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North American Religions Series
Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice
Honorable Mention, 2021 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical Society
Reveals nostalgia as a new way of maintaining Jewish continuity
In 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. Visitors to the museum are invited to stand along indentations on the floor where footprints of congregants past have worn down the soft pinewood. Here, many feel a palpable connection to the history surrounding them.
Beyond the Synagogue argues that nostalgic activities such as visiting the Museum at Eldridge Street or eating traditional Jewish foods should be understood as American Jewish religious practices. In making the case that these practices are not just cultural, but are actually religious, Rachel B. Gross asserts that many prominent sociologists and historians have mistakenly concluded that American Judaism is in decline, and she contends that they are looking in the wrong places for Jewish religious activity. If they looked outside of traditional institutions and practices, such as attendance at synagogue or membership in Jewish Community Centers, they would see that the embrace of nostalgia provides evidence of an alternative, under-appreciated way of being Jewish and of maintaining Jewish continuity.
Tracing American Jews’ involvement in a broad array of ostensibly nonreligious activities, including conducting Jewish genealogical research, visiting Jewish historic sites, purchasing books and toys that teach Jewish nostalgia to children, and seeking out traditional Jewish foods, Gross argues that these practices illuminate how many American Jews are finding and making meaning within American Judaism today.
Reveals nostalgia as a new way of maintaining Jewish continuity
In 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. Visitors to the museum are invited to stand along indentations on the floor where footprints of congregants past have worn down the soft pinewood. Here, many feel a palpable connection to the history surrounding them.
Beyond the Synagogue argues that nostalgic activities such as visiting the Museum at Eldridge Street or eating traditional Jewish foods should be understood as American Jewish religious practices. In making the case that these practices are not just cultural, but are actually religious, Rachel B. Gross asserts that many prominent sociologists and historians have mistakenly concluded that American Judaism is in decline, and she contends that they are looking in the wrong places for Jewish religious activity. If they looked outside of traditional institutions and practices, such as attendance at synagogue or membership in Jewish Community Centers, they would see that the embrace of nostalgia provides evidence of an alternative, under-appreciated way of being Jewish and of maintaining Jewish continuity.
Tracing American Jews’ involvement in a broad array of ostensibly nonreligious activities, including conducting Jewish genealogical research, visiting Jewish historic sites, purchasing books and toys that teach Jewish nostalgia to children, and seeking out traditional Jewish foods, Gross argues that these practices illuminate how many American Jews are finding and making meaning within American Judaism today.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published January 12, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 30, 2022
This book made me stop to evaluate my preconceptions, but the dry, academic style of writing is not to my tastes. Still, I’m glad I expanded my horizons in more ways than one!
Gross is challenging the notion that Jewish religion in American life is largely dead, for lack of a better word. Instead, she sees it as transformed, citing various rituals that are meant to tie Jews to a nostalgic sense of legacy, which she calls religion.
I had to get over some of my own precepts about religion, and I do think I was coming at the concept from too much of a proscribed, and dare I call it masculine angle. Where “religion” means pre-determined dogma regarding text study and following halacha to the letter. It is very male because these areas are by and large in the male sphere. For most of Jewish history, only men went to yeshiva to study and debate canonical texts. Only men were required to take part in synagogue life, the public part of Judaism.
But there was always a more private part to Judaism, or domestic part, particularly in the time before mass assimilation. If Judaism was all encompassing, which for many tribes people of the past it was, then Judaism also existed in the food being eaten and other activities partaken around the family table. So I began to feel that Gross had a point, that new movements meant to highlight deli food and activities geared towards kids and even genealogy had a historical basis in what it means to be Jewish.
To backtrack a bit, Gross researched how modern day trends in genealogical research, children’s activities, synagogue restoration and Jewish-coded deli food are treated with the reverence of religious practice. They speak to a nostalgia, often touching upon Ashkenazi roots, but they can be dynamic, too. Particularly with food (some Jewish-style food is no longer kosher, but it’s meant to evoke the family experiences of the chefs/restaurant owners) and children’s activities, books and toys that are coded Jewish but can often be viewed through a more universal lens, making them applicable to non-Jews, too. The restoration of old synagogues around the US turns them into museums with modern-day staff, and their programming often goes above and beyond what those spaces would be used for in the past.
