History 194-03

History 194-03 Fall 2005

U.S. Jews at the Margins: History

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David Itzkowitz: OM 301 ((H) 699-1014; (O) x6216 * itzkowitz@macalester.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday, 3-5; Wednesday, 10-12. Other times by appointment

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By most measures, Jews have been among the most successful of the many immigrant groups that have come to the United States. Though Jews account for only about two percent of the nation’s population, Jewish influence on U.S. culture, especially media culture, has been profound. Aspects of Jewish culture have become a part of U.S. national culture, and in turn markers of U.S. culture across the world. In the words of the old commercial, "You don't have to be Jewish to like Levy's rye" -- or bagels, or matzo-ball soup, or Jerry Seinfeld, for that matter. Many Yiddish words, like kibbitz, kvetch, and klutz (to restrict ourselves to just one letter of the alphabet) have been incorporated into U.S. English, and are used by Jews and non-Jews alike. Jewish characters are featured prominently in books and in the commercial media, and individual Jews have risen to positions of prominence in a range of professions unthinkable only fifty years ago.

Still, questions remain: Are Jews different? Are they a religious group? Are they an ethnic group? A racial group? A tribe? What does it mean to be, simultaneously, a Jew and an American? Are there tensions inherent in multiple identities? Why do the answers to these questions matter? How have the answers varied in different times and different places?

In our two linked courses, which, like Levy’s rye will be accessible to Jews and non-Jews alike, we will examine the history and culture of Jews in the United States in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in an attempt to try to understand these questions and maybe even offer up some tentative answers.

The two instructors come to the questions raised this semester through different personal histories and along different academic paths. David is a historian who was originally trained as a scholar of modern England; Clay began his professional life as a journalist and now teaches and writes about film and media and cultural studies. David has taught several courses in Jewish studies; Clay has not, but he has taught several courses that focus on race in the United States. Though we are both Jewish, and friends as well as colleagues, our respective connections to Jewish life and Jewish community vary widely. But it is precisely these differences, both of experience and of training, that make us so excited about collaborating on this pair of linked courses, and about enabling the 32 students in the cluster to make our effort their own. It is our hope that the different approaches that each of us—students and faculty--brings to our joint investigations will enrich and enliven our mutual explorations. Our experience has been that questions that matter, like the ones we expect will be raised within the cluster and the ones we hope you will encounter throughout your four years at Macalester, seem best considered from a variety of perspectives, both disciplinary and personal. This seems a good place to begin.

Required Books

David Biale, et.al., eds., Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism (BGH)

J. Hoberman and Jeffrey Shandler, eds., Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and

Broadcasting (H&S)

Jenna Weissman Joselit, The Wonders of America

Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life

Riv-Ellen Prell, Fighting to Become Americans:Assimilation and the Trouble Between

Jewish Women and Jewish Men

Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America

Sydney Taylor, All-Of-A-Kind Family

We will also read a number of other shorter articles, essays, reviews, and other things as well as watch a number of films and videos both in class and at the Wednesday evening showings.

All students should also buy a copy of Andrea A. Lunsford, Easy Writer (preferably the 2^nd edition), which will serve as a useful reference work not only for this class but also for the rest of your careers at Macalester—and maybe even after.

Bureaucratic Expectations

We will meet twice per week for class discussions, an occasional lecture and other class activities. It is expected that you will be in class and that you will have done the reading, which may be considerable, on time. Falling behind is not a good idea in this class—or any other, for that matter. I will be available in my office during office hours. Feel free to drop by to talk about the class or anything else, for that matter. If you can’t make it during my office hours, just contact me and we can set up another time to meet.

Analytical and research papers. Each student will write, in addition to the ungraded assignment due on September 8, three 900-1200 word papers and one 2,500-3,000 word paper. The three shorter papers are due, by 5 P.M. on Monday, October 3, and Friday, October 21 and November 11. You must rewrite any two of these three papers—we will talk about rewriting in class—and submit them at your convenience, but no later than December 10. When you submit a rewrite, you must attach a copy of the original paper with my comments. The longer paper is due December 21, no later than noon. You will each also present material from your research papers to the members of the two seminars at the Microconference, which will be held December 19.

Critical response papers: Once each week (Tuesday or Thursday—your choice), starting September 13, every student will submit a 500 to 700 word critical response to the assigned reading for the day. The form of the response will vary, according to the kind of reading assigned.

For secondary works—works by scholars or other observers who are attempting to analyze some feature of the Jewish/American experience—the critical response will summarize the thesis or theses of the reading, describe the issues dealt with in the reading, and discuss what you see as the strengths and weakness of the source. When the assigned reading consists of more than one source, your response should deal with all of the sources, though you may, if you wish, concentrate on one or two of the sources and relate them to the others.

For primary works—works that we read because they illustrate some aspect of their own time (works of fiction, for example)—the critical response should suggest the ways in which the source is or is not useful in helping us to understand some aspect of the Jewish experience in the United States.

N. B. Sometimes a particular reading could be both a primary and a secondary source. When you think that is the case, you may write a critical response that treats it as either. In such cases, you must explain why you have made the choice you have. Noting that a particular source can be both primary and secondary highlights the fact that the distinction between the two can be slippery. But because the distinction between primary and secondary is so central to the way historians work, we will spend some time in class trying to come to grips with this problem.

