A multilingual, transnational literary tradition, Jewish American writing has long explored questions of personal identity and national boundaries. These questions can engage students in literature, writing, or religion; at Jewish, Christian, or secular schools; and in or outside the United States. This volume takes an expansive view of Jewish American literature, beginning with writing from the earliest colonies in the Americas and continuing to contemporary Soviet-born authors in the United States, including works that engage deeply with religious concepts and others that embrace assimilation. It invites readers to rethink the nature of American multiculturalism, suggests pairings of Jewish American texts with other ethnic American literatures, and examines the workings of whiteness and privilege. Contributors offer varied perspectives on classic texts such as Yekl, Bread Givers, and "Goodbye, Columbus," along with approaches to interdisciplinary topics including humor, graphic novels, and musical theater. The volume concludes with an extensive resources section.

Argues that first- and second-generation Jewish American writers had an ambivalent relationship with educational success. Jewish American immigrants and their children have been stereotyped as exceptional educational achievers, with attendance at prestigious universities leading directly to professional success. In College Bound, Dan Shiffman uses literary accounts to show that American Jews’ relationship with education was in fact far more complex. Jews expected book learning to bring personal fulfillment and self-transformation, but the reality of public schools and universities often fell short. Shiffman examines a wide range of novels and autobiographies by first- and second-generation writers, including Abraham Cahan, Mary Antin, Anzia Yezierska, Elizabeth Gertrude Stern, Ludwig Lewisohn, Marcus Eli Ravage, Lionel Trilling, and Leo Rosten. Their visions of learning as a process of critical questioning—enlivening the mind, interrogating cultural standards, and confronting social injustices—present a valuable challenge to today’s emphasis on narrowly measurable outcomes of student achievement. “This is a rich, well-researched, and compelling study that displays a mastery of its authors and texts, as well as the relevant scholarly studies. It presents its findings in fluent, readable prose.” — Eric Sundquist, Johns Hopkins University “Shiffman makes an important and timely contribution to the field of American Jewish studies, especially involving the place of education at the turn of the twentieth century and into the war years.” — Victoria Aarons, Trinity University

Surveys the current state of Jewish American and Holocaust literatures as well as approaches to teaching them. What does it mean to read, and to teach, Jewish American and Holocaust literatures in the early decades of the twenty-first century? New directions and new forms of expression have emerged, both in the invention of narratives and in the methodologies and discursive approaches taken toward these texts. The premise of this book is that despite moving farther away in time, the Holocaust continues to shape and inform contemporary Jewish American writing. Divided into analytical and pedagogical sections, the chapters present a range of possibilities for thinking about these literatures. Contributors address such genres as biography, the graphic novel, alternate history, midrash, poetry, and third-generation and hidden-child Holocaust narratives. Both canonical and contemporary authors are covered, including Michael Chabon, Nathan Englander, Anne Frank, Dara Horn, Joe Kupert, Philip Roth, and William Styron. Victoria Aarons is O.R. & Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor of English at Trinity University. She is the author of several books, including Third-Generation Holocaust Narratives: Memory in Memoir and Fiction and The Cambridge Companion to Saul Bellow. Holli Levitsky is Professor of English and Director of Jewish Studies at Loyola Marymount University and Affiliated Professor at the University of Haifa. She is the author of Summer Haven: The Catskills, the Holocaust, and the Literary Imagination.

This book explores how Jewish American writers like Sholem Asch, Jacob Glatstein, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Anna Margolin, Saul Bellow, and Grace Paley think of themselves as world writers, and the successes and failures that come with this role.

Fifteen years into a successful career as a college professor, Ilana M. Blumberg faced a teaching crisis that shook her core beliefs and sent her on a life-changing journey. Open Your Hand shares her remarkable personal story, drawing upon Blumber's Jewish faith and her American ideals to forge a teaching practice with the potential to transform society

A collection of Jewish-American literature written by various authors between 1656 and 1990.

Introduces readers to the new perspectives, approaches and interpretive possibilities in Jewish American literature that emerged in the twenty-first Century.