EIGO GA WAICARIMA.SU KA?
(DO YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?)
Deborah Dash Moore, Director, The Frankel Center,
and Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of History
University of Michigan
adding shades of gray
between black and white.
Prejudice against Jews and
Jewish difference from
Deborah Dash Moore lecturing to a group of English teachers in Jap an.
other Americans suggested
The usual reply indicated, politely, "only a possibilities of an alternative minority history.
little," expressed by a smile and thumb and And since American studies occur in Japan
forefinger held up, separated by an inch of air. under the rubric of international relations, a
Given my inability to speak Japanese, I lectured focus on politics makes sense.
about American Jews in English. While I can't
know how much was understood directly, I Given the location of American Jews within
remain impressed with the attentiveness of the Jewish world and its history, this American-
my varied audiences: beginning and advanced centered emphasis surprised me. I had expected
undergraduate students, faculty members in that some aspects of American Jewish life,
American studies, graduate students with diverse especially involvement with Israel, would be
interests, and teachers of English who gathered high on the agenda of my audience. Instead,
regularly to read Henry James.
Japanese women students and scholars were
particularly drawn to American minority
What did I understand as a foreigner in Japan, discourses, which have helped them to
outsider to Japanese culture, as an American, understand and negotiate their own minority
historian, and Jew? The brief report that follows status. As dissenters within the United States,
represents impressions gleaned from my two- as a group often stigmatized yet resilient
week short-term OAH-JAAS fellowship this enough to forge an independent history and
past May-June. People were surprised and produce changes in American society, American
pleased that we had come to Japan at this difficult Jews offered a kind of comparative model.
time. (Mac Moore also gave several lectures.) Indeed, Jewish involvement in the American
Across the southwest of the country we noticed women's movement, especially second wave
few expressions of stress. Japanese volunteered feminism, generated widespread interest among
that they were self-conscious about American undergraduate and graduate students. Several
perceptions. They wanted us to know that in graduate students were studying Hadassah,
Japan an air of normalcy could most effectively both its leadership and its religious dimensions.
comfort those directly and indirectly afflicted by Other young scholars suggested comparisons
the catastrophe.
with Japanese Americans in the States or
with ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. These
As the details of my fellowship in Japan perspectives expanded my own understanding of
developed, I wondered why Japanese scholars American Jews, seeing them through Japanese
were interested in Jewish American history. scholars' eyes.
What engaged my host, Professor Miyuki
Kita of the University of Kitakyushu and the My own lectures connected more with issues of
graduate students and early career scholars social history and religious history, rather than
studying American Jews in Kyoto? Most political history. When speaking about Jewish
importantly: politics. American Jewish political immigrants to the United States, I stressed ways
activities, from their early pre-state Zionism to they synthesized Jewish and non-Jewish life
their involvement in the Russo-Japanese war to within their particular American environs. When
their later civil rights activism, intrigued these discussing the postwar period, I examined the
scholars. Professor Kita saw American Jews as impact of the Holocaust and suburbanization.
situated between African Americans and white In presenting an overview of American Jews
Americans. Jews complicated American history, for scholars, I focused on urban history. It is
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hard to judge how these lectures meshed with
Japanese fascination with American Jews. The
group reading Henry James took a break to read
Philip Roth—"Eli, the Fanatic" and "Goodbye,
Columbus." They found it difficult to enter
into the idiosyncratic, stressful humor of these
stories. And yet we were able to discuss Roth's
dialogue, as well as the significance of black
clothes (complicated by my own black dress
and jacket—a style, I assured them, that had no
significance beyond my lingering identity as a
New Yorker).
Leading these discussions in Japanese contexts
confirmed for me that American Jews have
been integral to the history of the United States.
Ironically, Jewish marginality in the United
States enhanced their Americanness, an insight
that many Jewish political activists might
have espoused.
SAMPLING OF FALL 2011
JEWISH STUDIES COURSES
AT THE UNWERSITY OF
MICHIGANg
* INTRODUCTION TO JEWISH
CIVILIZATIONS AND CULTURES
(Julian Levinson)
* THE THOUGHT OF A_BRAHM
JOSHUA HESCHEL (Elliot Ginsburg)
OLD NEW LANDS: JEWISH
IMMIGRATION IN LITERATURE
AND FILM (Maya Barzilai)
* JEWS & OTHER OTHERS
(Jonathan Freedman)
* JEWISH AMERICAN SHORT
STORIES (Anita Norich)
JEWS IN 2.0TH CENTURY LATIN
AMERICA (Flavio Limoncic)
* JEWISH COMIC FICTION
(Eileen Pollack)
* CULTURAL HISTORY OF RUSSIAN
JEWS THROUGH LITERATURE AND
THE ARTS (Mikhail Krutikov)
FRANKEL CENTER FOR JUDAIC STUDIES,
734.763.9047, EMAIL JUDAICSTUDIES@UMICH.EDU , OR 'VISIT WWW.LSA.UMICH.EDU/JUDAIC.
UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN