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Torn at the Roots: The Crisis of Jewish Liberalism in Postwar America
When Jewish neoconservatives burst upon the political scene, many people were surprised. Conventional wisdom held that Jews were uniformly liberal. This book explodes the myth of a monolithic liberal Judaism. Michael Staub tells the story of the many fierce battles that raged in postwar America over what the authentically Jewish position ought to be on issues ranging from desegregation to Zionism, from Vietnam to gender relations, sexuality, and family life. Throughout the three decades after 1945, Michael Staub shows, American Jews debated the ways in which the political commitments of Jewish individuals and groups could or should be shaped by their Jewishness. Staub shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the liberal position was never the obvious winner in the contest.
By the late 1960s left-wing Jews were often accused by their conservative counterparts of self-hatred or of being inadequately or improperly Jewish. They, in turn, insisted that right-wing Jews were deaf to the moral imperatives of both the Jewish prophetic tradition and Jewish historical experience, which obliged Jews to pursue social justice for the oppressed and the marginalized. Such declamations characterized disputes over a variety of American anticommunism, activism on behalf of African American civil rights, imperatives of Jewish survival, Israel and Israeli-Palestinian relations, the 1960s counterculture, including the women's and gay and lesbian liberation movements, and the renaissance of Jewish ethnic pride and religious observance. Spanning these controversies, Staub presents not only a revelatory and clear-eyed prehistory of contemporary Jewish neoconservatism but also an important corrective to investigations of "identity politics" that have focused on interethnic contacts and conflicts while neglecting intraethnic ones.
Revising standard assumptions about the timing of Holocaust awareness in postwar America, Staub charts how central arguments over the Holocaust's purported lessons were to intra-Jewish political conflict already in the first two decades after World War II. Revisiting forgotten artifacts of the postwar years, such as Jewish marriage manuals, satiric radical Zionist cartoons, and the 1970s sitcom about an intermarried couple entitled Bridget Loves Bernie , and incidents such as the firing of a Columbia University rabbi for supporting anti-Vietnam war protesters and the efforts of the Miami Beach Hotel Owners Association to cancel an African Methodist Episcopal Church convention, Torn at the Roots sheds new light on an era we thought we knew well.
By the late 1960s left-wing Jews were often accused by their conservative counterparts of self-hatred or of being inadequately or improperly Jewish. They, in turn, insisted that right-wing Jews were deaf to the moral imperatives of both the Jewish prophetic tradition and Jewish historical experience, which obliged Jews to pursue social justice for the oppressed and the marginalized. Such declamations characterized disputes over a variety of American anticommunism, activism on behalf of African American civil rights, imperatives of Jewish survival, Israel and Israeli-Palestinian relations, the 1960s counterculture, including the women's and gay and lesbian liberation movements, and the renaissance of Jewish ethnic pride and religious observance. Spanning these controversies, Staub presents not only a revelatory and clear-eyed prehistory of contemporary Jewish neoconservatism but also an important corrective to investigations of "identity politics" that have focused on interethnic contacts and conflicts while neglecting intraethnic ones.
Revising standard assumptions about the timing of Holocaust awareness in postwar America, Staub charts how central arguments over the Holocaust's purported lessons were to intra-Jewish political conflict already in the first two decades after World War II. Revisiting forgotten artifacts of the postwar years, such as Jewish marriage manuals, satiric radical Zionist cartoons, and the 1970s sitcom about an intermarried couple entitled Bridget Loves Bernie , and incidents such as the firing of a Columbia University rabbi for supporting anti-Vietnam war protesters and the efforts of the Miami Beach Hotel Owners Association to cancel an African Methodist Episcopal Church convention, Torn at the Roots sheds new light on an era we thought we knew well.
392 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 5, 2019
Really loved this book, but the material is quite academic and the topic is rather niche.
February 4, 2023
A profound exploration of American, Jewish activism and ideology in the mid 20th century. Staub is balanced and compassionate in his analysis of the deep rifts within the community as American Jews responded to the Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement, the Vietnam war; balanced universalism and particularism; and reconciled with their newfound power in a national that allowed them to participate in the labor force, own property, and vote. As a young millennial, I appreciate this book because it helps me understand the origin of conflicts that still persist to this day. This book is a love letter to the Jewish community, especially those members who dare to take a stance on political issues and defend it.
January 4, 2016
This book fits so squarely within my intellectual interests it's silly. Like I've mentioned before, I think I'm a bit more demanding on academic books. I'm really looking for a solid, cohesive argument, and "Torns at the Roots" didn't 100% get there.
BUT: It was engagingly written for an academic book (the worst I could say is that the word "ambivalent" appeared here about 40 too many times) and Staub covers all sorts of different, interesting topics in a logical way. You can clearly see how arguments over civil rights moved into ones over Vietnam moved into ones over women's lib, etc etc. It's an intellectual history, so this is basically a summary of back-and-forth arguments. He said/she said stuff. But, to me at least, it was fascinating, and I really appreciated all the nuance re: what Jewishness means. That nuance is definitely something I'm hungry for in my personal life, so I really enjoyed the read overall.
BUT: It was engagingly written for an academic book (the worst I could say is that the word "ambivalent" appeared here about 40 too many times) and Staub covers all sorts of different, interesting topics in a logical way. You can clearly see how arguments over civil rights moved into ones over Vietnam moved into ones over women's lib, etc etc. It's an intellectual history, so this is basically a summary of back-and-forth arguments. He said/she said stuff. But, to me at least, it was fascinating, and I really appreciated all the nuance re: what Jewishness means. That nuance is definitely something I'm hungry for in my personal life, so I really enjoyed the read overall.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews