In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
"A refreshing and stimulating look at Jewish vaudeville, theater and movies sure to revise our understanding of the Jazz Age." -- Deborah Dash Moore, author of GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation "In this engaging and accessible book, Merwin describes a much more empowered generation of Jewish show business than is suggested by previous work. A fresh and provocative perspective on familiar material."—Harley Erdman, author of Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860-1920 "Clearly written, carefully researched, and thoughtfully argued, In Their Own Image fills important gaps in existing scholarship. This book will appeal to anyone interested in American Jewish culture, American theatre and film history, and American popular culture."—Joel Berkowitz, author of Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage The Jazz Age of the 1920s, centered in New York City, is an era remembered for illegal liquor, innovative music and dance styles, and burgeoning ideas of social equality. It was also the period during which second-generation Jews began to emerge as a significant demographic in the city. In Their Own Image examines the growing cultural visibility of Jewish life amid this vibrant scene.
From the vaudeville routines of Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, and Sophie Tucker, to the slew of Broadway comedies about Jewish life—such as the phenomenally popular Abie’s Irish Rose—to the silent films that showed immigrant families struggling to leave the ghetto, images and representations of Jews became staples of interwar popular culture. Through the performing arts, Jews expressed highly ambivalent feelings about their identification with Jewish and American cultures. Ted Merwin shows how they became American by producing and consuming not images of another group, but self-made images of themselves. As a result, they humanized Jewish stereotypes, softened anti-Semitic attitudes, and laid the groundwork for Jewish comedians from Mel Brooks to Billy Crystal.
A lively and entertaining look at the role that popular culture can play in promoting the acculturation of an ethnic group, In Their Own Image both enhances our understanding of American Jewish history and provides a model for the study of other groups and their integration into society.
About the Author
Ted Merwin is an assistant professor of religion and Judaic studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture,Ted Merwin,Rutgers University Press,0813538092,Anthropology - Cultural,Jewish Studies,Social Science,Sociology
In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture
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