Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies (review)

154 SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies, edited by Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 407 pp. $22.95. The issue of"difference" is a popular, yet contentious, topic in a number of academic discussions. It can be particularly complicated for those of us engaged in Jewish scholarly work, as we attempt to unravel the myriad ofmeanings attached to the notion ofdifference in relation to Jewishness, Jews, and Judaism(s). In editing Jews andOther Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies, Jonathan and Daniel Boyarin have provided a compelling example ofthe diverse forms the study ofJewish difference-as well as the Jewish study ofdifference-might take. The work contains a rich variety of essays which explore these issues from a wide range of academic and personal perspectives. Many of the essays use questions ofJewishness as a provocative tool to address larger issues regarding identity and the politics of difference. Indeed, the politics of difference provides the thematic contours for the essays in the book, many of which focus on questions of gender, sexuality, race, and language. For example, Naomi Seidman contributes a piece entitled "Lawless Attractions, One Night Stands: The Sexual Politics ofthe Hebrew-Yiddish Language War." In this essay she explores the ways in which cultural constructions of gender informed the revival of spoken Hebrew, and the social turmoil that surrounded it. She uses popular narratives of the life and work of Eliezar Ben Yehuda to unpack early Zionist assumptions regarding the relationship between language and gender. Similarly, Ann Pellegrini examines the "interarticulation" of gender and race in the construction of Jewish difference within the imagination of fm-de-siecle Christian Europe. She considers the formulation of antisemitic arguments concerning the "racial difference" ofJews, and attends to the way these formulations were buttressed by tropes ofsexual difference. Both Seidman and Pellegrini exhibit a serious playfulness in their essays, a style shared by a number of pieces in the book. They approach difference as an intricate web of social assumptions and cultural desires, which can be quite revealing when carefully explored. Ammiel Alcalay takes on a similar web of desires and assumptions, but his field ofstudy hits unnervingly close to home. Alcalay's piece provides a critique ofthe ways in which Jewish differences are attended to by Jewish Studies scholars, both in Israel and in the United States. Alcalay addresses the Eurocentrism that he believes undergirds much Jewish scholarly work, especially in the study ofliterature, which is his field. He takes issue with scholarly discourse which marginalizes, ghettoizes, or apologizes for the experiences and contributions of Sephardic, Arab, or mizrachi Jews-and he challenges his colleagues to reconsider the ways in which these categories were developed. Alcalay's critique is decidedly not an example of superficial "political correctness." On the contrary, his piece is a complex, sophisticated analysis ofreading, Book Reviews 155 writing, and the study ofJewish culture. Indeed, Alcalay's essay plays a critical role in a volume which is actively pushing the boundaries ofJewish studies and asking readers to think in new and different ways. Boyarin and Boyarin suggest that cultural studies could provide a function as a useful tool for the study of Jews and Jewishness. They frame their volume as an invitation to use the multi-valanced notion of difference as a critical approach to reinvigorate Jewish academic work, and they want to put Jewish studies scholars in conversation with others whose work deals with differences of many kinds. But their argument would have been even more powerful had they defined cultural studies in greater detail. The introduction contained too many unexamined assumptions regarding the relationship between cultural studies and difference; their claims would have been stronger had these assumptions been more carefully unpacked. Still, the book succeeds in drawing attention to the insights academically rigorous studies of difference can provide. The individual essays are provocative and well written; taken together, they provide a compelling example of the riches "the new Jewish cultural studies" has to offer. Deborah Glanzberg-Krainin Temple University Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, by Tal Ilan. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996. 270 pp. $19.95. Seeking to...