Jewishness

This book proposes that the idea of ‘Jewish’, or what people think of as ‘Jewishness’, is revealed in expressions of culture and applied in constructions of identity and representation. Part I considers how the kabbalistic red string found at sites throughout Israel conveys a political and psychological response to terrorism. It examines Jewish and non-Jewish narratives concerning a synagogue in eastern Europe and looks at expressions of cultural continuity in displaced persons camps in the aftermath of the Holocaust. It then discusses how Jewish folk music was presented as high art in early twentieth-century Germany. Part II enquires how the objects taken by emigrants leaving Germany for Palestine after Hitler's rise to power represented their identities. It examines how survivors' narratives become integrated into family identities and offers close readings of how the identities of Jews as enacted in post-perestroika films highlight conflicting Russian attitudes towards Jews. It then considers commercial establishments as ‘sacred spaces’ for Jewish secular identities. Part III opens with stories collected in Israel from Jews who lived in Carpatho-Russia. It then considers the characterization of the Jewish woman in French literature and decodes the Jewishness of modern radio comedy and Hollywood film. The idea of Jewishness is applied in the volume with provocative interpretations of Jewish experience, and fresh approaches to the understanding of Jewish cultural expressions.