This unique encyclopedia chronicles American Jewish popular culture, past and present in music, art, food, religion, literature, and more. Over 150 entries, written by scholars in the field, highlight topics ranging from animation and comics to Hollywood and pop psychology.
Without the profound contributions of American Jews, the popular culture we know today would not exist. Where would music be without the music of Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand, humor without Judd Apatow and Jerry Seinfeld, film without Steven Spielberg, literature without Phillip Roth, Broadway without Rodgers and Hammerstein? These are just a few of the artists who broke new ground and changed the face of American popular culture forever. This unique encyclopedia chronicles American Jewish popular culture, past and present in music, art, food, religion, literature, and more. Over 150 entries, written by scholars in the field, highlight topics ranging from animation and comics to Hollywood and pop psychology.
Up-to-date coverage and extensive attention to political and social contexts make this encyclopedia is an excellent resource for high school and college students interested in the full range of Jewish popular culture in the United States. Academic and public libraries will also treasure this work as an incomparable guide to our nation's heritage. Illustrations complement the text throughout, and many entries cite works for further reading. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography of print and electronic sources to encourage further research.
Show moreThis unique encyclopedia chronicles American Jewish popular culture, past and present in music, art, food, religion, literature, and more. Over 150 entries, written by scholars in the field, highlight topics ranging from animation and comics to Hollywood and pop psychology.
Without the profound contributions of American Jews, the popular culture we know today would not exist. Where would music be without the music of Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand, humor without Judd Apatow and Jerry Seinfeld, film without Steven Spielberg, literature without Phillip Roth, Broadway without Rodgers and Hammerstein? These are just a few of the artists who broke new ground and changed the face of American popular culture forever. This unique encyclopedia chronicles American Jewish popular culture, past and present in music, art, food, religion, literature, and more. Over 150 entries, written by scholars in the field, highlight topics ranging from animation and comics to Hollywood and pop psychology.
Up-to-date coverage and extensive attention to political and social contexts make this encyclopedia is an excellent resource for high school and college students interested in the full range of Jewish popular culture in the United States. Academic and public libraries will also treasure this work as an incomparable guide to our nation's heritage. Illustrations complement the text throughout, and many entries cite works for further reading. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography of print and electronic sources to encourage further research.
Show moreIntroduction
Acknowledgments
Advisory Board
List of Entries
Guide to Related Topics
The Encyclopedia
Bibliography
Jack Fischel is Emeritus Professor of History at Millersville University. He has authored and edited numerous publications, including The Holocaust (Greenwood Press, 1992), Jewish-American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, (1992), and The Religious Implications of the Holocaust (Greenwood Press, 2002).
From Bella Abzug to Henny Youngman, Fischel (emeritus, Millersville
U., PA) has compiled some 250 cross-referenced entries attesting to
the substantial contribution made by Jews to popular culture in the
US despite constituting a tiny percentage of the population.
Following an introduction that addresses the issue of 'who is a
Jew,' coverage includes
biographical sketches of secular and religious personalities plus
essays on topics such as the place of Yiddish culture and the
Holocaust in American culture. The volume includes a list of
entries, guide to related topics (from the arts and business
mangers to the women's movement and Yiddish), further reading, and
photos. Contributors include scholars
from diverse fields, other writers, and clergy.
*Reference & Research Book News*
As a student of Jewish American popular culture, I was most
impressed by those entries that are models of distillation and
authoritativeness. Jon Stratton on the "Jewish Brill Building," the
famous Broadway landmark where pop music composers in their
youth—like Carole King (né Klein), Neal Sedaka, and numerous
others—worked, is superb, as is the entry on Jewish comedy by Mark
Shechner. …From such wonderful juxtapositions, which fill this
impressive reference book, an attentive reader can appreciate the
myriad figures and zones of popular culture shaped by Jewish
Americans
over the past one hundred years.
*Jewish Book World*
This encyclopedia's strengths are its simple, direct organization
combined with easy usability. The entries, written by
respected authors, are lively and readable. An extensive
bibliography and index facilitate access. Best suited as a
student reference source, this volume covers a wide array of mostly
contemporary topics, personalities, and events.
The entries vary in depth and quality (Richard Gould's essay on
jazz and blues is a tour de force), though each presents
some tidbit or flavor of the 'Jewish' context of the subject. . . .
Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-level
undergraduates; general readers.
*Choice*
This is a topical guide to literature, politics and Yiddish
theater---and so much more.
*Hadassah Magazine*
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