Imagining Jewish Authenticity Vision and Text in American Jewish Thought [Hardcover]

Exploring how visual media presents claims to Jewish authenticity, Imagining Jewish Authenticity argues that Jews imagine themselves and their place within America by appealing to a graphic sensibility. Ken Koltun-Fromm traces how American Jewish thinkers capture Jewish authenticity, and lingering fears of inauthenticity, in and through visual discourse and opens up the subtle connections between visual expectations, cultural knowledge, racial belonging, embodied identity, and the ways images and texts work together.

Sure to strike an immediate nerve and to be a springboard for lively scholarly and public discussions, especially as it tackles highly timely issues such as gender, conversion, and race.Koltun-Fromm has written an important book, one that serves as a reminder not only of the value of boundaries and distinctionsparticularly for minority groupsbut also of the need for 'newrelations of justice'.

This volume will have great appeal for anyone interested in classic Jewish literary sources and popular culture that have contributed to the American Jewish psyche. Not only does Koltun-Fromms deep investment in the fallible constructions of authenticity bring new and provocative insights into media we thought we knew, it is itself a demonstration of the sort of psychological and intellectual challenges with which American scholars of contemporary Jewish studies continue to struggle.

By turning his attention to how American Jewish thinkers appealed to visual metaphors to affirm Jewish authenticity, Ken Koltun-Fromm sheds new light on an important topic. This is, as far as I know, the first attempt to take the matter of visual discourse in the context of American Judaism seriously.[T]his volume is not about traditionalist philosophical and theological underpinnings of the rabbinic covenant of learning Jewish authenticity but instead about creative Talmud Torah?that speaks of two minds: emotional and experiential. ?A compelling read. Recommended.lSR