Sex and Difference in the Jewish American Family: Incest Narratives in 1990S Literary and Pop Culture

University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses March 2018 Sex and Difference in the Jewish American Family: Incest Narratives in 1990s Literary and Pop Culture Eli W. Bromberg University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bromberg, Eli W., "Sex and Difference in the Jewish American Family: Incest Narratives in 1990s Literary and Pop Culture" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1156. https://doi.org/10.7275/11176350.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1156 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SEX AND DIFFERENCE IN THE JEWISH AMERICAN FAMILY: INCEST NARRATIVES IN 1990S LITERARY AND POP CULTURE A Dissertation Presented by ELI WOLF BROMBERG Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2018 Department of English Concentration: American Studies © Copyright by Eli Bromberg 2018 All Rights Reserved SEX AND DIFFERENCE IN THE JEWISH AMERICAN FAMILY: INCEST NARRATIVES IN 1990S LITERARY AND POP CULTURE A Dissertation Presented By ELI W. BROMBERG Approved as to style and content by: _____________________________________________ Randall Knoper, Chair _____________________________________________ Laura J. Briggs, Member _____________________________________________ Josh Lambert, Member _________________________________________ Randall Knoper, Chair Department of English DEDICATION For Leroy Enrick Lewis ACKNOWLEDGMENTS If not for the support, encouragement, generosity, and brilliance of Randall Knoper, Laura Briggs, and Josh Lambert, I would not have been able to complete this dissertation. Their insights and guidance facilitated this process; to the extent I was able to arrive at any cogent ideas, it was with their reinforcement and assistance. I hope I can approximate even a modicum of their patience and pedagogy as an educator. I’m also very grateful to the faculty I’ve had the privilege to work with and learn from at UMass and in the consortium. Donald Weber sat on my qualifying exam committee, read and offered feedback on my comprehensive exam essays, and directed me towards various crucial books. James Young sat on my qualifying and comprehensive exam committees, and helped me immeasurably with the task of making sense of Henry Roth. TreaAndrea Russworm and Ron Welburn helped demystify American Studies in Major Texts and Methods. Nick Bromell offered consistent and invaluable guidance regarding academic writing. TA-ing for James and Asha Nadkarni taught me so much about how to teach a class, organize a syllabus, and engage with students. Laura Furlan also provided crucial support for that task as director of the Gen Ed Practicum when I scrambled through my first stand-alone class at UMass. As graduate program directors, Asha, Joe Black, and Rachel Mordecai all helped ensure graduate students like myself had access to conference travel and summer institutes. I’m also very grateful to Rachel, David Fleming, and Adam Zucker for awarding me a summer dissertation fellowship. Thank you to Susan Malbin, Melanie Meyers, and the staff at the Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical Society for permission to use the v Henry Roth material, and to Hugh Roth and Felicia Steele of the Henry Roth Literary Trust. I’m also indebted to the CJH, the Knapp Family Foundation, and the Association for Jewish Studies for their financial support for traveling to the annual conferences. I’ve been fortunate to study Yiddish with Bob Rothstein, Yuri Vedenyapin, Sheva Zucker, and Paula Teitelbaum at UMass, the Yiddish Book Center, and YIVO. These dedicated instructors, and the excellent summer programs at the Center and YIVO, have expanded my language skills in academically valuable and personally meaningful ways. At the Futures of American Studies Institute, Ivy Schweitzer helped me organize the Roseanne material, and also put me in touch with Michael Bronski, whose feedback was instrumental in shaping that chapter. A version of that chapter appears in Shofar, and I’m grateful to Zev Garber, Dianna Gilroy and the editorial board for publishing the article. At Bread Loaf, Jonathan Freedman, John Fyler, Susanne Wofford, Django Paris, and Emily Bartels helped me get through an amazing if difficult summer in 2012. Steven Donadio and Val Smith provided instrumental encouragement two summers prior. Celso Alvez, Justin Cammy, Zanita Fenton, Gillian Harkins, Lori Harrison-Kahan, Martin Kavka, Rachel Rubinstein, Cathy Schlund-Vials, and Shira Stav helped me prepare syllabi, get