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 How the Bible Became as American as American Cheese
Our nation’s capitol is an exciting place in which to live and work. You never know who or what you’re going to come across. A famous face, the presidential motorcade, clusters of ordinary Americans dressed for all the world as if they were 18th century colonists come back to life in the 21st are the…
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Culture Why Jews Suffer From a Quilt Complex
The much-vaunted distinctiveness of the Jews resides in what they eat, how they attend to their prayers, and the means by which they earn their keep. Their distinctiveness, as it turns out, is a matter of textiles, too. No, I don’t have in mind Torah mantles or challah covers, but something far more quotidian: bedding….
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Culture How Doris Day and Miss Clairol Helped Jews Join the Mainstream
A few months ago, I happened across a reference to the late 19th century notion that the Jews suffered disproportionately from colorblindness. This malady, it was argued at the time, explained a lot about them, most especially their putative penchant for things bold and flashy or what we today would most likely call “bling.” Whether…
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Culture How Jews Gave Real Estate a Good Name
In the two cities I call home, New York and D.C., real estate is the stuff of enduring conversation. Discussing who lives where and in what kind of habitat — condo, co-op, private home or rental apartment — never seems to grow stale. Nearly as compelling a topic, or so it seems to me, is…
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Culture End of Loehmann’s Is End of an Era
The news that Loehmann’s, the grandmother of discount clothing emporia, is closing its doors caught me by surprise and saddened me, too. It shouldn’t have. After all, apart from the occasional purchase of a pair of socks, I hadn’t shopped there in years, nor did any of my fashion-minded confrères. A casualty of online shopping,…
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Culture ‘Tis the Season For Holiday Synthesis
Now that doughnuts filled with pumpkin crème and potato latkes festooned with cranberry sauce have been safely consumed, and all those recently purchased menurkeys, where “the candles meet the turkey,” are stowed away until the next time they are destined to put in an appearance, it is high time, I think, to take a moment…
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Culture Learning About Jewish Community From Manhattan’s Upper West Side
The recent findings of the Pew Research Center study (yes, that again) have left many of us scratching our heads, biting our nails and searching every which way for answers. Some have sought explanation, let alone consolation, in the broad strokes of macro-analysis, others in anecdote and still others in history. The past, as you…
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Culture Making Room For American Jewish Studies
Last year, Tel Aviv University held what looks to have been a fascinating conference: “Minhagim: Custom and Practice in Jewish Life,” a cross-cultural inquiry into the nature of minhag, or custom, and its relationship to localized patterns of authority and ritual practice. Several days were devoted to exploring the ways in which Romanian Jews decorated…
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