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American Jewry and the Re-Invention of the East European Jewish Past PDF

304 Pages·2017·68.552 MB·English
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Markus Krah American Jewry and the Re-Invention of the East European Jewish Past New Perspectives on Modern Jewish History Edited by Cornelia Wilhelm Volume 9 Markus Krah American Jewry and the Re-Invention of the East European Jewish Past ISBN 978-3-11-049992-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-049943-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-049714-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck Cover illustration: Hasidic Jews in a shtetl near Stanislawow (Poland), ca. 1928, photograph by Marian Jerzy Sitarski (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #07087). ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Contents Illustrations   VIII Acknowledgments   XI Introduction   1 Obsessively Engaged: Postwar American Jewry and the East European Past   3 A Community Coming of Age – by Trying on a Usable Past   5 Jews in Postwar America: a Not-So-Golden Era?   7 State of the Field   10 From Yiddish to English: a Multiplicity of Sources   12 Methodology and Discipline: Discourse Analysis and Cultural History   14 Chapter Overview   16 Larger Patterns: Memory in American and Jewish Contexts   18 1 The Search for New Modes of Jewishness in Postwar America   21 Interwar Years: Yiddishkayt in the Urban Ghetto – Doomed to Decline   22 Mourning the World of East European Jewry – Claiming American Legitimacy   25 American Crisis and Jewish Inclusion   30 Suburbia as Uncharted Territory – Synagogues Marking Jewishness   34 Jewishness Redux – the Wounded Jewish Soul and the East European Medicine   42 2 Launching a Discourse: YIVO’s Bridge From the Old World to the New   47 Weinreich Puts Adolescent American Jewry on Freud’s Couch   53 YIVO: Research Institute, Myth, or Instrument of Self-Expression?   60 Forging an American Jewishness – on Yiddish Terms   65 3 New (York) Jewish Intellectuals: The Past as Culture   71 New York Jewish Intellectuals: Refashioning Their Jewishness Out of the Past   75 Bridging the Gap Between the Intellectuals and the Community   80 VI   Contents Dialectics of Jewish Pastness and American Presentness   86 Accepting Ambivalence – Vis-à-Vis Eastern Europe and America   89 Translating the East European Past for the American Jewish Present   93 4 Religious Culture as an Antidote to Liberal Judaism and Secular Jewishness   96 Judaism: Eastern Europe as a Resource for a Broader Concept of Judaism   97 Heschel’s Apotheosis of Ashkenazic Jewish Life   103 Soloveitchik: Bringing “Halakhic Man” from Lithuania to America   110 5 Spiritual Needs, the Past, and the Denominational Landscape   119 Reform: Taking a New Look at a Distant Past   119 Conservative Judaism: East European Jewishness as ersatz Yiddishkayt   126 Orthodoxy: Silencing, Historicizing, Idolizing the Recent East European Past   132 Renewing American Judaism on Religious Terms Found in the Past   143 6 From East European Radicalism to Postwar American Progressivism   144 Journalistic Infighting Over Communism and Jewishness   147 American Jews: Mindlessly Assimilating, or Forming a New Spiritual Center?   151 East European Folk Culture as Part of Jewish Leftists’ Political Project   154 Memory as Content, From a Means to an End   158 Preserving the Heritage – Sacred Duty in the Service of Continuity   163 7 Presenting a Rich Jewish Culture: The Eternal Light and Life Is with People   167 The Eternal Light: East European Spiritual Jewishness Made Audible   169 Aestheticizing Judaism – On a “High Church” Note   176 Contents   VII Life Is with People: Ethnography Presents a Rich East European Jewish Culture   179 “Sex, Taboo, and Superstition:” Attracting American Jewish Interest in the Shtetl   184 8 Making Jewishness Meaningful: In School and in Hasidism   189 Textbook Cases: Spiritual Culture as a Source of Fortitude in the Face of Persecution   194 Hasidism: Everyone’s Third Way   200 Hasidic Wholeness, Antinomianism, Ethical Judaism, and Proto- Socialism   205 9 Tevye in Kasrilevke, the Fiddler in America: East European Jewishness in Literature   212 Maurice Samuel Applies Sholem Aleichem to America   212 Affirmation or Alienation: The Jewishness of Cultural Translators   217 Isaac Rosenfeld: From Alienation to the Affirmation of a Cultural Jewishness   219 A Sacred Treasure: Anthologizing East European Yiddishkayt for American Jews   224 The Postwar Shtetl: Re-Invention of “the Greatest Invention of Yiddish Literature”   227 Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Subversive Spirituality of East European Judaism   230 Final Curtain: Fiddler on the Roof   234 10 Conclusion: Re-Inventing Jewishness Out of Memory   241 A New Idea Out of Many Failing Ones   246 Community of Memory   249 Re-Inventing the Past to Re-Invent Jewish Ethnicity   254 Epilogue   258 Bibliography   261 Index   285 Illustrations Fig. 1 Front page Yiddish Forverts, March 20, 1940 Fig. 2 Hasidic Jews in a shtetl near Stanislawow (Poland), ca. 1928 (Photograph by Marian Jerzy Sitarski. Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #07087) Fig. 3 Rosh Hashanah service at military Camp Blanding, St. Augustine, FL, 1945 (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org) Fig. 4 Scholars at 1947 Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, Philadelphia (Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, image #1964) Fig. 5 Congregation Beth Sholom, Elkins Park, suburban Philadelphia, September 1959 (Courtesy of Congregation Beth Sholom) Fig. 6 Exhibit commemorating American Jewish “Tercentenary,” Cincinnati, 1954 (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American JewishArchives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org) Fig. 7 YIVO’s New York headquarters, 1048 Fifth Avenue, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org) Fig. 8 Three Jewish youth share a daily Yiddish newspaper, Lithuania 1939-41 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #21314) Fig. 9 Max Weinreich teaching Yiddish at City College New York, not dated (Courtesy of the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, RG 121) Fig. 10 Irving Howe, not dated (Courtesy of Robert D. Farber Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University) Fig. 11 Martin Buber, 1957 (Courtesy of Robert D. Farber Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University) Fig. 12 Abraham Joshua Heschel, 1972 (Courtesy of the Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, image #68) Fig. 13 Joseph B. Soloveitchik, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org) Fig. 14 Orthodox journal Jewish Life, 1951 Fig. 15 Telegram from head of Brooklyn-based Mir Yeshivah to a student of the prewar yeshivah, 1946 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #67028) Fig. 16 Members of the Socialist Bund march in a May Day parade in Bialystok (Poland), 1934 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph # 63632) Fig. 17 Morris Schappes, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org) Fig. 18 Protagonists of The Eternal Light radio program at the 1950 ceremony of the Annual Brotherhood Award (Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, image #1065) Illustrations   IX Fig. 19 Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun, Milwaukee, WI, 1952-53 (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org) Fig. 20 The (seventh) Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menahem Mendel Shneerson and a group of Hasidism, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org) Fig. 21 Sholem Aleichem with prominent members of the Jewish community of the Polish shtetl of Bedzin, 1905-13 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #17966) Fig. 22 Postcard by the Y. L. Peretz Library, commemorating Yiddish writer Mendele Mokher Sforim, 1936 (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photograph #39492) Fig. 23 Isaac Bashevis Singer, not dated (Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org)

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