Carrying a big schtick : Jewish acculturation and masculinity in the twentieth century / Miriam Eve Mora.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mora, Miriam Eve, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Masculinity--Religious aspects--Judaism--History--20th century.

Masculinity.

Jewish men--United States--History--20th century.

Jewish men.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (404 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Detroit, Michigan : Wayne State University Press, [2024]

Summary:

"For twentieth-century Jewish immigrants and their children attempting to gain full access to American society, performative masculinity was a tool of acculturation. However, as scholar Miriam Eve Mora demonstrates, this performance is consistently challenged by American mainstream society that holds Jewish men outside of the American ideal of masculinity. Depicted as weak, effeminate, cowardly, gentle, bookish, or conflict-averse, Jewish men have been ascribed these qualities by outside forces, but some have also intentionally subscribed themselves to masculinities at odds with the American mainstream. Carrying a Big Schtick dissects notions of Jewish masculinity and its perception and practice in America in the twentieth century through the lenses of immigration and cultural history. Tracing Jewish masculinity through major themes and events including both World Wars, the Holocaust, American Zionism, Israeli statehood, and the Six-Day War, this work establishes that the struggle of this process can shed light on the changing dynamics in religious, social, and economic American Jewish life." --publisher description.

Contents:

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Arrow Aimed at the Mauschel's Heart: Gendered Antisemitism and the Muscle Jew

2. Jews of "Weak Physique": Masculinity, the Strenuous Life, and Jews in America at the Turn of the Century

3. Uptown Jews and the "Downtown Element": Class Distinction and Jewish Manhood

4. We'll Take Your Rejection and Raise You One Nationalism: American Jews and Zionism

5. The Hardiest Canard: Jewish Participation in the Great War

6. "Shalom with Honor": American Men and the Second World War

7. The Noble Perished and Ignoble Survivors: The Holocaust and Jewish Manhood

8. From Sabra to Citizen: The Yishuv, the Jewish State, and the American Imagination

9. "Israel Is We": Jewish America, Postwar Affluence, and the Six-Day War

10. Substituting the Bomb for the Book: Jewish Men, Protest, Revolution, and Upheaval

Conclusion: The Bear versus the Giant Lobster

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780814349649

0814349641

OCLC:

1425811688