Making Jewish gender: Religion, race, sexuality, and American Jews, 1910-1924

"Making Jewish Gender: Religion, Race, Sexuality, and American Jews, 1910-1924" argues that the discourses of race, sexuality, and criminality served to construct what kinds of gendered identities were available to American Jews. Using sources from both Jews and non-Jews, it explores the contests and changes over what it meant to be a Jewish man or a Jewish woman in America. The study asks how Judaism and religious practice created gender norms, and how those gendered norms were adapted by immigrants and acculturated Jews in the American context. It uses the discourse of race and race science, "passing," acting and the theatrical, civilization, and criminality to position Jewish masculinity and femininity in a wider landscape of American culture. Drawing on feminist theorist Judith Butler, "Making Jewish Gender" suggests that the historical situation was more complicated than a simple "feminization" of male Jews by antisemites and others. Rather, both Jews and non-Jews actively participated in conversations about the cultural and biological status of both Jewish men and Jewish women. Perhaps because of the growing similarity of gender norms for both white non-Jewish American women and, especially, acculturated Jewish women, much of the discourse effectively erased one part of a Jewish/woman identity in favor of collapse under the larger category of white womanhood or the male category "Jew."Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Chicago, 2010.School code: 0330