The down side of this nostalgia is that it can often still be limiting. American Jews are predominately from Ashkenazi families, but that’s not everyone. There are Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews here, Jews-by-choice and, as more time goes on, different ethnicities in the larger Jewish fold. This focus on “our” Eastern European roots, or American immigration story that largely centers late 19th century New York, leaves out a fair bit of what it means to be Jewish. Both historically, for a lot of Jews, and I suppose it can be argued that for a religion, culture, what have you, to survive, it must also have an eye on the future.
I appreciate the research and some of the messaging in this book, though I overall found it difficult to get into. One thing Gross didn’t probe quite so much is the race identification issue; she stated that a lot of Jewish interest in the past started alongside other “white ethnic” interest in identity particularism. That seems to negate the idea that there is such a thing as white culture, regardless of how privilege pervades in American society. Maybe most Ashkenazi Jews don’t want to be seen as white, as Gross writes, but what is “white”? It’s not so much subversive to highlight Jewish particularism as it is culturally accurate.
But I do like the points she made about memory and emotion. These are a backbone to Jewish religion, and the concept of Jewish time through ritual. The past is not static when it comes to observance, and that’s something I learned in my synagogue, and my traditional religious education. Therefore I do think that Jews, even if they don’t set foot in a traditional institution or follow the laws of kashrut, are reviving something authentic here. With regards to this argument, I’ve been converted! :P
Gross is challenging the notion that Jewish religion in American life is largely dead, for lack of a better word. Instead, she sees it as transformed, citing various rituals that are meant to tie Jews to a nostalgic sense of legacy, which she calls religion.
I had to get over some of my own precepts about religion, and I do think I was coming at the concept from too much of a proscribed, and dare I call it masculine angle. Where “religion” means pre-determined dogma regarding text study and following halacha to the letter. It is very male because these areas are by and large in the male sphere. For most of Jewish history, only men went to yeshiva to study and debate canonical texts. Only men were required to take part in synagogue life, the public part of Judaism.
But there was always a more private part to Judaism, or domestic part, particularly in the time before mass assimilation. If Judaism was all encompassing, which for many tribes people of the past it was, then Judaism also existed in the food being eaten and other activities partaken around the family table. So I began to feel that Gross had a point, that new movements meant to highlight deli food and activities geared towards kids and even genealogy had a historical basis in what it means to be Jewish.
To backtrack a bit, Gross researched how modern day trends in genealogical research, children’s activities, synagogue restoration and Jewish-coded deli food are treated with the reverence of religious practice. They speak to a nostalgia, often touching upon Ashkenazi roots, but they can be dynamic, too. Particularly with food (some Jewish-style food is no longer kosher, but it’s meant to evoke the family experiences of the chefs/restaurant owners) and children’s activities, books and toys that are coded Jewish but can often be viewed through a more universal lens, making them applicable to non-Jews, too. The restoration of old synagogues around the US turns them into museums with modern-day staff, and their programming often goes above and beyond what those spaces would be used for in the past.
The down side of this nostalgia is that it can often still be limiting. American Jews are predominately from Ashkenazi families, but that’s not everyone. There are Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews here, Jews-by-choice and, as more time goes on, different ethnicities in the larger Jewish fold. This focus on “our” Eastern European roots, or American immigration story that largely centers late 19th century New York, leaves out a fair bit of what it means to be Jewish. Both historically, for a lot of Jews, and I suppose it can be argued that for a religion, culture, what have you, to survive, it must also have an eye on the future.
I appreciate the research and some of the messaging in this book, though I overall found it difficult to get into. One thing Gross didn’t probe quite so much is the race identification issue; she stated that a lot of Jewish interest in the past started alongside other “white ethnic” interest in identity particularism. That seems to negate the idea that there is such a thing as white culture, regardless of how privilege pervades in American society. Maybe most Ashkenazi Jews don’t want to be seen as white, as Gross writes, but what is “white”? It’s not so much subversive to highlight Jewish particularism as it is culturally accurate.
