Boundaries of Jewish Identity

Susan A Glenn, Naomi B. Sokoloff, Susan A Glenn, Naomi B. Sokoloff

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780295800837
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

The subject of Jewish identity is one of the most vexed and contested issues of modern religious and ethnic group history. This interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology, history, sociology, literature, and popular culture to consider contemporary and historical responses to the question "Who and what is Jewish?" These essays are focused especially on the issues of who creates the definitions, and how, and in what social and political contexts. The ten leading authorities writing here also look at the forces, ranging from new genetic and reproductive technologies to increasingly multicultural societies, that push against established boundaries. The authors examine how Jews have imagined themselves and how definitions of Jewishness have been established, enforced, challenged, and transformed. Does being a Jew require religious belief, practice, and formal institutional affiliation? Is there a biological or physical aspect of Jewish identity? What is the status of the convert to another religion? How do definitions play out in different geographic and historical settings? What makes Boundaries of Jewish Identity distinctive is its attention to the various Jewish "epistemologies" or ways of knowing who counts as a Jew. These essays reveal that possible answers reflect the different social, intellectual, and political locations of those who are asking. This book speaks to readers concerned with Jewish life and culture and to audiences interested in religious, cultural, and ethnic studies. It provides an excellent opportunity to examine how Jews fit into an increasingly diverse America and an increasingly complicated global society.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Who and What Is Jewish? : Controversies and Comparative Perspectives on the Boundaries of Jewish Identity
• 1. Are Genes Jewish? : Conceptual Ambiguities in the New Genetic Age
• 2. Who Is a Jew? - Categories, Boundaries, Communities, and Citizenship Law in Israel
• 3. Jewish Character? - Stereotype and Identity in Fiction from Israel by Aharon Appelfeld and Sayed Kashua
• 4. “Funny, You Don’t Look Jewish” - Visual Stereotypes and the Making of Modern Jewish Identity
• 5. Blame, Boundaries, and Birthrights - Jewish Intermarriage in Midcentury America
• 6. Boundary Maintenance and Jewish Identity - Comparative and Historical Perspectives
• 7. Good Bad Jews - Converts, Conversion, and Boundary Redrawing in Modern Russian Jewry, Notes toward a New Category
• 8. “Jewish Like an Adjective” - Confronting Jewish Identities in Contemporary Poland
• 9. Conversos, Marranos, and Crypto-Latinos - The Jewish Question in the American Southwest (and What It Can Tell Us about Race and Ethnicity)
• 10. The Contested Logics of Jewish Identity
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index