Ashkenaz This Time from East to West Naomi Seidman

Reading “Queer” Ashkenaz This Time from East to West Naomi Seidman

The rise of feminist criticism and then postcolonial and queer studies had an immediate and productive impact on Jewish studies, producing an explosion of new insights and a host of fresh readings. If these new readings had a broad range, encompassing the Talmud as easily as they did American Jewish cinema, they also had a strong center, clustering most persistently around the couch in Freud’s Viennese study (see Gilman 1991, 1993; Pellegrini 1997a; Boyarin 1997; Geller 2007). It’s not hard to understand the magnetism of that attraction. In fin-de-siècle Vienna, the broadest currents of sociological and historical-political transformation met the deepest recesses of psychosexual subjectivity. With Freud, queer theorists working in Jewish studies found a range of flexible methodological tools, a paradigmatic case study, and a clear path through the charged intersection of secularization and sexuality. From this vantage point, Jewish modernization, Europeanization, and embourgeoisement emerged as an encounter between radically asymmetrical gender orders and sexual systems: on the one hand stood the traditional Ashkenazic structure, with roots in Rabbinic-Talmudic culture and rich embodiment among the Eastern European Jewish masses; on the other hand appeared the bourgeois European sexual system, with roots in Greco-Roman, Christian, and heroic-chivalric cultural formations, in which modernizing Jews aspired to participate. The Jewish romance with Europe was notori- ously unreciprocated: In the judgment of the dominant European culture into which Jews were (imperfectly) integrating — a perspective thoroughly internalized by aspiring Jewish citizens of Europe — Jewish men were unmanly cowards and effete hysterics, while Jewish women were hypersexual, coarse and unfeminine. Jewish “queerness,” then, is a symptom of Jewish modernity as cultural mismatch, category crisis, incomplete integration, and colonial mimicry. It is no coincidence, as Sander Gilman and others have noted, that the “invention of homosexuality” coincided with the entry of Jews into the Central European bourgeoisie, an entry productive of and complicated by the sexual stigmatization of Jewish men (Gilman 1991:126). Psychoanalysis, in a variety of related readings, was a primary effect of this stigma while also providing tools for its diagnosis and “cure,” but it was not the only such effect. Among the other significant rever- berations of this socio-sexual crisis was Zionism, as both the collective internalization of Jewish sexual stigma and treatment for the wounds of modern Jewish masculinity. There is no doubt that these insights can profitably illuminate Jewish modernization in Eastern Europe, as well. The distinctive conditions of Eastern Europe precluded real move- ment toward political or social integration, and Eastern European Jewish modernizers looked to Central Europe rather than their own urban centers for models of embourgeoisement and

Naomi Seidman is Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Author of A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish (University of California Press, 1997), and Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation (University of Chicago Press, 2006), she is presently working on a volume entitled The Sexual Transformation of Ashkenaz. [email protected]

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00094 by guest on 01 October 2021 Reading “Queer” Ashkenaz 51 - As in Central European formations, formations, As in Central European and the process of Westernization manifested itself in Europeanization in a host cultural production Yiddish inverted, and cross- of odd, perverse, misfires dressed literary characters, of the performative requirements of modernization. - or the story of Torah scholar who is ‘revealed’ to be a ‘revealed’ scholar who is Torah or the story of 1 — [romance] in Hebrew and Yiddish as in many other as in many Yiddish in Hebrew and [romance] (1920), according to David Roskies, was the first literary according to David Roskies, (1920),

What distinguishes Boyarin’s readings from many others is that Boyarin considers traditional Jewish norms of of norms Jewish traditional considers Boyarin that is others many from readings Boyarin’s distinguishes What deliber- as but Europe, Christian of those from different contingently and historically as merely not masculinity formations. later to origins rabbinic their from so, subversively and ately It may be no coincidence, given these gender anxieties, that the most popular star of the anxieties, given these gender It may be no coincidence, Modernization continued in waves well into the 20th century, and contemporary Jewish lit- the 20th century, Modernization continued in waves well into who dresses Yentl, is cross-dressed is the girl, it is clear that the one who On one hand, On the her very study is cross-dressing as well. Yeshiva; as a boy in order to study in the as a girl dressed as a boy owes something the fact that she is indistinguishable other hand, manli- to the effeminate or cross-dressed nature of the boys vis-à-vis European norms of (1997:143) as well. Yeshiva ness in the raphies of private reading and heterosexual raphies of private reading 1. Yiddish stage and screen was an American-born actress famous for her cross-dressing roles. In In American-born actress famous for her cross-dressing roles. screen was an stage and Yiddish

courtship (1973:93). Hebrew writers gener courtship (1973:93). languages) was especially formative in educating Jewish men and women in the stylized chore formative in educating Jewish men and languages) was especially og producing novels that ally took the high road, masculinity and feminin- “proper” modeled the heroes who courted ity in its heroines and more literature Yiddish while and wed them, turning inward and back- often pitched low, satirical light on the ward to shed comic, As the pri- order. traditional Jewish gender Jewish sexual critique, mary arena for internal literature is thus richly populated with Yiddish feminized Jewish cross-dressed characters, match- men fleeing from their shrewish wives, As in and brides speaking in suspiciously deep voices. makers marrying off men to one another, and Europeanization manifested Westernization the process of Central European formations, and cross-dressed liter inverted, perverse, cultural production in a host of odd, Yiddish itself in misfires of the performative requirements of modernization. ary characters, writers skew- But while 19th-century sexual trauma. erature continues to return to the scene of mercenary suppression of the freedom of young ered the traditional marriage system for its world 20th-century modernist revision often infused the traditional people to choose a mate, Ansky’s Dybbuk S. with eroticism. horrors of demonic possession with the (modern, “traditional”) work to combine the (archaic, culture Yiddish Twentieth-century heterosexual) erotic sublime (Roskies 1992:xxvii). European, that earlier writers had seen as erotic wastelands. thus found romance in precisely those places rather than this literature is often read as only critical of Eastern European Jews, Nevertheless, In one reading of the of sexual and gender identity. as celebrating their alternative conceptions Yeshiva the “Yentl, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s 1962 story 1983 Barbra Streisand film treatment of “this subtext of the [male] Jew as embodying Anshel, or Yentl, Marjorie Garber describes Boy,” of a woman who needs to “one is ‘real’ story” “the asking whether as always-already a woman,” Torah ‘become a man’ in order to study echoes and explicates Garber: Daniel Boyarin (1992:227). woman” Jewish integration; in the absence of emancipation or broad integration, literature and drama literature and drama or broad integration, of emancipation in the absence Jewish integration; lit- Yiddish Hebrew and as part of Europe. imagine themselves sites for Jews to became primary con- and literary genres, reading practices, range of European readers to a erature introduced Modern Jewish literature gender ideology. the strong charge of all of which carried ventions, sex- gender roles and of”“models “models for” both and terms, in Clifford Geertz’s produced, roman The novel (called ual practices: Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00094 by guest on 01 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00094 by guest on 01October 2021

52 Naomi Seidman riage, musicalcelebrity, andafirst-classvoyagetothegoldene medine while remainingsecureintheforeknowledgeofaproperlyheterosexualhappyending:mar the Fiddle givestheaudiencefrissonofwatchinganapparentlyhomosexualromancedevelop Garber seesas “smoldering” withrepressedhomosexualitythatisultimatelyregulated, Yidl with escapes detectionasaboysinceJewishboysaresomuchlikegirls. And aswithYentl, which disguises herselfinmalegarbtoplayaklezmerband. Itcouldbearguedthat Yidl, like Yentl, the 1936Yidl withtheFiddle (directedbyJosephGreen), MollyPiconplaysayoungwomanwho gated) pleasures. other hand, holdingonto thetraditionalsexualorder, withitsown(homoerotic, sexuallysegre- its alluringandabsurdchoreography andaccompanyingideologyofgenderdifference;onthe ble trajectory:ontheonehand, aimingatthegloriouspromiseoftrue(heterosexual) love, with these Jewishcharactersandthe plotsinwhichtheirdilemmasunfoldfollowanimpossible, dou- Yidl are “queer” notbecauseJewishmenperformmasculinity “improperly” butrather because cultural agent. Suchcross-dressedemblemsof Yiddish literatureas “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy” and symptom, butratherastheenactmentofmodernization asambivalentdesire, with Ashkenaz as expressions notasasymptomofincompletemodernization, with Ashkenazic cultureassexual remembered, inventedpast. ContraGarberand Boyarin, dragisproducedin Yiddish cultural tion, inJewishculturalconsciousness, oftheattractions ofthemodernandpersistenceits cal, andcinematicproductionsthusreflectnothistorical realitiesbutthecontinuednegotia- and resituatingitinplacesfromwhichhadalwaysbeenexcluded. These literary, theatri- ally “queer,” promiscuouslydecouplingheterosexualdesirefromtheirEuropeanframeworks sures availabletoheterosexuals. Mydiagnosisofsuchdrag isthatitlesssexuallythancultur of Europeanheterosexualchoreographies, or(toputit otherwise)madehomosocialplea- sures notavailableinbourgeoisheterosexuality;dragallowedforheterosexualdesirestripped homosexual-heterosexual binary. For Yidl and Yentl, thehomosocialspherepromisedplea- ognizes abroaderfieldoferoticengagementbeyond “proper” genderperformanceandthe garb and heterosexualproprietyreaffirmedbytherealignmentoffemalebodywithitsproper flirts withhomosexualromance, atleastuntilthisfantasy(asinYidl withtheFiddle) isaverted Yiddish culture’subiquitousdragfantasyreliesonandperformsJewishmaleeffeminacyasit ture toprovidethetheoreticalapparatusforitsself-analysis. InstudiessuchasGarber’s, expressing acriticalperspectiveofitsownonquestionsJewishsexandgender. couch, servingascasestudyfortheEuropeananalystandhisacademicdescendantsratherthan trast withanormativeEuropeanmodel. Ashkenazic culturethusremainsthepatienton never has constrainedthefield:queerstudiesapproachnewlyvalorizesJewish “queerness,” while the crisisofJewishintegration(civility, assimilation). Itseemstomethatyetanotherdifficulty sexual minoritydiscourse(sexualorientation, genderperformance)andthoseassociatedwith (mis)translating betweenasetoftermsdevelopedintherealmindividualpsychologyand theoretical problemsassociatedwiththeinterarticulationofraceandgender, that is, with ing Jewishheteronormativityandpatriarchy. These difficultiesmaythemselvesreflectlarger (1997b:109). The frameworkofcomparativemasculinityhasalsoleftlittleroomfortheoriz- women); in “the implicitequationofJewsandwomen...theJewishfemalebodygoesmissing” near-obsessive focusonJewishmasculinity(evenwhenthesubjectisostensiblycross-dressed solved: Ann Pellegrinilongagoarguedthatthequeerstudiesapproachhadlimiteditselfbyits ness ofnewreadingsaresymptomatic. Various difficultiesapparentattheoutsetremainunre- to methatithasreachedsomethingofanimpasse, ofwhichthepredictabilityandrepetitive- and ultimatelyovercome. In thisasinotherfilms, thequeernessoftraditionalJewishgenderisbothalloweditsmoment What I’dliketoattempthereisreversethiscolonialgaze, allowing Ashkenazic cul- Despite thepersuasivenessofqueerstudiesapproachIhavebeendescribing, itseems — theless retainingthecolonialframeworkinwhichqueerJewisproducedthroughcon- ideally, abridalgown. What Iamarguingforhereisareadingof Yiddish dragthatrec- — America thegoldenland. - - Reading “Queer” Ashkenaz 53

— through the yeshiva or Hasidic court yeshiva or Hasidic through the — that are the peculiar genius of intensely reli- — ecstatic song and dance, for instance ecstatic song and dance,

—

In the sexually desegregated spaces of the Yiddish theatre and movie houses, directors directors houses, theatre and movie Yiddish of the desegregated spaces In the sexually Gradually the two went back to their Talmudic conversation. It seemed strange at first conversation. Talmudic back to their Gradually the two went reunited Torah yet before long the a woman, to be disputing holy writ with Avigdor to Anshel spoke in of one kind. their souls were bodies were different, Though their them. plucked at her beardless clutched her sidelocks, with her thumb, gesticulated a singsong, In the heat of argument she customary gestures of a yeshiva student. made all the chin, took hold Anshel A great love for him stupid. by the lapel and called Avigdor even seized the first time he saw clearly that [...] For anxiety. remorse, mixed with shame, Avigdor, of whose mind was not taken up with material this was what he had always wanted: a wife (165) things [...]. great his for background the as materialistic, as women of denigration stereotypical Avigdor’s Ashkenazic sex- we need a new model for theorizing As my reading of Jewish drag suggests, returned to the homosocial spaces their audiences had abandoned. The heterosexual romances The heterosexual romances abandoned. their audiences had the homosocial spaces returned to toward consummation took the long way they staged not only to delay gratification but also to provide such pleasures as were native to the Jewish native to the Jewish pleasures as were but also to provide such delay gratification not only to of the text the mediation Hasidic shared ecstasy, camaraderie, agonistic Talmudic homosocial: the pos- as a woman produces Anshel cross-dressed the exposure of the “Yentl,” In or Rebbe. Talmudic friendship forged in romance but it also threatens to end the sibility of heterosexual had been turned into a their confidences, “their intimate talk, perspective, Avigdor’s From study. “masculine” exclusively triangulating, Only the (Bashevis Singer 1983:165). sham and delusion” allows them to renew this intimacy: Talmud presence of the As Stephanie heterosexual ideals. Western internal to exposes a contradiction Anshel, love of with the sen- the doctrine of sexual difference arose in association and tension Coontz writes, “The among 19th-century European bourgeois. timental discourse of companionate marriage different natures remained an impediment to conviction that men and women had inherently and women both complementary figures and driving a making men romantic love and intimacy, allowed a young man and woman to encoun- Cross-dressing (2005:184). wedge between them” rather argument, Talmudic aggressive intimacy native to “democratic,” ter each other within the drag thus swung both Yiddish gender performance. than within the choreography of bourgeois as studies perspective, from a queer has been understood, What sexually and culturally. ways, sexual difference in relation to European norms the working-through of stigmatized Jewish of modern and tradi- as the imaginary combination “bisexually,” more I argue, should be read, drag emerges as insider Yiddish West, or East to Reading from right to left, tional pleasures. in which disparate sexual cultures could meet and stake their respective claims. discourse, one the (still-Freudian) queer studies approaches, ual culture beyond either the Freudian or rather system, an internally coherent sexual Ashkenaz, in traditional that would recognize, in relation to “improper” or “pathological” to be judged as than an assemblage of individuals, fail functioned (when it did not a bourgeois-European model. argue, I would Such a system, combining a partially erot- to function) according to a bisexual distribution of sexual energies, Marriage was icized homosocial sphere with a partially de-eroticized heteronormative sphere. it inevita- a strongly sexually segregated world, but within an important part of this system, each with its distinctive bly worked in concert with a broad range of same-sex environments, and the Hasidic court, synagogues, bathhouses, study halls, Yeshivas, patterns of interaction: later the youth movements were part of a single-sex social-religious culture that supplemented (These spaces were particularly plentiful for the mixed-sex spaces of home and marketplace. served women.) Homosocial spheres were partially although some homosocial spaces men, their as in the erotic mysticism by which Hasidism understood eroticized either discursively, and religious inti- emotional, a range of physical, through or structurally, religious practices, macies gious or traditional societies. Thus, erotic energies for each individual as well as for the broader Thus, gious or traditional societies. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00094 by guest on 01 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00094 by guest on 01October 2021

54 Naomi Seidman European model. “improper” inrelationtoabourgeois- to bejudgedas“pathological” or rather thananassemblageofindividuals internally coherentsexualsystem, recognize, intraditionalAshkenaz,an studies approaches,onethatwould the Freudianor(still-Freudian)queer Ashkenazic sexualculturebeyondeither we needanewmodelfortheorizing As myreadingofJewishdragsuggests, forgot despiteor becauseofthefactthathefelt himselfdrawntotheyounger manashehad recalling thepromisetomarry hisdaughtertothesonofnow-deadfriend, apromise he by anassemblageofcharacters inthiscollectivedrama: The processbeginswithLeah’s father The recoveredtraumainDybbuk isbroughttoconsciousnessnot bythehystericbutrather is notindividualanalysisbutrather theatreasgrouptherapy narrative deviatesfromthisFreudian framework. What Ansky stagesinhis exorcismandtrial ness andconfronted. scenes ofTheDybbukarethetalkingcureinwhichpsychictraumaisbroughtto conscious- can bereadpsychoanalyticallyasahystericalsymptom, justastheexorcismandtrialinfinal Mirapol her deadmalelover, requiringtheprofessionalattentionsofaHasidicrebbe ble, inwhichayounggirlontheeveofherarrangedmarriage beginstospeakinthevoiceof at roughlythesametime. TheDybbukisanexplorationofpsychicdisorderandgendertrou - reading theirdisturbances. Butso, too, does modern Yiddish theatre, working thesameterritory ([1976]1980:23). itself” Foucault’s terms, anengineforthe “intensification, reorientation, andmodificationofdesire regation, arrangedearlymarriage earlier generationofJewishintellectualshadseenasmechanismssexualcontrol bers andforgetsit, imaginingandconstructingtraditionasitwatchesslipaway. What an hues. In Ansky’s drama, modernityisnotwhatcomesaftertraditionbutratherremem- Jewish literatureandculture, inwhichtradition(or “tradition”) tookonincreasinglyerotic norms. erosexual the secularworldharnessedpowerofhomosocialbondsevenwhileadopting Western het social sphereasabulwarkagainstmodernsexualtemptations, justas, intheyouthmovements, ularization andmodernity;thetraditionalworldmobilizederoticattractionsofhomo realm couldbediscovered, butratheremergedinthe19thcenturyunderpressuresofsec- Hasidic courtorLithuanianyeshiva throughout the19thcentury. Moreover, thestrictestformsofsexualsegregation world evolvedsignificantlyinthemodernperiod, withtheageofmarriagerisingdramatically the term “traditional” needstobeexaminedfurther:Maritalsystemswithinthe “traditional” onstrated thatdivorceratesfellratherthanrosewithmodernsexualchoice(2002:19). And ual economyIhavebeendescribingalwaysfunctionedsuccessfully:ChaeRanFreezehasdem- The veryeaseofsuchreadingsmayservetoobscure, however, thesignificantways Ansky’s Freud’s casestudiesprovideuswithagalleryofmodernhysterics andwiththetoolsfor My argument, though, dependslessonhistoricalrealitiesandmoretheirexpressionin — who servesasexorcist, judge, and “analyst.” Leah’spossession bythesoulofChonen — — now appeared, tothewritersof Ansky’s generation, as, in

did notariseinsomepurely “traditional” realm, ifsucha

homosocial links. ples reinforcedandbroughtkinshipstatusto heterosexual couples, andheterosexualcou- homosocial sphereswereimportantsourcesof marriages toelsewhereinthesexualeconomy: prospective matesweredisplacedinarranged and reproductiveroles. The sexualchoicesof marriage decouplederoticdesirefromsexual onormative sphere, inwhichearly, arranged gies alsodependedonade-eroticizedheter ual), astheyareformodernsocieties. the couple(whetherheterosexualorhomosex- ferentiated spheres, ratherthanfocusedon community weredividedbetweensexuallydif- I donotmeantoimplythatthesex- The bisexualdistributionoferoticener — and grouptherapyastheatre. — the Tsaddik of — — as inthe sexual seg- - - Reading “Queer” Ashkenaz 55 - - prospective — the element of ritual repetition is a component of the element of ritual — the dybbuk is herself/himself a figure for such dou- the dybbuk is herself/himself a figure for —

