Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lev, Raphael

Titel

No Goyz in the Hood

Ist Teil von

• The Jerusalem report, 2000-11, p.92

Ort / Verlag

Jerusalem: Jerusalem Report

Erscheinungsjahr

2000

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Nexis

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• She makes one fascinating point after another. Jewish life in New York actually spread far beyond the boundaries of the Lower East Side, which was also never as homogeneously Jewish as the nostalgic story holds. And Jews were resident there anyway long before the massive immigrations of 1880-1920. In her analysis of popular romantic fiction dealing with neighborhood heroines, Diner wryly notes that unlike in other such genre writing, Jewish women authors focused heavily on food and on the ambivalent nature of their heroines' successes, as in Belva Plain's bestseller "Evergreen." Diner's illuminating analysis of the depth of political, literary and cultural activity of the Lower East Side also makes clear how the ferment of that time has become mere fizz in our romanticization of the period and the place. In an entertaining and quietly witty style, Diner, a professor of American Jewish history at New York University, anal-yzes a variety of "texts" that helped the memory culture coalesce, including triumphantly rediscovered prewar works by Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Henry Roth; surprisingly influential children's literature like Sydney Taylor's "All-of-a-Kind Family"; [Irving Howe]'s best- seller; remakes of "The Jazz Singer" and even Steven Spielberg's cartoon "An American Tail." Synagogues and restored tenements themselves became overwhelmingly popular tourist attractions for Jewish visitors. Has their hunger for connection been pathetic or commendable? Diner opts for the latter interpretation. In her view, American Jews needed "a place of origin through which they could represent themselves, and a venue from which to describe the loss of Jewish authenticity in the face of collective and individual achievement."