The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times »

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Her books include Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage, Image Before My Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864-1939 (with Lucjan Dobroszycki), and They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust (with Mayer Kirshenblatt). Jonathan Karp is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and History at Binghamton University, SUNY, and author of The Politics of Jewish Commerce: Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe, 1638-1848.

This richly illustrated volume illuminates how the arts have helped Jews confront the challenges of modernity. There truly is an art to being Jewish in the modern world—or, alternatively, an art to being modern in the Jewish world—and this collection fully captures its range, diversity, and historical significance.

List of Illustrations Preface
—David Ruderman Introduction
—Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jonathan Karp

I. CULTURE, COMMERCE, AND CLASS
1. Theater as Educational Institution: Jewish Immigrant Intellectuals and Yiddish Theater Reform
—Nina Warnke
2. Film and Vaudeville on New York's Lower East Side
—Judith Thissen
3. Of Maestros and Minstrels: American Jewish Composers between Black Vernacular and European Art Music
—Jonathan Karp

II. SITING THE JEWISH TOMORROW
4. May Day, Tractors, and Piglets: Yiddish Songs for Little Communists
—Anna Shternshis
5. Performing the State: The Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the New York World's Fair, 1939/40
—Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
6. Was There Anything Particularly Jewish about "The First Hebrew City"?
—Anat Helman
7. Re-Routing Roots: Zehava Ben's Journey between Shuk and Suk
—Amy Horowitz

III. LOST IN PLACE
8. The "Wandering Jew" from Medieval Legend to Modern Metaphor
—Richard I. Cohen
9. Diasporic Values in Contemporary Art: Kitaj, Katchor, Frenkel
—Carol Zemel

IV. PORTRAITS OF THE ARTIST AS JEW
10. Modern? American? Jew? Museums and Exhibitions of Ben Shahn's Late Paintings
—Diana L. Linden
11. Max Liebermann and the Amsterdam Jewish Quarter
—Walter Cahn
12. Rome and Jerusalem: The Figure of Jesus in the Creation of Mark Antokol'skii
—Olga Litvak

V. IN SEARCH OF A USABLE AESTHETIC
13. A Modern Mitzvah-Space-Aesthetic: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig
—Zachary Braiterman
14. Reestablishing a "Jewish Spirit" in American Synagogue Music: The Music of A. W. Binder
—Mark Kligman
15. The Evolution of Philadelphia's Russian Sher Medley
—Hankus Netsky

VI. HOTEL TERMINUS
16. Framing Nazi Art Loot
—Charles Dellheim
17. Joseph Lewitan and the Nazification of Dance in Germany
—Marion Kant
18. History, Memory, and Moral Judgment in Documentary Film: On Marcel Ophuls's Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
—Susan Rubin Suleiman

Notes Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments