Insider/Outsider; American Jews and Multiculturalism
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998. First Printing [Stated]. Trade paperback. vi, 280, [2] pages. Notes. Notes on Contributors. Index. Sticker residue inside the front cover. David Biale is an American historian specializing in Jewish history. Biale specialized in Jewish history, and obtained a Ph.D. in the subject from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1977. Between 1986 and 1999, Biale was the Koret Professor of Jewish History and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. He subsequently joined the University of California, Davis, as Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History. Michael Galchinsky writes on human rights literature, international human rights law, nineteenth-century British literature, and Jewish studies. His study of Jewish human rights activism after World War II, Jews and Human Rights: Dancing at Three Weddings, explores Jews’ initial enthusiasm for the growing international human rights regime in the wake of the Holocaust, but then the waning of their support, starting in the late 1960s, as the human rights began to be used to delegitimize Israel. He also co-edited with David Biale and Susannah Heschel, Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism. Susannah Heschel (born 15 May 1956) is an American scholar and the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. The author and editor of numerous books and articles, she is a Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of numerous awards. Heschel's scholarship focuses on Jewish and Christian interactions in Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Twelve distinguished historians, political theorists, and literary critics present new perspectives on multiculturalism in this important collection. Central to the essays (all but one is appearing in print for the first time) is the question of how the Jewish experience can challenge the conventional polar opposition between a majority "white monoculture" and a marginalized "minorities of color multiculture." This book takes issue with such a dichotomy by showing how experiences of American Jews can undo conventional categories. Neither a complaint against multiculturalism by Jews who feel excluded from it, nor a celebration of multiculturalism as the solution to contemporary Jewish problems, Insider/Outsider explores how the Jews' anomalous status opens up multicultural history in different and interesting directions. The goal of the editors has been to transcend the notion of "comparative victimology" and to show the value of a narrative that does not rely on competing histories of persecution. Readers can discover in these essays arguments that will broaden their understanding of Jewish identity and multicultural theory and will enliven the contemporary debate about American culture generally. Condition: Very good / No dust jacket issued.
Keywords: Jews, Multiculturalism, Melting Pot, Shaatnez, Pluralism, Counterhistory, Jewish Studies, Hebrew Bible, Judaism, Feminism, Afrocentrism, Diaspora, Jewish-American, Homeland, Modernism, Exile, Identity Politics
ISBN: 0520211227
[Book #85144]
Price: $45.00