| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

In Search of American Jewish Culture. By Stephen J. Whitfield. (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1999. xviii, 307 pp. $26.00, ISBN 0-87451-754-0.)

In Search of American Jewish Culture is an intelligent, panoramic, and enthusiastic book that proves how difficult it is to conceptualize the deep involvement of Jews with American culture. 1

In an admittedly selective reading of his subject, Stephen J. Whitfield chooses not to discuss the visual arts, radio and television, Hollywood, or popular literature, but offers chapters on musical theater, music, and theater. The rest of the book takes up the subjects of "Race," "Shoah," and "Faith." Whitfield opens with two definitional chapters about American culture and Jewish identity, a subject to which he returns in the epilogue. 2

More a set of essays than a sustained analysis, the book provides an exciting tour through the jungle of Jewish productions in show business and music. It also gives enlightening synopses of Jewish interaction with African American artists, American treatments of the Holocaust, and the problem of particularism versus universalism in American Judaism. . . .

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