Young Lions: Jewish American War Fiction of 1948

In 1948 five books about World War II dominated the New York Times best-seller list; all were written by Jews and made Jewish soldiers their central protagonists. This essay focuses on the Jewish war novels of 1948 and their critical reception. Jewish writers argued in their novels that the Holocaust was a central, rather than an ancillary, aspect of the war experience. Other themes that Jewish war novelists took up included a focus on endemic antisemitism and racism in the military and the infusion of intellectualism into the figure of the ideal soldier-hero. Jewish authors wrote about the war in unique ways, and since their novels were best-sellers, they had a direct impact upon how postwar Americans understood the war effort.