus of religion, performance, and entertainment. This is a charged and multifaceted subject that has not yet received the scholarly attention it merits, and it is noteworthy that it makes a strong showing in an issue devoted to Jews and Performance. Although we no longer adhere to theories that regard religious ceremonies as the singular fountainhead of...