But I do like the points she made about memory and emotion. These are a backbone to Jewish religion, and the concept of Jewish time through ritual. The past is not static when it comes to observance, and that’s something I learned in my synagogue, and my traditional religious education. Therefore I do think that Jews, even if they don’t set foot in a traditional institution or follow the laws of kashrut, are reviving something authentic here. With regards to this argument, I’ve been converted! :P
April 9, 2021
Many Jewish professionals believe that contemporary American Jews are uninterested in Judaism, as seen by their lack of engagement with traditional American Jewish organizations such as the synagogue and Jewish Federations. Rachel B. Gross, on the other hand, thinks these professionals are using an incorrect measurement to evaluate Jewish engagement. Rather, Gross, assistant professor in Jewish studies at San Francisco State University, posits that Jewish engagement now takes a different form. In her “Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice” (New York University Press), she expands the definition of Jewish practice to feature a wider range of activities, including those that she labels Jewish nostalgia.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...
November 26, 2021
Note: The author is a friend of mine.
I’m Catholic rather than Jewish, but have a lot of Jewish friends and have always found it—and world religions in general —fascinating (I fairly seriously considered converting to Judaism as a young adult) I also don’t have a formal religious studies background (beyond a couple of religious history courses in undergrad), but I find religious studies fascinating and have done scattered reading on the subject So I’m definitely not within the expected audience of Gross’s book, but I enjoyed it learned a lot. Gross’s book is very accessibly written, both clearly understandable to me as a non-subject matter expert and member of a different religion, and obviously rigorously argued. It was also livelier and less dry than a lot of religious studies books are, which was enjoyable (I especially appreciated the occasional clever or tongue-in-cheek section headings). Gross’s research approach is impressively multifaceted, including traditional library research, small-scale ethnography and interviews, and investigations of material culture and online records. I was not previously familiar with the lived religion approach Gross uses in the book, and it was very interesting to learn about. Also, since I’m familiar with handwringing about people becoming less religious, both from within Catholicism and more peripherally having heard the argument about Judaism also. Gross’s book argues that such worries on the part of other religious scholars are due to their too-narrow focus on traditional activities like synagogue attendance, and that to truly capture American Jewish religious experience, the definition of religious experience should be broadened to include other activities that are traditionally considered only “cultural,” and in particular are nostalgic. Gross specifically examines the example activities of genealogical research, restoration of and tourism at historic synagogue sites, giving children toys and books about Jewish history, and eating at delis and other Jewish-influenced restaurants, though other activities that would fall into this category are also mentioned.
According to Gross, the narrow bracketing of activities like attendance at worship services as “religious” while other activities are considered “cultural” is a Christian (indeed, the book says specifically Protestant, though I’d have to look at the references for more detail about the distinction in approach) idea that was incorporated into Judaism relatively recently, and that it doesn’t fit Judaism particularly well. I would have liked to see a bit more explicit discussion of the evidence for this claim, both showing ways in which Judaism traditionally did not make this distinction and showing how and why Christian / Protestant traditions did. However, this might be something that Jewish studies scholars are already familiar enough with that Gross didn’t feel it worth spending more space in the book on it, so I may look at some of the references for more information when I get some time. So that’s likely less a fault of the book itself than of my reading it from an outside audience. It’s probably not surprising, though, that as a Christian I had a hard time agreeing with this thesis, because it’s hard for me to look at even different religious traditions through a new lens. However, even if I don’t agree with the argument 100% and see more distinctions than Gross does between religious and non-religious activities and things, I still really enjoyed learning about this different approach to examining religion and thinking about the ways in which it would shape people’s experiences. There was a lot of fascinating, colorful detail about modern Jewish life, as well as more generalizable reflections about how people approach the past, the commodification and standardization of nostalgia, and other related topics. I learned a lot about aspects of contemporary Jewish life I hadn’t examined before, and also found myself thinking a lot about both parallels and contrasts between how the book presents Judaism and contemporary Catholicism, to see how the book’s arguments and examples do or don’t map onto my own religious tradition. I don’t have the field knowledge to address more technical aspects of the book, but I recommend it to those interested in the history and contemporary experiences of American Judaism or American religion more generally.
