The Bar Mitzvah
Wore Ice
intended hilarity," Dr.
Joselit said, pointing
to the photograph of
the ice sculpture sur-
rounded by floral cen-
terpieces on a white
tablecloth.
Jewish material life in the first half of the century
Chanukah also
gained
new stature in
is a study in "unintended hilarity."
America, becoming
the "Jewish holiday
JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER
par excellence." The
importance placed on
block of ice sculpted into a
Dr. Joselit, the author of The it reflected an in-
bar mitzvah boy in his Wonders of America: Reinvent- creasing emphasis on
best suit and tallit. A box ing Jewish Culture, 1880-1950, children, she said.
of chocolates shaped like delivered two lectures for the Plastic dreidels that
a book, complete with spine, Cohn-Haddow Center for Juda- became a staple of the
bearing the title "Exodus" and ic Studies at Wayne State Uni- modern Jewish home
scenes of robed families and their versity and the Jewish Historical unintentionally sym-
bolized the intersec-
camels leaving Egypt and new Society of Michigan this week.
immigrants disembarking from
Her first lecture focused on tion of religion and
a ship. A Crisco cookbook in Yid- feminism and fashion within the commerce.
`The freedom to ob-
dish and English for "Jewish context of the American Jewish
housewives" and perhaps their experience. The second centered serve and the freedom
English-speaking daughters.
on the evolution of Jewish life as to neglect" are the two Dr. Jenna Weissman Joselit: Dania of America.
Kitsch, yes. A cultural mirror, manifested in material culture poles of experience
absolutely.
— the fancification of the bar Jews shuttled be-
Cape Cods favored by middle-
These objects of everyday life, mitzvah, for example, and the tween as they made their way class Christians. The emphasis
the byproducts of a rapidly as- widespread use of the Maxwell through the dazzle of America, on the sanctity of the home was
Dr. Joselit said. •
similating American Jewry, ex- House Haggadah.
also an adaptation, only Jews
Neglecting the past was a viewed it as a "temple," Dr.
hibited the tension between the
In the '40s and '50s, Jews be-
"quotidian" and the "transcen- gan to celebrate bar mitzvahs privilege. So was adapting gen- Joselit said.
dent," which has typified the with extravagant parties, ele- tile values. A poster advertising
The massive exodus from the
Jewish experience in America vating the occasions to a signif- lots in Sheepshead Bay in Brook- city, however, also led to the de-
since the 1880s, said Dr. Jenna icance they hadn't previously lyn was the kind that lured Jews nominational fragmentation of
from the crowded tenements of the Jewish community.
Weissman Joselit, a professor of enjoyed.
history at New York University.
"They became studies in un- the Lower East Side to the crisp
Dr. Joselit pointed out that
A
she is not poking fun at Ameri-
can Jewish life and its bourgeois
aspirations, but taking serious-
ly the concerns of Jews at the
turn of the century to the mid-
century. The chocolate-covered
matzahs tasted good, but they
also stood as a symbol of freedom.
for people who cowered under
authoritarian and hostile gov-
ernments for centuries.
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