"This highly readable set of essays, assembled by one of the keenest observers of American Jewish life, deftly probes issues of minority identity and distinctiveness by analyzing key 'texts' from the cultural worlds of film, fiction, TV, and scholarship. The pace is lively and the quality high."-Arnold Eisen, Koshland, Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion, Stanford University

"This sparkling collection of essays is itself a key critical text in the formation of American Jewish culture. It moves the discussion along in new and promising directions."-Ruth R. Wisse, Harvard University

Key Texts in American Jewish Culture expands the frame of reference used by students of culture and history both by widening the "canon" of Jewish texts and by providing a way to extrapolate new meanings from well-known sources.

Contributors come from a variety of disciplines, including American studies, anthropology, comparative literature, history, music, religious studies, and women's studies. Each provides an analysis of a specific text in art, music, television, literature, homily, liturgy, or history. Some of the works discussed, such as Philip Roth's novel Counterlife, the musical Fiddler on the Roof, and Irving Howe's World of Our Fathers, are already widely acknowledged components of the American Jewish studies canon. Others-such as Bridget Loves Bernie, infamous for the hostile reception it received among American Jews¾ may be considered "key texts" because of the controversy they provoked. Still others, such as Joshua Liebman's Piece of Mind and the radio and TV sitcom The Goldbergs, demonstrate the extent to which American Jewish culture and mainstream American culture intermingle with and borrow from each other.

Jack Kugelmass is the Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Holocaust and Modern Jewish Studies and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Arizona State University. He is the author or editor of numerous books on Jewish history and culture including the forthcoming Rites of the Tribe: The Public Culture of American Jewry.