Naming and Claiming: the Construction of Jewish Identity

David E. Kaufman. Jewhooing the Sixties: American Celebrity and Jewish Identity. Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life. Lebanon: Brandeis University Press, 2012. 360 pp. $85.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-61168-313-4. Reviewed by Tim Ruckle Published on H-1960s (June, 2014) Commissioned by Zachary J. Lechner (Centenary College of Louisiana) David E. Kaufman’s Jewhooing the Sixties is can pop culture in the early 1960s. Kaufman an in-depth examination of Jews and Jewish iden‐ chooses four paragons of Jewish fame— the base‐ tity in American popular culture, focusing espe‐ ball player Sandy Koufax, the comedian Lenny cially on the frst half of the 1960s. Kaufman Bruce, the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and ac‐ posits a tension between American Jews achiev‐ tress and singer Barbra Streisand—as the subjects ing success, or assimilation, and their maintaining for each chapter-length treatment. Despite their ethnic distinctiveness. He argues that this dichoto‐ differences, all four attained extraordinary fame my is resolved by, and also illustrative of, Jewish in the early 1960s. Kaufman contends that this celebrity consciousness. Kaufman illustrates how was a signature moment when “celebrity played a the synthesis of Jewish celebrity and Jewish iden‐ significant role in both American and Jewish his‐ tity at this historical moment (i.e., the early 1960s) torical development” (p. 5). He believes this pivot demonstrated a signature tension between the in‐ point has been overshadowed in the historiogra‐ creasing integration by, and complex identities of, phy in favor of the post-1967 period which fol‐ American Jews. That is, “Jews, despite broad par‐ lowed the Six Days War. That is, his intervention ticipation in American life, nonetheless remain re-periodizes an efflorescence of American Jewish distinctive, even exceptional, and thus stand cultural pride, and the genesis of this new con‐ apart from America” (p. 2, italics original). The sciousness, earlier in the decade. Kaufman says central theme of Kaufman’s book is thus the inter‐ the title of the book is multivocal, and includes relationship—a mutually constitutive relation‐ the idea of “the Jewishness of the Sixties” (p. 6, ship--between Jews and celebrity in America. italics original). Thus the book, as a whole, posits Using this prism for his theoretical model, a trialectic logic, tracing the interconnectedness Kaufman refracts the case studies of four very dif‐ of “American celebrity, Jewish identity, and the ferent Jewish celebrities onto the screen of Ameri‐ early 1960s” (p. 6). This timing was historically H-Net Reviews conditioned by the magnification of celebrity in ish identity but prefers one that is constructed this period (brought by changes in media technol‐ rather than immutable, and thus is “fragmented, ogy), the increase in Jewish social success, and a conditional, and changeable” (p. 28). The aim of more capacious acceptance by gentiles of Jews his book, then, is to assist our understandings of qua Jews and the public expression of Jewishness. American Jewish identities, particularly as they Kaufman’s method is primarily synthetic, an‐ were being constructed in the early 1960s, by fo‐ alyzing the voluminous literature on the subjects cusing them through the theoretical lens of and treating it from the perspective of American celebrity. Jewish history.[1] Kaufman borrows the term “je‐ The four celebrities that Kaufman uses to il‐ whoo,” which refers to the inventorying or “nam‐ lustrate the complexity and fuidity of Jewish ing and claiming” of Jewish celebrities, from Su‐ identity formation in the early 1960s—Koufax, san Glenn, who herself discovered it at a now Bruce, Dylan, and Streisand—represent moribund website used for that purpose.[2] Im‐ archetypes, which Kaufman calls the “Super Jew”, plicit in his project is the historical salience of the “Dirty Jew”, the “Wandering” (more accurate‐ celebrity, and Kaufman locates his work not only ly, the reluctant and reclaimed) Jew, and the “Hol‐ in Jewish studies and American history, but also lywood” (or ethnically proud) Jew. The author’s in celebrity studies, particularly the literature on narratives of these celebrities do the heavy lifting the reception of celebrity. He notes there are a dis‐ in his analysis as the “key texts” for this period of proportionate number of Jews in the entertain‐ American Jewish life and popular culture. ment industry, and at the same time suggests that Baseball fans and teammates referred to celebrity itself is analogous to the Jewish experi‐ Sandy Koufax as a “super Jew” for his success on ence. In short, Kaufman argues that “celebrity has the baseball diamond, yet he achieved nearly as a certain ‘Jewish’ quality” and that celebrities are much notoriety for famously refusing to pitch on essentially “outsiders who have made good” much Yom Kippur. Kaufman historicizes Koufax’s con‐ like American Jews in the twentieth century (p. tributions to baseball and American culture in 12). Though some Jews had previously achieved contrast to fellow Jew “Hammerin’” Hank Green‐ notoriety in American culture, Kaufman nomi‐ berg’s earlier heroics of the 1930s and does a fne nates the early 1960s as a critical moment when job exploding myths about the pitcher as well as “both Jewish social success and the public expres‐ illuminating the tensions between the construc‐ sion of Jewishness” occurred (p. 43, italics origi‐ tion of Jewish masculinities and Koufax’s alleged nal). intellectual approach to the game. Despite his 100- While noting that all groups celebrate ethnic mile-per-hour fastball and loyalty to his team‐ pride in the achievements of their famous mem‐ mates, Koufax still labored under accusations that bers, Kaufman argues that the Jewish community he was effete and aloof and didn’t really enjoy is particularly prone to this sort of naming and baseball. It is significant that Koufax maintained claiming. This practice includes both the process his Jewish otherness while excelling at the most of double coding, where a celebrity might be easi‐ American of pastimes, baseball. This was an are‐ ly read as Jewish to their co-ethnics but not coded na less open to Jews than show business. Koufax’s as such by the general public, as well as the prac‐ dual identities as both a “nice Jewish boy” and a tice of “outing” celebrities who had passed as gen‐ masculine athlete encapsulated the tensions and tiles and purposely elided their Jewish roots or complexities of Jewish identity on the national ancestry (p. 266). Kaufman acknowledges that level. Ironically, Koufax, a secular Jew, was “idol‐ there are many definitions and beliefs about Jew‐ ized by other Jews for his casually inadvertent ob‐ 2 H-Net Reviews servance of a religious holiday” (p. 45). While not ing” of Bruce through the 70s, 80s, and 90s and especially religious, Koufax nonetheless respected shows Bruce influencing a generation of comedi‐ the traditions of Yom Kippur and refrained from ans and foreshadowing the rebellious ethos of the work on that High Holy Day. Koufax’s narrative Sixties. Though Bruce’s successes were ambiva‐ differs from the other subjects in the book, as his lent and short-lived, and his relationship to his fame came in sports, where Jews excelled less fre‐ Jewishness was complicated and transgressive, quently than in other entertainments and where the Jewish content of his work was obvious and successes like Greenberg had been the exceptions overt. that proved the rule. Kaufman argues that Koufax Not so with Bob Dylan. In 1963, Andrea Sved‐ exploded the popular stereotype of the Jewish berg's now infamous Newsweek article outed Dy‐ male, who was seen as “weak and uncoordinated lan: rather than the angsty, bohemian, Woody rather than strong and athletic, emotive and neu‐ Guthrie-like character he had constructed, Bob rotic rather than reserved and controlled” (p. 71). Dylan was found to be Robert Zimmerman, who If Koufax was respectful, Lenny Bruce was came from a nice, middle-class Jewish family the bad or “dirty Jew,” who troubled many of his from Minnesota. Yet, Dylan continued to eschew co-ethnics by his use of Yiddish in public, his off- his Jewish name and his heritage, even famously color comedy, and his outspoken social criticism. converting to Christianity in 1979.[4] Kaufman His unconventional private life (he married an ex- underlines Dylan’s consistency in this regard, and convict, non-Jewish stripper, for one) and ambiva‐ his ferce determination for “the individualist’s lent Jewishness also contributed to this negative right to define himself outside of categories im‐ image. Bruce’s polemical tirades against polite so‐ posed by others.”[5] However, despite this desire, ciety, religious contradictions, and middle-class there remained “the extraordinary urge of others respectability made him an undesirable represen‐ to see him as a Jew” (p. 210). While this fts into tative for mainstream Jews. His downward spiral Kaufman’s narrative of celebrity as it is received, into drug addiction, which ultimate took his life in it is difficult to see how Dylan’s complete rejection 1966, and his numerous legal troubles reinforced of his Jewishness fts into the larger framework of the notion that Bruce was beyond the pale of po‐ his argument. Dylan was “read” as a Jew by many lite society. And yet, Kaufman demonstrates how in the American public, in spite of his self-identifi‐ Bruce was the jester whose comedic routines bril‐ cation. Kaufman seems to want to push beyond liantly illuminated the complexities of Jewish reception and discover if Dylan was “really” a identity, none more so than his “Jewish of Goyish” Jew. In fact, it seems as if Kaufman does not buy routine.[3] This “legendary deconstruction of the idea that Dylan did not “really” identify as a modern Jewish identity” was his magnum opus (p.

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