Bibliograph

Ambivalent embrace, Jewish upward mobility in postwar America, Rachel Kranson

Type

Label

Ambivalent embrace, Jewish upward mobility in postwar America, Rachel Kranson

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-208) and index

resource.governmentPublication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

portraitsillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Ambivalent embrace

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

975491054

Responsibility statement

Rachel Kranson

Sub title

Jewish upward mobility in postwar America

Summary

This new cultural history of Jewish life and identity in the United States after World War II focuses on the process of upward mobility. Rachel Kranson challenges the common notion that most American Jews unambivalently celebrated their generally strong growth in economic status and social acceptance during the booming postwar era. In fact, a significant number of Jewish religious, artistic, and intellectual leaders worried about the ascent of large numbers of Jews into the American middle class. Kranson reveals that many Jews were deeply concerned that their lives--affected by rapidly changing political pressures, gender roles, and religious practices--were becoming dangerously disconnected from authentic Jewish values. She uncovers how Jewish leaders delivered jeremiads that warned affluent Jews of hypocrisy and associated "good" Jews with poverty, even at times romanticizing life in America's immigrant slums and Europe's impoverished shtetls. Jewish leaders, while not trying to hinder economic development, thus cemented an ongoing identification with the Jewish heritage of poverty and marginality as a crucial element in an American Jewish ethos--back cover

Table Of Contents

Materially poor, spiritually rich: poverty in the postwar Jewish imagination -- What now supports Jewish liberalism?: upward mobility and Jewish political identity -- Pathfinders' predicament: negotiating middle-class Judaism -- What kind of job is that for a nice Jewish boy?: masculinity in an upwardly mobile community -- Hadassah makes you important: debating middle-class Jewish femininity -- From generation to generation: the Jewish counterculture's critique of affluence

Creator