| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America. By Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. xii, 242 pp. $27.95, ISBN 0-253-33782-8.)

In The Jew Within, Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen argue that contemporary American Jews have loosened their connections to organized public religion and turned inward, searching for a Judaism that is rooted in profound individualism and ambivalent toward the many ethnic institutions that defined an earlier generation. Echoing conclusions drawn by Robert Wuthnow and Wade Clark Roof, Cohen and Eisen contend that "the discovery and construction of Jewish meaning in contemporary America . . . occur primarily in the private sphere." 1

The Jew Within breaks important new ground in the study of American Jewish identity. By focusing on moderately affiliated Jews (those with some organizational ties but not the self-selected leadership), Cohen and Eisen move American Jewish historiography away from its traditional reliance on organizational leadership and toward a greater respect for the attitudes of everyday Jews. Reaching beyond the limits of statistical surveys, they conducted lengthy interviews with nearly fifty subjects and succeeded in constructing a grand narrative that speaks to the tensions and dilemmas that animated their Jewish lives. . . .

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