Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Literature: Lazarus, Syrkin, Reznikoff, and RothBrandeis University Press, 2002 - 341 pages This interdisciplinary study explores the evolving representations of diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American writing from 1880 to the late 20th century. Beginning with the often neglected proto-Zionist verse of Emma Lazarus, through the urban and Holocaust-inflected lyrics of Marie Syrkin and Charles Reznikoff, to the post-assimilationist novels of Philip Roth in the 1990s, Ranen Omer-Sherman analyzes literary responses to the competing claims on the self made by this dual allegiance. He explores ethnic nationalism in the works of Lazarus; history and identity in the prose and verse of Syrkin and her husband Reznikoff; and considers the Jewish writer's relation to the loss of diasporic affliction as an organizing principle for Jewish life in the novels of Roth. Much more than just literary criticism, Omer-Sherman shows how this literature developed in direct relation to crucial phases in Jewish acculturation in the context of nativism, xenophobia, the holocaust, and a beckoning distant homeland. |
Contents
Acknowledgments xili | 1 |
Emma Lazarus Zion | 15 |
Marie Syrkin and | 68 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
alienation American Jewish American Jews ancient antisemitism appeared argues assimilation authentic biblical century Charles Reznikoff Christian claims collective contemporary cosmopolitan Counterlife creative critics Daniel Deronda death Deronda Diaspora discourse dream Eliot's Emma Lazarus essay ethnic Europe European exile experience father fiction Galut Gentile ghetto Hebrew Henry Hurwitz Holocaust Holy Land homeland human Human Stain ideology imagination immigrants intellectual Israel Israeli Jerusalem Jewish American literature Jewish culture Jewish Frontier Jewish history Jewish identity Jewish writers Jewry Judaism Labor Zionism Lazarus's Letters liberal literary literature living Marie Syrkin Menorah Menorah Journal Modern Jewish Nachman Syrkin narrative Nathan Nathan Zuckerman novel novelist Operation Shylock Palestine pariah past perhaps persecution Philip Roth Poems poet poet's poetic political Portnoy present prophetic Rabbi readers reality redemption response Rezni Reznikoff's poetry rhetoric Roth's Sabbath secular seems sense struggle tion tradition utopian verse vision Yiddish York Zion Zionist Zuckerman