Introduction: visual authenticity in the American Jewish imaginary -- The anxiety of authenticity in image and text -- Seeing Israel in Bernard Rosenblatt's social Zionism -- Seeing things in Abraham Joshua Heschel's the Sabbath -- Seeing food in the Jewish home beautiful and Kosher by design -- The language of Jewish bodies in Michael Wyschogrod's the Body of Faith -- The language of gendered bodies in Rachel Adler's Engendering Judaism -- The language of racial bodies in Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz's The Colors of Jews -- Conclusion: imagining Jewish authenticity in every generation
Summary
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