In previous work I called attention to the homoeroticism of the relations between the In previous work I called attention to the and repro- social, The basic structure of marriage as a cross-generational web of economic, subjective, and so must be its ritual acknowledgment and healing. These efforts at healing are be its ritual acknowledgment and healing. and so must subjective, and public “external,” iterative, traditional, disintegration of the networks in forgetting of ritual requirements and the as the the exorcism, Ansky was an eth- aim to redress. components of the trauma the rituals which they operate are its diagnosis, the symptom, for him, rather than a psychoanalyst and, nographer and playwright recovery of a traditional commu- always-already folklore; and the cultural were “cure” and its ritual and its “religious” both and the devastations of modernity required nity battered by war on the psychoanalytic scene, Read as an Eastern European variation performance. “secular” - from this perspec what comes into focus, The Dybbuk thus presents a fundamental challenge to Dybbuk might thus The as the interiority and individualist bias of Freudian psychoanalysis. tive, one of the excessively tight corners of the queer studies as a means of prying loose as well, serve, readings of Jewish sexual culture. of cement- who promise their children to each other as a way fathers of the bride and groom, What now seems more significant to me 2004). ing their profound affective bonds (Seidman to the psy- Ansky distributes intersubjectively and performatively what Freud attributes is that chosexual composition of an individual bride is a function of the sublime erotic love between The demonic possession of the bling. Leah’s father but it also reflects a disruption in the relationship between Leah and Chonen, between the fathers Rather than read the relationship both fathers. and between and her lover, “sexual orientation” with the associations of the term with “homoeroticism,” as thinly veiled I would now direct attention to the normativity of and resistance to the heterosexual order, same-sex rela- as part of the fabric of traditional Jewish marriage in which this same-sex bond, men who promise their unborn children to one another The young tionships are coproductive. translation) but rather a normative type (except in anachronistic “queer” are not Yiddish The Ashkenaz. participants in a kinship relationship critical to traditional makhatonim, obscuring the difference “in-laws,” translated as word makhatonim is sometimes misleadingly relationship between “diagonal” primarily to the between a system in which this term refers and “horizontal” and one which privileges the or vice versa, a wife and her husband’s parents, The par the parents of the bride and groom. quasi-marital kinship relationship that connects with its densely interconnected homoeroticism and het- I am tracing here, “queerness” ticular queer enough) has remained too queer (or not eronormativity and distributive sexual economy, or in its con- either in the bourgeois European romantic imaginary to register in its complexity, temporary queer studies critique. Coontz argues that in- Ashkenaz. ductive as well as affective alliances is certainly not unique to traditional marriage but rather its engine and ultimate “byproducts of law relationships are not is another name for the break with the world of in- in her view, Modernization, (2005:32). goal” of a multigenerational framework for marriage. for the disintegration laws in the name of love, literature clearly registers is that the loss of in-laws is an erotic as well as Yiddish What modern The Dybbuk records the forgetting of the makhatonim relationship social-economic problem. that is first forgotten and then belatedly called to con- a desire as a drama of frustrated desire, just as it has become discursively foreign to modern thought. sciousness in the play, loved his father many years earlier. But the recovered memory is itself insufficient; the continu- is itself insufficient; the recovered memory But many years earlier. loved his father dead of Chonen’s “session” in the requires the presence of the promise eventually ing power body of his son’s soul to leave the and thus allow his can absolve his friend who alone father, ritual these study, of the psychoanalyst’s to the ordained privacy In sharp contrast betrothed. of a male prayer call for the presence a trial also normatively of an exorcism and performances the mixed-sex audi- as a stand-in for onstage functions congregation assembled quorum: the whose borders extend beyond circle of implication and ritual participation in a ence offstage, and even the chasm that family, her immediate and her analyst-exorcist, the suffering patient radically inter is both performative and in this view, Trauma, the dead. separates the living and Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00094 by guest on 01 October 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00094 by guest on 01October 2021

56 Naomi Seidman Seidman, Naomi. 2004. “The Ghosts of Queer Loves Past: Ansky’s ‘Dybbuk’ and the Sexual Transformation Roskies, DavidG. 1992. “Introduction.” In S. Ansky, The DybbukandOther Writings, ed. DavidG. Roskies, Pellegrini, Ann. 1997b. “Whiteface Performances: ‘Race,’ Gender, andJewishBodies.” InJews andOther Pellegrini, Ann.1997a. Gilman, SanderL. 1993. Freud, Race, andGender . Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press. Gilman, SanderL. 1991. TheJew’s Body. New York: Routledge. Geller, Jay. 2007. OnFreud’s Jewish Body: Mitigating Circumcisions. New York: FordhamUniversityPress. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Religion asaCulturalSystem.” InTheInterpretation ofCultures, 87–125. New York: Garber, Marjorie. 1992. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing andCultural Anxiety . New York: Routledge. Freeze, ChaeRan Y. 2002. Jewish Marriage andDivorce inImperialRussia. Hanover, NH:BrandeisUniversity Foucault, Michel. [1976]1980. ofSexuality, History Volume One: An Introduction. Trans. RobertHurley. New Coontz, Stephanie. 2005. Marriage: HowLoveA History: Conquered Marriage. New York: Penguin. Boyarin, Daniel. 1997. UnheroicConduct: The RiseofHeterosexualityandtheInvention oftheJewish Man. Bashevis Singer, Isaac. 1983. “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy.” InTheCollectedStories, 149–69. References to history. mobilizes theeroticforcesofmodernityandunleashesthosethathavenotquitebeenconsigned tic comediesofGreenandStreisand, andintheocculttragedyof Ansky, Yiddish cultureboth sage of Vienna hasdeterminedthestorywetelloftraditionanditsaftermath. Butintheroman- which thetraditionalworldisretrospectivelyjudged. Notthe Tsaddik ofMirapolbutratherthe investment andtheprivilegedscenesforgenderdialectic, theyhavebecomethetemplateby the heterosexualcoupleandnuclearfamilyare, formodernity, thesitesofprimaryerotic erotic energyhadtraditionallydevelopedandcirculated. Becausethepsychosexualindividual, tional eroticinvestmentincommunityandlargelyvacatedthehomosocialspaceswhichsuch of move continues, forinstancein Tony Kushner’s1997queerandfeministadaption/production even whileinterpellating “proper” modernsubjects. This repetitive, mnemonic- in arangeofmediaandcontexts, servedthefunctionofrememberingforgottenculturaloptions bated breath.” TheDybbuk, inthishybridofritualandtheatre, andinitsrepeatedperformances describe asanear-miraculous culturaleffect:Jewishaudienceswatchedthedramasilently, “with The Dybbuksucceededinattractingenthusiasticaudienceswhilealsoproducingwhatjournalists “proper” audiencebehavior(witnessingratherthanparticipating). The earlyproductionsof overlapping choreographiesofEuropeanromance(limitedtotheheterosexualcouple)and agogue, butitalsosoughttoeducateitsfamouslydemonstrativeandunrulyaudiencesinthe senting and “translating” traditionalpractices. Yiddish theatreservedasastand-inforthesyn- in thetraumaanditsritualcure, mobilizingthefunctionoftheatreasaprimarysiteforrepre- reproduced initspublicstaging. TheDybbukimplicitlyinvitedaudiencestoremembertheirrole A Dybbuk. The crisesofmodernization, immigration, andsecularizationsharplynarrowedthetradi- This negotiationoftraditionalandmodernsexualorders, itisimportanttoremember, was Pellegrini, 228–45. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press. of Ashkenaz.”In xi–xxxvi. New York: Schocken Books. Minneapolis: UniversityofMinnesota Press. Differences: The NewJewish Cultural Studies, eds. JonathanBoyarinandDanielBoyarin, 108–49. Basic Books. Press. York: RandomHouse. Berkeley: UniversityofCaliforniaPress. Straus andGiroux. Queer andtheJewishTheory Question, eds. DanielBoyarin, DanielItzkovitz, and Ann Performance Anxieties: Staging Psychoanalysis, Staging Race. New York: Routledge. New York:Farrar, interpellative