Jewish American literature - Wikipedia Jewish American literature From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Part of a series on Jewish culture Languages Hebrew Modern Ashkenazi Sephardi Mizrahi Yemenite Tiberian Medieval Mishnaic Biblical Samaritan Babylonian Palestinian Judeo-Aramaic Hulaulá Lishana Deni Lishán Didán Barzani Betanure Lishanid Noshan Targum Biblical Talmudic Palestinian Galilean Judeo-Arabic Yahudic Judeo-Baghdadi Judeo-Moroccan Judeo-Tripolitanian Djerbian Yemenite Other Jewish diaspora languages Yiddish Ladino Haketia Tetuani Yevanic Catalanic Italkian Piedmontese Knaanic Gruzinic Karaim Dzhidi Bukhori Juhuri Zarphatic Golpaygani Shirazi Hamedani Shuadit Judeo-Marathi Judeo-Berber Judeo-Malayalam Krymchak Koiné Greek Mythology Baal El Genesis Adam and Eve Lilith Garden of Eden Tree of Life Forbidden Fruit Patriarchs Abraham Promised Land Gog and Magog Nimrod Tower of Babel Sodom and Gomorrah Noah's Ark Cain and Abel Moses Burning bush Ten Plagues Crossing the Red Sea The Exodus Mount Sinai Golden calf Ten Commandments Tabernacle Conquest of Canaan Yahweh Moloch Gehenna Gathering of Israel Daniel Gideon Saul David and Goliath Solomon Samson Esther Haman Mordecai Job Ezra Ruth Azrael Michael Gabriel Dobiel Ouza Jewish folklore Dybbuk Golem Behemoth Leviathan Shedim Tannin Rahab Bagdana Estries Belial Samael Re'em Baal Berith Lilin Bar Juchne Ziz Naamah Mazzikin Arariel Se'irim Dumah Armilus Broxa Elioud Alukah Rephaite Pardes Yossele Literature Biblical Hebrew Israeli American Ladino Yiddish English Yemenite Musar Rabbinic Jewish poetry Biblical Piyyutim Al-Andalus Yemenite Epic Medieval Hebrew Modern Hebrew Jewish poets Shalom Shabazi Abraham Sutzkever Judah Halevi Dunash ben Labrat Itzik Feffer Emma Lazarus Solomon ibn Gabirol Abba Kovner Qasmuna Yehuda Amichai Philosophy Haskalah List of Jewish philosophers Music Israeli Secular Religious Mizrahi Sephardic Klezmer Niggun Zemirot Art Israeli Yiddish theatre Israeli cinema Jewish dance Israeli dance Lists of Jews associated with the visual arts Humour List of Jewish film directors Holidays Science Israeli Medicine Astronomy Biblical cosmology Mathematicians Scientists Sport Israeli List of Jews in sports Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Maccabiah Cuisine Ancient Israelite Israeli Sephardi Mizrahi Ashkenazi Syrian Bukharan Other aspects Symbolism Clothing Architecture Judaism portal v t e This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Jewish American literature" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Jewish American literature holds an essential place in the literary history of the United States. It encompasses traditions of writing in English, primarily, as well as in other languages, the most important of which has been Yiddish. While critics and authors generally acknowledge the notion of a distinctive corpus and practice of writing about Jewishness in America, many writers resist being pigeonholed as "Jewish voices." Also, many nominally Jewish writers cannot be considered representative of Jewish American literature, one example being Isaac Asimov. Contents 1 Beginnings 2 Present day 3 Stereotypes of Jews 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links Beginnings[edit] Beginning with the memoirs and petitions composed by the Sephardic immigrants who arrived in America during the mid 17th century, Jewish American writing grew over the subsequent centuries to flourish in other genres as well, including fiction, poetry, and drama. The first notable voice in Jewish- American literature was Emma Lazarus whose poem "The New Colossus" on the Statue of Liberty became the great hymnal of American immigration. Gertrude Stein became one of the most influential prose-stylists of the early 20th century. The early twentieth century saw the appearance of two pioneering American Jewish novels: Abraham Cahan's "The Rise of David Levinsky" and Henry Roth's "Call it Sleep." It reached some of its most mature expression in the 20th century "Jewish American novels" by Saul Bellow, J. D. Salinger, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Chaim Potok, and Philip Roth. Their work explored the conflicting pulls between secular society and Jewish tradition which were acutely felt by the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island and by their children and grandchildren. Present day[edit] More recent authors like Nicole Krauss, Paul Auster, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alan Kaufman, Helen Epstein, Lev Raphael and Art Spiegelman have continued to examine dilemmas of identity in their work, turning their attention especially to the Holocaust and the trends of both ongoing assimilation and cultural rediscovery exhibited by younger generations of American Jews. Arguably the most influential of all American Jewish novels was Leon Uris' Exodus.