Philip Roth and American Jewish Identity: The Question of Authenticity

I believe that a generation of wonderful Jews will grow out of the earth.

Theodor Herzl, The Jews' State

I have always believed that Zionism means Jewish emancipation in every sense, including the spiritual and cultural, so that a Jew who creates cultural values may do so as a free man. It may be assuming on my part, but I believe that there is no Jew in the galut creating as a free man and as a free Jew. Only a Jew in Israel can do so.

Golda Meir, "What We Want of the Diaspora"

1. The Argument

Against the prophets of doom who have predicted the de mise of a recognizable American Jewish community, I argue that America has finally become a legitimate homeland for Jews; that this hypothesis may be fully illustrated if not quite proved; and that Philip Roth's recent work exudes a contemporary spirit of Jewish self-examination and cultural inquiry, a fictional essaying that in itself exemplifies a new dynamic in American Jewish life. ¹ By homeland I mean a country where Jews are living meaningful, creative Jewish lives, and where their actions and deeds in the world reflect their Jewish identities. By legitimate I mean that in America, Jews can be deeply committed to the values, aspirations, and meanings embodied in Jewish history while at the same time remaining loyal to American institutions that ensure democratic freedoms. I mean, therefore, that American Jewish signals a new, unpredicted yet vital phase of Jewish history.

I am not restating Jacob Neusner's polemic on America as the Promised Land for the Jews. In 1987, Neusner, the indefatigable Jewish scholar, proclaimed that "America is a better place to be a Jew than Jerusalem." "Here Jews have flourished," Neusner said, "not alone in politics and the economy, but in matters of art, culture, and learning." Moreover, since Jews "have found an authentically Jewish voice--their own voice--for their vision of themselves," Neusner concluded that "for here, now and for whatever future anyone can foresee, America has turned out to be our Promised Land" ("Is America" 121). Although I disagree with the assertion that by 1987 American Jews had arrived at a coherent "vision of themselves" (this would be truer for 1997 when he revised his thesis), Neusner rightly argued that Jews were building a stable, productive life in America, one that embodied and perpetuated "human value."

Yet, in order to make a powerful claim even stronger, Neusner undercut the cultural, political, spiritual, religious, and scholarly achievements of Israeli Jews by unfavorably comparing them to those of American Jews. To mention just one area: Israel had failed to become a "spiritual center for the Jewish people" because Jews around the world (and especially in America) do not look there for "stimulation," "imagination," or creative impulse. "Today," Neusner asked rhetorically, "in all the Jewish world, who--as a matter of Jewish sentiment or expression--reads an Israeli book, or looks at an Israeli painting, or goes to an Israeli play, or listens to Israeli music?" ("Is America" 124). Whether or not he was doing so deliberately, Neusner's statement (as American literary scholars will recognize) closely echoes a famous disparaging remark made in 1820 by the British critic Sydney Smith about the obscurity of all modes of art of another fledgling nation, one, like Israel, barely 50 years old at the time. "In the four quarters of the globe," Smith wrote in the vaunted Edinburgh Review, "who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?" (79). Smith's diatribe stung his American readers, though not long after he issued it Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1820) invalidated it forever. Neusner's criticism, however, lacked credibility the moment he uttered it. Not only has the Jewish state achieved distinction politically, socially, and artistically, but it also holds a...