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  • Farewell and Welcome, 1975–2011
  • Daniel Walden, Editor

At the Modern Language Association convention in 1974, a small group of American Jewish literature veterans—Sanford Pinsker, Sarah Blacher Cohen, Bonnie Lyons, Dan Walden, and maybe one or two more—met to start a journal. I came up with the title, Studies in American Jewish Literature, and as a consequence, I became the editor. We did not have a sponsor, so we passed the hat. In 1975 the first issue, volume 1 (Spring 1975), was published. It was a thin volume, printed locally. It had forty-four pages, two book reviews, a light blue cover and back, and it cost $5 a year. It created a stir. We were off and running, for thirty-six years to date, and destined for years into the future.

Five years later the State University of New York Press became the publisher. The Press insisted on starting over, so their first issue was volume 1, number 1, which was a bit confusing for the librarians. The first special issue came out in 1979, titled Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep 1935–1979, guest-edited by Bonnie Lyons, with seventy-five pages, costing $6 a year. On the masthead were Daniel Walden, Editor; Irving Malin, Book Review Editor; and on the board were Sarah Blacher Cohen, Leslie Fiedler, Irving Howe, Allen Guttmann, Sheldon Grebstein, Sanford Pinsker, Moses Rischin, Ronald Sanders, and Lillian Schlissel. The governing assumptions of the journal were: This is the first issue of a new journal devoted to the American Jewish writer and the American Jewish experience. These pages will serve to provide a forum where the finest studies in literature, comparative literature, poetry, prose, and fiction will be found. In addition, from time to time, material will be published dealing with journalists, film writers, librettists, and those who do not fall within the standard criteria (for example, writers like I. B. Singer and Mordecai Richler, a Canadian Jewish writer).

With SUNY Press in 1981, we put out a special issue on I. B. Singer: A Reconsideration. The World of Cynthia Ozick appeared in the fall of 1987, with Kent State University as the new publisher. It included an essay by Ozick entitled “The Young Self and the Old Writer.” Then from 1993 to 2000, the Editorial Board again published the journal itself. Our first issue, volume 12 (1993), was called The Changing [End Page 1] Mosaic From Cahan to Malamud, Roth and Ozick. As part of my “Introduction,” I explained that “yes the first and second generations have passed on or are passing on, but just as Bellow and Ozick differ from Cahan and Yezierska, so the new Mosaic is diverging, evolving and growing. The fact is the changing mosaic is a description of what has been going on, and what will continue to emerge, as we will see.”

So after thirty-six years as editor, still believing in what I then said, I am stepping down from my role with Studies in American Jewish Literature and passing the position to Ben Schreier, my very talented and younger colleague at Penn State University, who will take over shepherding the journal. Happily, we will be published by Penn State.

I thank you for supporting us through all the years, and I say farewell as editor, though I will remain active with both the Modern Language Association and the American Literature Association. We have plans for the journal and the Association. We may soon sponsor a new annual conference, focused specifically on Jewish American literature, for that is what it is now, no longer American Jewish Literature, but Jewish American Literature. Goodbye for now. I wish Ben and SAJL mazl and at least another thirty-six years (twice chai) in celebrating Jewish American literature in America. [End Page 2]

Daniel Walden

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