American Jewish Identity Politics (review)

In 1991, David W. Belin established the Annual Lecture in American Jewish Affairs at the University of Michigan. The previously-published essays contained within American Jewish Identity Politics are part of this series, and offer a representative overview of the state of identity politics in Jewish Studies at "our [Jewish] fin de siècle, the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first" (3). Each essay has been previously published and publicly presented. Together, they represent the range and interdisciplinary scope of Jewish Studies. The authors have also participated as activists who have been instrumental in framing and articulating current conversations about American Jewish identity.

The essays are organized under three categories: World War II and Holocaust identity, religious identity and pluralism, and identity politics surrounding demographics and intermarriage. The first section on Holocaust identity examines the construction of "the Holocaust" in the minds of Jewish Americans. Deborah Dash Moore's essay on "GI Jews" explores the unique ways in which both American and Jewish identities were inculcated in Jewish GIs serving in World War II. The unsettling experience of military service gave American Jews a new sense of religio-national identity and confidence and inspired many to move beyond their traditionally Jewish urban neighborhoods. In "The Americanization of the Holocaust," Alvin H. Rosenfeld sees the Holocaust as distinctly "Americanized" through its reimagining by the American public, both Jewish and non-Jewish. He argues that the American tendency to focus on survivors and rescuers in an attempt to "balance" the horrors conducted by Hitler and the Third Reich ultimately results in an "imbalanced" historical picture of the Holocaust. Hasia Diner complicates the post-Holocaust narrative of relative silence from the American Jewish community in the immediate post-war years. Diner takes issue with the methodologies of scholars such as Peter Novick and Norman Finkelstein in their portrayals of the Holocaust in American imaginations, such as Finkelstein's controversial "Holocaust Industry" thesis, by illuminating a variety of sources that challenge the notion of Jewish post-war "silence."

The second section of this anthology considers theological issues of American Jewish identity. Arnold M. Eisen's considers post-Enlightenment relationships between observance and belief for American Jews across denominations in "Rethinking American Judaism." In "American Judaism in Historical Perspective," Jonathan D. Sarna tackles anxieties over Jewish American assimilation by demonstrating that diversity in American Judaism has paradoxically led to a sense of Jewish unity and kept American Judaism thriving, even if at the "steep price" of creating fissures within the American Jewish community (152). Jeffrey S. Gurock traces a transition of fluidity to rigidity between American Orthodox and American Conservative traditions beginning with the 1960s. As Conservative congregations increased their membership rolls, Orthodox leaders sought to separately define American Orthodoxy as distinct, thus drawing more distinct lines between the two denominations. The section's final essay by Arthur Green calls for a more inclusive approach to modern Jewish theology, one that reflects the varied experiences of Jews and Jewish groups in America, a necessary step for the viability of American Jewry as a whole.

The final section of this anthology tackles more specific issues of American Jewish identity politics. It focuses on the tensions that many feel as both Jews and Americans. Paula Hyman's essay on Jewish American feminism wonderfully summarizes the birth and growth of the movement, and gets to the heart of some complicated issues that arise from dialogue between Jewish and non-Jewish feminists. In "The Paradoxes of American Jewish Culture," Stephen J. Whitfield engages questions surrounding the nature of Jewish culture and observance in America, revealing the complexity of relationships between religious observance and culture. Egon Mayer's study on intermarriage, conversion and Jewish outreach reveals some startling data which should cause many scholars (and American Jews in general) to rethink "traditional" Jewish American anxiety regarding intermarriage, while Sylvia Barack Fishman's study illuminates the intersections of gender, intermarriage and religious identity. She examines attitudes of people towards...