ready for area exams, and navigate conference panels; and provided reassurances and suggestions regarding so many in-process thoughts. And I’m immensely grateful to Avinoam Patt and Santiago Slabodsky for the opportunities to teach their students at the University of Hartford and Hofstra University. Sam Morse, Matt Weiner, and Eiji Morikawa: thank you for putting me up in your homes. I’m also indebted to Kate Marantz, Ashley Nadeau, Neelofer Qadir, and Lauren Silber for their emotional support, and instructive feedback on so many drafts of vi documents. Nirmala Iswari provided comments on more writing and ideas than I responsibly ought to have sent her way. Martha Pierce and Maria Del Mar Farina helped me, in other but no less important ways, to use my words. To my family, and to Tiff: no matter how I try, words are insufficient. But I’ll try. Among other things, this project is about what happens when people try, and struggle, to communicate, and the danger of communication fully breaking down. I hope that this project has made me a slightly better communicator, even as I will always struggle to articulate my appreciation for all of your love, care, conversation, support, and presence. vii ABSTRACT SEX AND DIFFERENCE IN THE JEWISH AMERICAN FAMILY: INCEST NARRATIVES IN 1990S LITERARY AND POP CULTURE FEBRUARY 2018 ELI BROMBERG, A.B., AMHERST COLLEGE M.A., MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Randall Knoper My dissertation investigates protective representations of white male Jewish masculinity in the 1990s, via the lens of celebrity incest narratives. In chapters on Woody Allen, Roseanne Barr, and Henry Roth, I demonstrate how media coverage of their respective incest denials (Allen), allegations (Barr), and confessions (Roth) intersect with a history of sexual anti-Semitism. Though prevalent in nineteenth century Europe, sexual anti-Semitism, which simultaneously emasculated Jewish men and rendered them as sexual threats, no longer permeates discourse in the same fashion as the sexualizing component of antiblack racism. I examine how these iconic Jewish artists, news media, and artistic contemporaries, negotiated the hidden, but never absent specter of Jewish male incestuous pedophile in telling these stories. The project intervenes in gender and sexuality studies and ethnic studies by arguing that the particular histories of white ethnic groups, in this case Ashkenazi Jews, informs the manner in which contemporary white privilege operates discursively. The project reveals the community protective patriarchal politics that define “Jewish” interests in a narrow, gendered fashion that dismisses female viii Jewish (and non-Jewish) accounts of abuse, instead obeying an imperative to deny anti- Semitic stereotypes, even when individual instances demand confirmation. Furthermore, the project proposes that this Jewish community protective politics falls within a broader category of white male class interests, and serves a demonstrable purpose: helping construct a white masculinity that subtly incorporates and champions Jewish male historical vulnerability in order to reconstitute white male American identity as similarly vulnerable and sympathetic in the face of allegations of sexual transgression. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ………………………………………………………………..v ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………viii LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………...xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………..1 2. A VICTORIAN FREUD ...……………………………………….……….………..…30 3. INCEST, EXOGAMY, AND JEWISHNESS ON ROSEANNE ...……...…..……..….66 4. WOODY AND WOOD YI ..……………………………………………..………...…98 5. BLOOD LIBEL HUMOR AND INCEST EASTER EGGS ………..………..……..142 6. “TILL A KHUSIN COMES ALONG” ...…………………………………….…...…176 CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………...…235 WORKS CITED ……………………………………………………………………….249 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 5.1: Screenshot, Bobby and Veronica at the jazz club, Café Society (Directed by Woody Allen) (used under Fair Use) ...……………...…………………..171 6.1: Roth as a boy and Roth as an old man, Mercy of A Rude Stream (volume one book jacket, picture from author’s personal collection) …………………181 6.2: The first instance of Stella’s age being changed in the manuscript for MORS volume two (MORS, Volume II: (copy- edited version), p. 299/305, [1994]; Henry Roth Collection; P-694; box 7; folder 49; American Jewish Historical Society, New York, NY, and Boston, MA.) ……………..184 6.3: Another instance of Stella’s age being changed in a manuscript

Load more