Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Ohad Reznick teaches American literature at Tel Aviv University and Ben‑Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author of Imagined Non‑Jews: Jews Passing as Gentiles in Post‑WWII and Multicultural American Fiction (2024). His articles appear in MELUS, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, and LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory.
<p><b>"</b>In these troubled times, this book’s exploration of the portrayal of changing relationships between Jewish and American identities in novels about war across the twentieth century, and its focus on positive representations of Jewish characters in fiction, is most timely."</p><p><i><b>Anthony Lake, University of Roehampton</b></i></p><p>"What does it mean to be a Jew, an American, and a soldier? Ohad Reznick offers original insight into a century of fiction to re-examine ideas of Jewish identity."</p><p><i><b> Raffaele Esposito, University of Naples L’Orientale</b></i></p>
This is the first book of its kind to provide an analysis of the representation of Jews in American war novels throughout the long twentieth century.
This study delineates the intricate relationship between Jews and wars. Are Jews depicted as draft dodgers or heroes in American war fiction? How do Jewish soldiers cope with anti-Semitism in war novels? Do Jewish women contribute to the war effort? Addressing these questions, among others, this book analyzes texts, some of which have been overlooked by critics and some by well-known authors, such as Ernest Hemingway and Philip Roth, in order to trace the changes in the perception of Jews in relation to war. Scrutinizing themes such as blood and masculinity, The Jew in the American War Novel argues that the depiction of the Jew is characterized by progression and then regression; in war novels published shortly after WWI, non-Jews see Jews as draft evaders who lack masculinity. After WWII, Jews began to be seen as contributing to the warfare. However, toward the end of twentieth century, reflecting the reemergence of prevalent anti-Semitism, Jews are once again seen as disloyal, resulting in a clash between the sense of Jewish and American identities.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Relationship between Jewish Americans and Wars
Chapter 1: The Interwar Period–the Jew as an Unmasculine Man who Evades the War
Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: The Jew as Imitating the Real Male
John Dos Passos' Three Soldiers: The "Kike" who is Proven Right
Chapter 2: The 1940s–1950s – Oversimplifying the Jewish American Conflict
Irwin Shaw's The Young Lions: Anti-Semitism as a Threat to Democracy
Wasteland: The Merger of Jewish and Non-Jewish Blood
That Winter: Revisiting Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises
Chapter 3: The 1960s–1980s—Jewish Wars
War and Remembrance: WWII and Saving Jews
Crescent City: A Jewish War Against Slavery and Chauvinism
Chapter 4: The 1990s–2020s—The Jews as Separate from Other Americans
All Other Nights: A Clash Between the Two Identities
The Living and the Lost: The Holocaust as Shaping Jewish Identity
Epilogue: Blood, Draft Evasion, and Anti-Semitism in The Human Stain
Index
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Ohad Reznick teaches American literature at Tel Aviv University and Ben‑Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author of Imagined Non‑Jews: Jews Passing as Gentiles in Post‑WWII and Multicultural American Fiction (2024). His articles appear in MELUS, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, and LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory.