The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times / / ed. by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Jonathan Karp.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn Press eBook Package Complete Collection
• MitwirkendeR: Braiterman, Zachary,; Cahn, Walter,; Cohen, Richard I.,; Dellheim, Charles,; Helman, Anat,; Horowitz, Amy,; Kant, Marion,; Karp, Jonathan,; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara,; Kligman, Mark,; Linden, Diana L.,; Litvak, Olga,; Netsky, Hankus,; Shternshis, Anna,; Suleiman, Susan Rubin,; Thissen, Judith,; Warnke, Nina,; Zemel, Carol,
• HerausgeberIn: Karp, Jonathan,; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2013]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Jewish Culture and Contexts
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (464 p.) :; 59 illus.

The wide-ranging portrayal of modern Jewishness in artistic terms invites scrutiny into the relationship between creativity and the formation of Jewish identity and into the complex issue of what makes a work of art uniquely Jewish. Whether it is the provenance of the artist, as in the case of popular Israeli singer Zehava Ben, the intention of the iconography, as in Ben Shahn's antifascist paintings, or the utopian ideals of the Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, clearly no single formula for defining Jewish art in the diaspora will suffice.The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times is the first work to analyze modern Jewry's engagement with the arts as a whole, including music, theater, dance, film, museums, architecture, painting, sculpture, and more. Working with a broad conception of what counts as art, the book asks the following questions: What roles have commerce and politics played in shaping Jewish artistic agendas? Who determines the Jewishness of art and for what purposes? What role has aesthetics played in reshaping religious traditions and rituals?This richly illustrated volume illuminates how the arts have helped Jews confront the various challenges of modernity, including cultural adaptation and self-preservation, economic diversification, and ritual transformation. 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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction -- I. Culture, Commerce, and Class -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Theater as Educational Institution: Jewish Immigrant Intellectuals and Yiddish Theater Reform -- Chapter 2. Film and Vaudeville on New York's Lower East Side -- Chapter 3. Of Maestros and Minstrels: American Jewish Composers between Black Vernacular and European Art Music -- II. Siting the Jewish Tomorrow -- Introduction -- Chapter 4. May Day, Tractors, and Piglets: Yiddish Songs for Little Communists -- Chapter 5. Performing the State: The Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the New York World's Fair, 1939/40 -- Chapter 6. Was There Anything Particularly Jewish about ''The First Hebrew City''? -- Chapter 7. Re-Routing Roots: Zehava Ben's Journey between Shuk and Suk -- III. Lost in Place -- Introduction -- Chapter 8. The ''Wandering Jew'' from Medieval Legend to Modern Metaphor -- Chapter 9. Diasporic Values in Contemporary Art: Kitaj, Katchor, Frenkel -- IV. Portraits of the Artist as Jew -- Introduction -- Chapter 10. Modern? American? Jew? Museums and Exhibitions of Ben Shahn's Late Paintings -- Chapter 11. Max Liebermann and the Amsterdam Jewish Quarter -- Chapter 12. Rome and Jerusalem: The Figure of Jesus in the Creation of Mark Antokol'skii -- V. In Search of a Usable Aesthetic -- Introduction -- Chapter 13. A Modern Mitzvah-Space-Aesthetic: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig -- Chapter 14. Reestablishing a ''Jewish Spirit'' in American Synagogue Music: The Music of A. W. Binder -- Chapter 15. The Evolution of Philadelphia's Russian Sher Medley -- VI. Hotel Terminus -- Introduction -- Chapter 16. Framing Nazi Art Loot -- Chapter 17. Joseph Lewitan and the Nazification of Dance in Germany -- Chapter 18. History, Memory, and Moral Judgment in Documentary Film: On Marcel Ophuls's Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie -- Notes -- Notes on Contributors -- Acknowledgments