I’m Catholic rather than Jewish, but have a lot of Jewish friends and have always found it—and world religions in general —fascinating (I fairly seriously considered converting to Judaism as a young adult) I also don’t have a formal religious studies background (beyond a couple of religious history courses in undergrad), but I find religious studies fascinating and have done scattered reading on the subject So I’m definitely not within the expected audience of Gross’s book, but I enjoyed it learned a lot. Gross’s book is very accessibly written, both clearly understandable to me as a non-subject matter expert and member of a different religion, and obviously rigorously argued. It was also livelier and less dry than a lot of religious studies books are, which was enjoyable (I especially appreciated the occasional clever or tongue-in-cheek section headings). Gross’s research approach is impressively multifaceted, including traditional library research, small-scale ethnography and interviews, and investigations of material culture and online records. I was not previously familiar with the lived religion approach Gross uses in the book, and it was very interesting to learn about. Also, since I’m familiar with handwringing about people becoming less religious, both from within Catholicism and more peripherally having heard the argument about Judaism also. Gross’s book argues that such worries on the part of other religious scholars are due to their too-narrow focus on traditional activities like synagogue attendance, and that to truly capture American Jewish religious experience, the definition of religious experience should be broadened to include other activities that are traditionally considered only “cultural,” and in particular are nostalgic. Gross specifically examines the example activities of genealogical research, restoration of and tourism at historic synagogue sites, giving children toys and books about Jewish history, and eating at delis and other Jewish-influenced restaurants, though other activities that would fall into this category are also mentioned.
According to Gross, the narrow bracketing of activities like attendance at worship services as “religious” while other activities are considered “cultural” is a Christian (indeed, the book says specifically Protestant, though I’d have to look at the references for more detail about the distinction in approach) idea that was incorporated into Judaism relatively recently, and that it doesn’t fit Judaism particularly well. I would have liked to see a bit more explicit discussion of the evidence for this claim, both showing ways in which Judaism traditionally did not make this distinction and showing how and why Christian / Protestant traditions did. However, this might be something that Jewish studies scholars are already familiar enough with that Gross didn’t feel it worth spending more space in the book on it, so I may look at some of the references for more information when I get some time. So that’s likely less a fault of the book itself than of my reading it from an outside audience. It’s probably not surprising, though, that as a Christian I had a hard time agreeing with this thesis, because it’s hard for me to look at even different religious traditions through a new lens. However, even if I don’t agree with the argument 100% and see more distinctions than Gross does between religious and non-religious activities and things, I still really enjoyed learning about this different approach to examining religion and thinking about the ways in which it would shape people’s experiences. There was a lot of fascinating, colorful detail about modern Jewish life, as well as more generalizable reflections about how people approach the past, the commodification and standardization of nostalgia, and other related topics. I learned a lot about aspects of contemporary Jewish life I hadn’t examined before, and also found myself thinking a lot about both parallels and contrasts between how the book presents Judaism and contemporary Catholicism, to see how the book’s arguments and examples do or don’t map onto my own religious tradition. I don’t have the field knowledge to address more technical aspects of the book, but I recommend it to those interested in the history and contemporary experiences of American Judaism or American religion more generally.
Want to Read
February 28, 2023305.800973 Gro
February 22, 2021
I was fortunate to be able to hear the author speak and share some additional insight about her research, but even so, I think this was well-researched, well-written, and presents important ideas. The idea of nostalgia as a religious practice still leaves me wondering why it matters, how to measure success of these ventures (American Girl dolls sold seems like a challenging metric and if tourists to historic synagogues return to their home communities, how would follow-up work?), and whether it leads back to other practices of religion/Judaism, or if it's not all that different from someone with an Italian immigrant grandparent looking forward to authentic cannoli at an Italian heritage festival. Regardless, this is the first time in a while that I couldn't help but talk aloud and share my thoughts while I was reading (and I also took notes!) and I appreciate the author's careful documentation.
October 26, 2024
See my review in Reading Religion at https://readingreligion.org/books/bey... .
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews