A World Of Difference: Emma Wolf, A Jewish- American Writer On The American Frontier Item Type Thesis Authors Mandel, Dena Toni Cooper Download date 10/10/2021 02:46:14 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/11122/8952 A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE: EMMA WOLF, A JEWISH-AMERICAN WRITER ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER By Dena Cooper Mandel RECOMMENDED: APPROVED: Dean, Collegp of Liberal Arts k ean of the Graduate Sc 7/ Date A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE: EMMA WOLF, A JEWISH-AMERICAN WRITER ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Dena Toni Cooper Mandel, B.A., B.Ed., M.A. Fairbanks, Alaska May 2008 UMI Number: 3322397 Copyright 2008 by Mandel, Dena Toni Cooper All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Eisenhower Parkway PO Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract “A World of Difference: Emma Wolf, A Jewish-American Writer on the American Frontier” is the first dissertation to undertake a scholarly inquiry of Wolf s Jewish novels, Other Things Being Equal and Heirs of Yesterday, Emma Wolf (1865­ 1932) was a Jewish-American literary pioneer who interrogated prevailing models of late nineteenth-century femininity, Judaism, and bifurcated, Jewish-American identity. This study retrieves the fiction of this native Californian from the margins of both Jewish and American literature. At the close of the nineteenth century, nearly all interest in American-Jewish life focused on the Eastern European Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side of New York City. Emma W olfs fiction imparts a singular glimpse of a Western American enclave of Jewish life. Remarkably, W olfs Jewish novels resist the prevailing patterns of assimilation espoused by most Jewish writers at the end of the century. Instead of abandoning culture, faith, and family, Wolf embraces Jewish particularity. The preservation of Jewish identity in W olfs fiction is a consequence of her American birth, her California origins, and her conviction that Jewish difference is as important as American conformity. Other Things Being Equal (1892) scrutinizes the struggle of a young Jewish woman who wants to marry a Christian. In sanctioning intermarriage, the novel abrogates religious precepts and contravenes the customary marital patterns of Jewish women. The implications of intermarriage afford Wolf the opportunity to expand on issues of Jewish affirmation and Jewish difference. In Heirs of Yesterday (1900) Wolf examines divergent responses of Jewish- Americans to anti-Semitism. In order to protect himself from discrimination, Dr. Philip May hides his Jewish birth. Wolf suggests that Jews who are forgetful of their ethnic identity are as misguided as the segment of American society that discriminates against them. This study of Emma W olfs Jewish novels concludes that we must take a new literary census, one that embraces minority writers, like Emma Wolf, in order to appreciate the pluralism of the American literary canon and the full panoply of the nation’s cultural productivity. Table of Contents Page Signature Page...............................................................................................................i Title Page...................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ........................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents..........................................................................................................v Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................vi List of Abbreviations................................................................................................. vii Chapter 1 Making a Difference..........................................................................1 Chapter 2 Other Things Being Equal: The Religion of Love......................14 2.1 Literary Recovery and Rediscovery ..................................... 14 2.2 A Narrative of Jewish Life and Interfaith Love..................27 2.3 Dispensing with the Rest Cure............................................. 29 2.4 Interfaith Typology............................................................... 36 2.5 Shakespeare and the Jews ....................................................47 2.6 Jewish Women in Love.........................................................51 2.7 Intermarriage: Jewish Prohibition and American Censure 57 2.8 A Marriage of Differences....................................................61 2.9 Conclusion: Love Jewish-American Style...........................77 Chapter 3 Heirs of Yesterday: Jewish Pride and American Prejudice ....80 3.1 Mentoring the Manuscript.....................................................80 3.2 Plotting the Battle for Ethnic and American Identity 87 3.3 Mixed Metaphors: Horace Kallen’s Orchestra of Democracy vs. Israel ZangwilTs Melting P ot................... 96 3.4 Anti-Semitism in the 1890s................................................104 3.5 Philip May, an American with a Difference ..................... 108 3.6 Jean Willard, Jewish Warrior ..............................................134 3.7 Jewish Americans in the Spanish-American War ............. 148 3.8 Conclusion: Jewish Americans and American Jews.........156 Chapter 4 Difference Matters........................................................................162 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 171 Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr. Michael Schuldiner, the advisory committee chair, who provided critical guidance throughout the composition of this work. I am indebted to Dr. Roy Bird for his sage counsel and attentive reading of the preliminary drafts of this dissertation. I am appreciative of Dr. Susan Herman for her participation on the advisory committee. I am grateful to Dr. Henry Feingold who graciously agreed to serve on the advisory committee despite his commitments to the City College of New York and Baruch College. I am appreciative of the guidance provided by Laura Bender, Manager of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Graduate School. I am indebted to my indefatigable mother, Miriam Cooper, who labored as my San Francisco-based photographer, fact-checker, and document retriever. I also wish to recognize my sister Robin for her support. My greatest debt is to Dr. Robert Mandel, my husband, who encouraged me to complete what I began so very long ago. The submission of this dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy should persuade Brynn Sara Mandel that all dreams are worth the chase. ABBREVIATIONS CCAR Central Conference of American Rabbis HY Heirs of Yesterday JSP Jewish Publication Society of America NCJW National Council of Jewish Women NJPS National Jewish Population Survey OTBE Others Thines Being Equal UAHC Union of American Hebrew Congregations WEIU Women’s Educational Industrial Union Chapter 1: Making a Difference This dissertation assesses the Jewish fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Jewish-American writer, Emma Wolf (1865-1932). As an American- born Jew and a native Californian, Wolf contributed to multiple literary traditions by working at the intersections of American literature, Jewish-American literature, regional literature, and women’s literature. Emma W olfs literary productivity incorporates five novels, a novella, ten short stories, two known poems, and a book review. Ten letters from the noted Anglo-Jewish author of The Melting Pot. Israel Zangwill, to Emma Wolf remain in the possession of the Wolf family.1 W olfs short stories appeared frequently in The Smart Set a leading literary magazine and a precursor to the New Yorker, edited by George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken. In 1909, W olfs novella, “The Knot,” was the cover story for the Smart Set’s August issue.2 This dissertation is invested in the exploration of Wolf s two explicitly Jewish-themed novels, her first book, Other Things Being Equal (1892) and her fourth book, Heirs of Yesterday (1900). Until the Postmodernist era, with few exceptions, Jewish women writers have largely been marginalized and placed beyond the canon of received works of American literature. There are only a handful of studies that bring recognition to American-born Jewish women writers whose productivity predated the literature produced by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. This dissertation attempts to recover a deserving author 11 am indebted to the scholarship of Barbara Cantalupo, who located Zangwill’s correspondence to W olf and published several informative articles on Emma W olf that are referenced