Late response papers will be accepted only in cases of documentable medical or other emergency. If you miss more than three papers, an F counting 10 percent will be figured into your final grade. If you miss more than nine papers, an F counting 25 percent will be figured into your final grade. If, at the end of a discussion of a reading, you still have a question about it, please email me so that I can respond via email or at the start of the next class. You can be confident that if you have a lingering question, others in the class probably will have it as well

Grading

Each of the three shorter papers will count for 12% of your written grade, as will each of the two rewrites. The research paper and your presentation at the Microconference will count for 40%. The grade generated by the written work may then be modified up or down by one or two notches if appropriate, to reflect class involvement and your reaction papers. Thus, for example, a B average on the assigned work will yield a final grade between A- and C+.

Reasonable accommodations will be provided for students with physical, sensory, cognitive, learning, and psychological disabilities. Please contact the Disability Services Office located at Macalester Health Services, 696-6275, to discuss accessing accommodations.

COMPLETION OF ALL WRITTEN WORK IS A REQUIREMENT FOR PASSING THIS COURSE.

EXCEPT IN TRULY SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, THERE WILL BE NO INCOMPLETES GRANTED IN THIS COURSE.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Symbols used in course schedule

¸—Wednesday evening film showings—Room HU 401

S—Our seminar will meet alone—Room OM 001

T—The two seminars will meet together—Room HU 215

Like all things in the world, this schedule is subject to change

Sun Sept 4 T Introduction: History, Cultural Studies and an Interdisciplinary

cluster.

Paper 1 assigned

Vocabulary Search Assigned

W Sept 7 ¸ Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989, USA, Woody Allen)

Th Sept 8 T Paper 1 due.

You Nazty Spy (1940, USA, Jules White)

Talks: Cultural Pluralism and Multiculturalism.

Talk: On Documentation.

T Sept 13 S Read: bell hooks, “Representations of Whiteness in the

Black Imagination” [1992], White Privilege: Essential

Readings on the Other Side of Racism, ed. Paula S.

Rothenberg (New York: Worth, 2002), 19-23 (e-reserve).

Biale, Galchinsky, and Heschel“Introduction: The Dialectic

of Jewish Enlightenment,” BGH, 1-11.

David Biale, “The Melting Pot and Beyond: Jews and the

Politics of American Identity,” BGH, 17-33.

Mitchell Cohen, “In Defense of Shaatnez: A Politics for Jews

in a Multicultural America,” BGH, 34-54.

J. Hoberman and J. Shandler, “Entertaining ‘Entertaining

America,’” H&S 11-13.

W Sept 14 ¸ Cohen’s Fire Sale (1907, USA, Edwin S. Porter);

Romance of a Jewess (1908, USA, D.W. Griffith);

The Immigrant (1917, USA, Charles Chaplin);

The Great Dictator (1940, USA, Charles Chaplin)

Th Sept 15 T Vocabulary Search due.

Read: Sorin pp. 1-60

View New York City Ghetto Fish Market (1903, USA, James Blair

Smith) at the Library of Congress American Memory site,

http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/lcmp002/m2a27007.mpg, before

class.

View Part 1 of Fights of Nations (1907, USA, G.W. “Billy”

Bitzer) at the Library of Congress American Memory site,

http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/varsmp/2412s1.mpg, before

reading the following:

Hoberman and Shandler, Introduction to “Nickelodeon Nation,”

H&S 14-22.

Ben Singer, “The Nickelodeon Boom in Manhattan,” H&S 23-25.

Jeffrey Shandler, “Sigmund Lubin,” H&S, 26-27.

Judith Thissen, “Charles Steiner and the Houston Hippodrome,”

H&S 28-31.

Judith Thissen, “Movies vs. Yiddish Theater: ‘The Grand

Scandal,’” H&S 29

J. Hoberman, “Debating Cohen’s Fire Sale,” H&S, 32.

Ephraim Kaplan, “Jews Who Spit in Their Own Faces” [1908],

H&S, 32-33

J. Hoberman, “The First ‘Jewish’ Superstar: Charlie Chaplin,”

H&S, 34-39

Hoberman and Shandler, “Virtually Jewish,” H&S, 40-43.

J. Hoberman, “Irene Wallace” and “John Turturro,” H&S, 40-41

Lecture on Jewish History.

T Sept 20 T Read, Sorin, 61-193

Carey McWilliams, “Minneapolis: The Curious Twin” in

Common Ground (Autumn 1946) (e-reserve).

W Sept 21 ¸ Long Fliv the King (1926, USA, Leo McCarey);

The Jazz Singer (1927, USA, Alan Crosland);

Excerpt from Bamboozled (2000, USA, Spike Lee);

Excerpt from They Learned About Women (1930, USA, Jack

Conway and Sam Wood)

I Love to Singa (1936, USA, Tex Avery)

Th Sept 22 S Read: J. Hoberman, “On The Jazz Singer,” H&S, 76-92

Mark Slobin, “Putting Blackface in its Place,” H&S, 93-99