Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America

Images, objects, and practices that have shaped American Judaism

Deals with the subject of how Jews think about and work with objects. This title draws from philosophy, cultural studies, literature, psychology, film, and photography to portray the vibrancy of Jewish practice in America. It offers an approach to an understanding of modern Jewish thought and its relation to American culture.

How Jews think about and work with objects is the subject of this fascinating study of the interplay between material culture and Jewish thought. Ken Koltun-Fromm draws from philosophy, cultural studies, literature, psychology, film, and photography to portray the vibrancy and richness of Jewish practice in America. His analyses of Mordecai Kaplan's obsession with journal writing, Joseph Soloveitchik's urban religion, Abraham Joshua Heschel's fascination with objects in The Sabbath, and material identity in the works of Anzia Yezierska, Cynthia Ozick, Bernard Malamud, and Philip Roth, as well as Jewish images on the covers of Lilith magazine and in the Jazz Singer films, offer a groundbreaking approach to an understanding of modern Jewish thought and its relation to American culture.