The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture 1880-1950 - Hardcover

Joselit, Jenna Weissman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809027577 ISBN 13: 9780809027576

Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub, 1994

Synopsis

A cultural study draws on advertisements, etiquette manuals, sermons, and surveys, offering insight into how many modern Jewish-American observances have been adapted and developed into distinctive forms of expression. By the author of Our Gang.

About this title

About the Author:

Professor Jenna Weissman Joselit teaches in the religion department at Princeton.

From Booklist:

During the first half of this century, Judaism and Jewish culture in the U.S. underwent profound transformations. Although some may bemoan that orthodoxy gave way to assimilation, social historian Joselit shows how vivid the Jewish community actually was. Joselit draws on a true treasure-trove of Yiddish press clippings, guidebooks, invitations, and a host of other sources to describe rituals and home life in the U.S. during her target period. Tracing the evolution of bar and bat mitzvah celebrations, she describes how the ceremonies became such festive events in this country. Elsewhere, poignantly illustrating turn-of-the-century family values, she presents a clip from the Jewish Daily Forward that displays a photographic "Gallery of Missing Husbands." Using some very funny examples, she also describes how ethnic customs were adopted by American commercialism; in a chapter on how Jews and the food industry observed dietary laws, she quotes an advertisement for kosher vegetable shortening that reads: "The Hebrew Race has been waiting 4,000 years for Crisco." They just don't write ad copy like that anymore. Aaron Cohen

About this edition

• Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0809027577
• ISBN 13: 9780809027576
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 349