Jewish Identities mounts a formidable challenge to prevailing essentialist assumptions about "Jewish music," which maintain that ethnic groups, nations, or religious communities possess an essence that must manifest itself in art created by members of that group. Klára Móricz scrutinizes concepts of Jewish identity and reorders ideas about twentieth-century "Jewish music" in three case studies: first, Russian Jewish composers of the first two decades of the twentieth century; second, the Swiss American Ernest Bloch; and third, Arnold Schoenberg. Examining these composers in the context of emerging Jewish nationalism, widespread racial theories, and utopian tendencies in modernist art and twentieth-century politics, Móricz describes a trajectory from paradigmatic nationalist techniques, through assumptions about the unintended presence of racial essences, to an abstract notion of Judaism.

In his opening remarks, Silberstein (Jewish studies, Lehigh U.) reflects on the current trend of viewing identity as a mapping process of becoming rather than a fixed construct to be traced. Essays by 13 other US and Israeli contributors further advance this non-essentialist perspective in regard to Jewish identity viewed through personal narratives, photographs, Spiegelman's Holocaust Maus comic books, the Yiddish question, a critique of Zionist ideology, Israeli identity and literature, Judeo-Christian kinship, sex differences as discussed in Levinas' work, and postmodern ideas of individuation without identity. c. Book News Inc.

A unique collection of essays that deal with the intriguing and complex problems connected to the question of Jewish identity in the contemporary world. Concerning the problem of identity formation, this book addresses very important issues: What is the content or meaning of Jewish identity? What has replaced religion in defining the content of Jewishness? How do people in different age groups construct their Jewish identity? In most cases, the authors have combined a variety of research methods: they drew samples or relied on the sample surveys of others; used personal interviews with respondents who are especially knowledgeable about their own Jewish communities, or based their research on participant observation of particular communities or communal institutions.

Providing an assessment of Jewish identity, this volume presents critical engagements with a number of Jewish writers and filmmakers from a variety of European countries, including Austria, France, Germany, Poland, and the UK. The novels and films discussed explore the meaning of being Jewish in Europe today, and investigate the extent to which this experience is shaped by factors that lie outside the national context, notably by the relationship to Israel. As the recent attacks on Charlie Hebdo, and the targeting of a Jewish supermarket in Paris, demonstrate, these questions are more pressing than ever, and will challenge Jews, as well as Jewish writers and intellectuals, as they explore the answers. This book was originally published as a special issue of Jewish Culture and History.

"Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities makes a unique contribution, building on but not duplicating Sharot's earlier work. There is no comparable work that covers all of these periods and particular cases."---Harriet Hartman, professor of sociology at Rowan University --

The most comprehensive surveys ever undertaken of Jews in Russia and Ukraine show that their sense of Jewishness is powerful but detached from religion. Their understandings of Jewishness differ from those of Jews elsewhere and create tensions in their interactions with other Jews, especially in Israel. This book examines in depth post-Soviet Jews' attitudes toward religion, intermarriage, emigration, anti-Semitism, and rebuilding Jewish life.

"With essays that cover the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, this volume presents a collective portrait of change over time that allows us to view the shifting nature of Jewish identity in the U.S. West, as well as the evolving frameworks for racial construction"--

The Jewish communities of East and Southeast Asia display an impressive diversity. Jonathan Goldstein’s book covers the period from 1750 and focuses on seven of the area’s largest cities and trading emporia: Singapore, Manila, Taipei, Harbin, Shanghai, Rangoon, and Surabaya. The book isolates five factors which contributed to the formation of transnational, multiethnic, and multicultural identity: memory, colonialism, regional nationalism, socialism, and Zionism. It emphasizes those factors which preserved specifically Judaic aspects of identity. Drawing extensively on interviews conducted in all seven cities as well as governmental, institutional, commercial, and personal archives, censuses, and cemetery data, the book provides overviews of communal life and intimate portraits of leading individuals and families. Jews were engaged in everything from business and finance to revolutionary activity. Some collaborated with the Japanese while others confronted them on the battlefield. The book attempts to treat fully and fairly the wide spectrum of Jewish experience ranging from that of the ultra-Orthodox to the completely secular.

Featuring sixty-seven illustrations, and providing an important reckoning and visualization of the previously hidden Jewish 'ghosts' within US art, Jewish Identities in American Feminist Art addresses the veiled role of Jewishness in the understanding of feminist art in the United States. From New York city to Southern California, Lisa E. Bloom situates the art practices of Jewish feminist artists from the 1970s to the present in relation to wider cultural and historical issues. Key themes are examined in depth through the work of contemporary Jewish artists including: Eleanor Antin Judy Chicago Deborah Kass Rhonda Lieberman Martha Rosler and many others. Crucial in any study of art, visual studies, women's studies and cultural studies, this is a new and lively exploration into a vital component of US art.

The drawing of boundaries has always been a key part of the Jewish tradition and has served to maintain a distinctive Jewish identity. At the same time, these boundaries have consistently been subject to negotiation, transgression and contestation. The increasing fragmentation of Judaism into competing claims to membership, from Orthodox adherence to secular identities, has brought striking new dimensions to this complex interplay of boundaries and modes of identity and belonging in contemporary Judaism. Boundaries, Identity and Belonging in Modern Judaism addresses these new dimensions, bringing together experts in the field to explore the various and fluid modes of expressing and defining Jewish identity in the modern world. Its interdisciplinary scholarship opens new perspectives on the prominent questions challenging scholars in Jewish Studies. Beyond simply being born Jewish, observance of Judaism has become a lifestyle choice and active assertion. Addressing the demographic changes brought by population mobility and ‘marrying out,’ as well as the complex relationships between Israel and the Diaspora, this book reveals how these shifting boundaries play out in a global context, where Orthodoxy meets innovative ways of defining and acquiring Jewish identity. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of Jewish Studies, as well as general Religious Studies and those interested in the sociology of belonging and identities.