Jazz Age Jews / Michael Alexander.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alexander, Michael, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--United States--Identity.

Jews.

Jews--United States--Politics and government--20th century.

Jews--United States--Social life and customs.

Jews--United States--Biography.

United States--Ethnic relations.

United States.

Jolson, Al, 1886-1950.

Jolson, Al.

Frankfurter, Felix, 1882-1965.

Frankfurter, Felix.

Rothstein, Arnold, 1882-1928.

Rothstein, Arnold.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (250 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

By the 1920s, Jews were--by all economic, political, and cultural measures of the day--making it in America. But as these children of immigrants took their places in American society, many deliberately identified with groups that remained excluded. Despite their success, Jews embraced resistance more than acculturation, preferring marginal status to assimilation. The stories of Al Jolson, Felix Frankfurter, and Arnold Rothstein are told together to explore this paradox in the psychology of American Jewry. All three Jews were born in the 1880s, grew up around American Jewish ghettos, married gentile women, entered the middle class, and rose to national fame. All three also became heroes to the American Jewish community for their association with events that galvanized the country and defined the Jazz Age. Rothstein allegedly fixed the 1919 World Series--an accusation this book disputes. Frankfurter defended the Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Jolson brought jazz music to Hollywood for the first talking film, The Jazz Singer, and regularly impersonated African Americans in blackface. Each of these men represented a version of the American outsider, and American Jews celebrated them for it. Michael Alexander's gracefully written account profoundly complicates the history of immigrants in America. It challenges charges that anti-Semitism exclusively or even mostly explains Jews' feelings of marginality, while it calls for a general rethinking of positions that have assumed an immigrant quest for inclusion into the white American mainstream. Rather, Alexander argues that Jewish outsider status stemmed from the group identity Jews brought with them to this country in the form of the theology of exile. Jazz Age Jews shows that most Jews felt culturally obliged to mark themselves as different--and believed that doing so made them both better Jews and better Americans.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

INTERLUDE:Jazz Age Economics

PART I. "Biznez Iz Biznez": The Arnold Rothstein Story

INTERLUDE: Jazz Age Politics

PART II. Frankfurter among the Anarchists

INTERLUDE: JAZZ AGE CULTURE

PART III. "Mammy, Don't YouKnow Me?": Al Jolson and the Jews

CONCLUSION: JAZZ AGE JEWS

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-225) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691187471

0691187479

OCLC:

1132220609