[citation needed] Its story of the struggle to create the modern state of Israel translated into Russian became the inspiration for hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants to Israel. Modern Jewish American novels often contain (a few or many) Jewish characters and address issues and themes of importance to Jewish American society such as assimilation, Zionism/Israel, and antisemitism, along with the recent phenomenon known as "New antisemitism." Four Jewish-American writers have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, Bob Dylan and Joseph Brodsky. Magazines such as The New Yorker have proved to be instrumental in exposing many Jewish American writers to a wider reading public. Stereotypes of Jews[edit] Main article: Stereotypes of Jews in literature Although Jewish stereotypes first appeared in works by non-Jewish writers, after World War II, it was often Jewish American writers themselves who evoked such fixed images. The prevalence of antisemitic stereotypes in the works of such authors has sometimes been interpreted an expression of self-hatred; however, Jewish American authors have also used these negative stereotypes in order to refute them.[1] However, American-Jewish literature has also strongly celebrated American life. It has been primarily more an American than a Jewish literature. Perhaps the preeminent example of this is the great breakthrough novel of Saul Bellow The Adventures of Augie March. According to Sanford V. Sternlicht, the first generation of Jewish-American authors presented "realistic portrayals - warts and all" of Jewish immigrants. In contrast, some second or third-generation Jewish-American authors deliberately "reinforced negative stereotypes with satire and a selective realism".[2] See also[edit] American literature Literature of Chicago Culture of New York City Early English Jewish literature Hebrew literature Israeli literature Ladino literature List of Jewish American authors List of Jewish American playwrights List of Jewish American poets Secular Jewish culture Yiddish literature References[edit] ^ Nelson, Emmanuel Sampath (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature: I - M. Greenwood Publishing Company. p. 1175. ^ Sternlicht, Sanford (2007). Masterpieces of Jewish American literature. Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-313-33857-1. OCLC 76183866. Retrieved November 22, 2011. Further reading[edit] Chametzky, Jules, et al. Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. ISBN 0-393-04809-8 Fried, Lewis, Ed. Handbook of American-Jewish Literature: An Analytical Guide to Topics, Themes, and Sources. Greenwood Press, 1988. ISBN 0-313-24593-2 Furman, Andrew. Israel Through the Jewish-American Imagination: A Survey of Jewish-American Literature on Israel, 1928-1995. SUNY Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7914-3251-3 Kramer, Michael P. and Hana Wirth-Nesher. The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-79293-2 Kugelmass, Jack, Ed. Key Texts in American Jewish Culture. Rutgers University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8135-3221-3 Nadel, I. B. Jewish Writers of North America: A Guide to Information Sources. Gale Group, 1981. ISBN 0-8103-1484-3 Rubin, Derek, Ed. Who We Are: On Being (and Not Being) a Jewish American Writer. Schocken, 2005. ISBN 0-8052-4239-2 Weber, Donald. Haunted in the New World. Indiana University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-253-34579-0. The book's subtitle, Jewish American Culture from Cahan to The Goldbergs, reflects its broad critical focus. Wirth-Nesher, Hana. Call It English: The Languages of Jewish American Literature. Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-691-13844-2 External links[edit] These links are currently unavailable. Comprehensive historical overview of Jewish American literature News and reviews focusing on Jewish American literature v t e English literature Historical Old English Middle English Early English Jewish Elizabethan Restoration Augustan Romanticism Victorian Twentieth Century Regional American African American American Sign Language Arab American Asian American Catholic Chicago Franco American Hawaii Jewish American Latino New England New York Native American Southern Bangladeshi British Scottish Welsh Canadian Caribbean Filipino Indian Irish Oceanic Australian New Zealand Pakistani South African Related topics Anglo-Norman literature Celtic literature English drama English poetry English studies European literature Jèrriais literature Postcolonial literature Women's writing in English Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewish_American_literature&oldid=995275659" Categories: Jewish American literature Yiddish-language literature Jewish-American history Jewish theatre American literature by ethnic background Jewish American culture Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from November 2011 All articles needing additional references All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from May 2018 Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages Deutsch සිංහල Edit links This page was last edited on 20 December 2020, at 03:44 (UTC). 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