Jenna Weissman Joselit, the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of History at the George Washington University, is a distinguished historian of the American Jewish experience and a former columnist for the Forward.
Jenna Weissman Joselit
By Jenna Weissman Joselit
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Culture What Ari Roth and Theater J Could Have Learned From the Jewish Conciliation Board
These days, privacy seems to have gone the way of the rotary phone, overtaken by the contemporary yearning for transparency, accountability and the ubiquitous selfie. Under the circumstances, it’s no surprise that conflict — be it domestic or institutional — is increasingly played out in the public sphere. It’s not enough that we now know…
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Culture The Great Food Fight of 1883
One of the most appealing things about my line of work is that, now and again, I have the opportunity to revisit something I’ve read, written or talked about. The other day, an invitation from the department of Judaic studies at the University of Cincinnati to deliver a public lecture about food provided me with…
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Culture Amy Reichert’s Art Reinvents Judaica
Calling all Cassandras, those given to gloom and doom about the pliancy of contemporary Jewish life, much less its future. I suggest they make a beeline for Chicago’s Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership’s new exhibition, “Amy Reichert: Reinventing Judaica,” whose display of Jewish ritual objects will go a very long way toward dispelling…
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Culture What Does This Photo of Tashlikh Say About the Evolution of Jewish Life?
You have seen her before. She stands, swathed in white from tip to toe, on the walkway of a bridge, peering intently at the book she holds in her hands. She exudes a sense of solitariness, but she is not alone. A phalanx of men clad in black gather to her left. She is flanked…
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Culture Is Garment Industry a Relic of Yesteryear?
A lament: I can’t find a thing to wear. On second thought, let me amend that so that it reads more truthfully and accurately: I can’t find anything to buy — and it is not for want of trying, I assure you. My bellyaching has cause. As summer takes its leave, I eagerly peruse the…
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Culture How Military Photos Testify to Our Place — in World War II and Gaza
I’ve been thinking a lot about photographs lately. No, not selfies, but the black-and-white images of people, usually of family members, that stand stiffly at attention on a mantelpiece or on a side table in the living room. Neatly contained in a frame fashioned out of wood or metal, these pictures infuse domestic space with…
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Culture The Charmed Life of Charmed Bracelets
Mamie Eisenhower had one, and if you came of age during the 1950s, chances are you had one, too. I’m referring to the charm bracelet, that metallic cluster of miniaturized icons that hung from, and often strained, the wrist of every self-respecting, well-dressed woman in postwar America. As much a fad in its day as…
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Culture Thoroughly Modernist Jewish Design
Funny how styles come and go. One generation’s eyesore of a couch is another’s prized possession. You need only visit “Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism,” a brand-new exhibition at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum to see how fickle we can be. Filled with stuff formerly consigned to an attic but which now reads as…
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