Bagels with a Shmear of Culture. - In Search of American Jewish Culture - Review - book review

Judaism, Spring, 2001 by Warren D. Hoffman

In Search of American Jewish Culture. By STEPHEN J. WHITFIELD. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1999.

It is virtually impossible to live in the United States today without running into some instantiation, either subtle or explicit, of Jewish American culture. From Fran Dresher's TV show "The Nanny" to Stephen Spielberg's Schzindler's List to the ubiquitous bagel, Jews have formed a symbiotic relationship with the larger U.S. social body and have reshaped American culture while the U.S. simultaneously reconfigured Judaism itself. Though Jews have made homes in a multitude of diasporic locations all over the world, American Jewish culture is indeed unique and is an amalgam of the U.S.'s democratic ideals merged with a long-standing Jewish custom of honoring tradition and preserving religious, cultural, and folk rituals. Yet, as Jews have achieved greater prominence and recognition within the U.S. political structure as the twentieth century progressed, fears began to arise that perhaps Jews were assimilating too much into mainstream American culture, foreshadowing the eventual disappearance of this particular ethnic/religious community. With such a merging of cultures, is it possible to separate what is Jewish from what is not?

The concern and difficulty in pinpointing precisely what defines American Jewish culture is the focus of Stephen J. Whitfield's In Search of American Jewish Culture. Whitfield highlights the major movements and individuals who have contributed to Jewish culture in the U.S. while insightfully noting the obstacles that Jews have faced along the way in their journey towards integration into American society. Oddly enough, though Whitfield's title indicates a presumed intention to have to "search out" instantiations ofJewish culture, Whitfield for the most part has chosen to focus on recognizable and readily known figures in U.S.Jewish life.

The text is divided into nine chapters: the first two, entitled "Definitions" and "Conditions," attempt to provide some understanding of the terms "Jewish," "Culture," and "American," as well as various pairings of such terms to give some notion of what "American Jewish Culture" is. Whitfield asks, for example, if the film version of Fiddler on theRoof is Jewish in spite of the fact that its director Norman Jewison is Methodist. Whitfield goes on to state provocatively that "because American Jewish subculture is neither autonomous nor impermeable, the criterion of eligibility cannot be that a Gentile could not have painted it, or drawn it, or composed it, or written it. No artifact of Jewish culture is more manifestly authentic than a Haggadah. But in 1512 a Franciscan monk did a Latin translation. Is itJewish?" (18).

It is clearly hard to determine how to categorize such an object, and this difficulty is an indication of the complex intertwining of Jewish and American life to the point where the two cultures have reinforced and redefined each other. Whitfield does a fine job of highlighting this complexity for his readers.

The chapter on "Conditions" provides an historical overview of the development ofJewish culture. Whitfield looks at the role that Yiddish played in theJewish community, and goes on to examine the reasons as to why its usage began to decline. He then looks quickly at Communism, Zionism, and religion. Like the previous chapter, "Conditions" moves from Yiddish theater legend Jacob Adler to children's author Maurice Sendak, underlining the wide range of Jewish cultural production.

In the chapters that follow, Whitfield deals with specific texts to guide his analysis. For example, in his chapter on Musical Theater, Whitfield looks at virtually all of the most famous Jewish Broadway composers, spending considerable time on Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim. Whitfield explains the affinity thatJews have had for working in and attending musical theater, highlighting those aspects of musical theater that point to itsJewish roots. This chapter provides fascinating and intriguing anecdotes about the history of musical theater and the contributions ofJews in the field. Clearly one cannot talk about musical theater without discussing Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Sondheim.

In his chapter on Theater, Whitfield goes on to look at the most prominent Jewish dramatists, primarily those writing on Broadway. While the most famous musical theater writers are Jewish, the most important American dramatists, with the exception of Arthur Miller, are not. Whitfield looks closely at Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, David Mamet, and Wendy Wasserstein. His analysis of Death of a Salesman does a very good job of contextualizing and identifying the "Jewish" elements of the play considering the fact that Willy Loman is often read as the "everyman." Half of the chapter focuses on the work of Wendy Wasserstein, who though clearly invested in and reflecting Jewish American life in her work, has often been ignored by the critics. Whitfield's focus on Wasserstein is out of step with the uneven response that her work has garnered. I was surprised to find that more time wasn't spent on Tony Kushner, particularly Angels in America, as well as the work of off-Broadway authors such as Barbara Lebow, Donald Marguiles, Paul Rudnick, and Peter Sagal.