Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hi, everyone. Welcome to identity crisis. The show about news and ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute in partnership with the Jewish telegraphic agency and we're recording on January 27th, 2021, I'm UDA Kurtzer president of Shalom Hartman Institute North America. You know, our show here about news and ideas is really an attempt to be both to infuse our discussions about current events in Jewish life, with bigger ideas and analysis. That's kind of a new side and also to try to build a stronger bridge between some of the most relevant and cutting edge Jewish scholarship out there and the Jewish communal conversation. So news and ideas are not two separate businesses or industries, but are supposed to be compatible. So kind of a good example of our newsiest newsier show was last week with Isabel Kershner of the New York times and Ben sales of JTA on vaccinations between Israel and North America.
Speaker 0 00:00:48 And today I think we're more in the realm of the ladder, as we're excited to talk about a new and really important book and Jewish studies with its author, a book that will and should have an impact, not just in how we understand and imagine American Jewish identity, but hopefully, hopefully also at least this is my goal for community leaders in the Jewish community, in how we cater to American Jewish identity in our institutions and in our priorities. So my guest today is Dr. Rachel Gross assistant professor and that John and Marcia Goldman chair in American Jewish studies at San Francisco state university. And, uh, and we're here to discuss her new book, which I'm now holding up for no reason since we're on a podcast, the book is called the beyond the synagogue Jewish nostalgia as religious practice, uh, published just recently unboxed very recently from NYU, press Rachel, thank you so much for joining today.
Speaker 1 00:01:38 Thank you for having me and so glad to talk to you.
Speaker 0 00:01:42 Awesome. So let's go straight into this. So you make a central and audacious claim in this book, it's in the title, it's in the description and it runs throughout the book that a whole bunch of aspects of let's call it American Jewish behavior and your four big examples, food ways, toys and dolls, museums, and Heritage's sites and genealogical research. All of these Jewish behaviors are not like complimentary behaviors to American Judaism as a religion. Um, like they're not culture as separated from religion, but are actually a form of American Jewish religion. And I first want you to ask you to unpack that a little bit further for our listeners as a teaser for the book, but also I want to push, like why I, you know, I get the resistance to the fear that some, because something religion becomes high culture and other stuff becomes low culture. And I know you want us to take these behaviors seriously, but what are the stakes in defining it, not just as this is important and complimentary to religion, but actually about religion itself.
Speaker 1 00:02:43 Absolutely. So defining religion really matters in general. Um, it matters for Americans. It matters for American Jews. Um, I'm interested in the question because I'm a religious studies scholar. That's, um, you know, what is it that I'm doing with life? What does it mean to study religion, but it matters, first of all, it matters for Americans because religion is a legal concept. You get certain rights when you define religion. Things are, uh, things that count as religion get, um, get a legal protection that other things do not the things I'm looking at, do not get a legal protection. I'm not necessarily arguing that they should, but it matters a great deal in our society. How we define religion. That's that's first of all, second of all, in the American Jewish community, it matters a great deal, how we define religion because actually we've been organizing our communities around what counts as religion.
Speaker 1 00:03:40 Um, we've been doing big national studies of Jews and almost all of the recent ones. Um, certainly the most recent national study of American Jews, the 2013 Pew study of American Jews, really very literally defined activities or define Jews as Jews by religion and Jews, not by religion and the ones not by religion are the ones that Jewish community leaders are worried about. Right? And they're the ones that Jewish community organizations inspired by these surveys are going to throw money at, or, or try to get Jews who are seen in this way to change their behaviors. So I'm, I'm arguing that we should think about religion a little bit differently. I'm also in this book, not arguing that, um, that there's this, as you said, there's this big divide between religion and culture, but that things that we have thought of as culture, um, are really important to Jewish practice and Jewish identity. And for me, religion is a really good word for things that matter. And, um, if you, like, I can talk about how I define religion a little bit.
Speaker 0 00:04:56 Well, it'd be, let's go back to the Pew example. Cause I think it's very telling. So you're basically saying that the economy between Jews by religion and Jews have no religion, right, is basically, uh, uh, I don't know what the word is, a corrupt and inaccurate definition because not only, uh, not only are there economic consequences to that distinction, but I, I think the more jarring pieces, what happens with the majority of your population are Jews have no religion. So suddenly the very category of defining, like defining the minority as having an authentic grip on something. And then the majority as basically being drifting out into the ether, it's not only counterproductive to be able to define the central ethos of the community, but it means that you've, um, basically evacuated a sense of meaning out of the majority culture. Is that, is that a piece of that?
Speaker 1 00:05:47 So you actually found that SA defined 78% of American Jews as Jews by religions. That is the majority of are by religion. I'm going to admit, I just quickly looked up that statistic. I don't have it, but 22% are the Jews have no religion, so they are the minority, but I don't see a distinct difference. I think this is, um, I will say I respect Pew's methodology. Absolutely. And the way that they conducted this survey was they literally called up people and said, Hey, um, are you a Jew? Or what is your religion, if any, and then list a whole bunch. Right. And, um, and then if you say Jewish, then you get counted as a Jew by religion. Um, so, and if you don't say, um, if you say none of the above or something else, um, then they asked you, um, are you, do you consider yourself Jewish in another way?
Speaker 1 00:06:47 And if you say yes to that, then you get counted as a Jew, have no religion, um, totally respect that Pew survey, this book is not out to, just to bash the Pew survey. Um, but I'm one of a number of religious studies, scholars and scholars in other fields who were saying, Hey, these sociological surveys are important and interesting data, but they don't quantitative research doesn't necessarily give us the full picture of how people live their lives and the way they find meaning in their lives. So I actually think there, isn't such a stark difference. This isn't a book that's just about people who, um, only finds meaning in, um, a pastrami sandwich. So I think there certainly are those people. Um, but I think you can go to synagogue and find that having, um, a pastrami sandwich with your family that reminds you of your ancestors and all the other times you've had deli with your family, um, and places you helps you think about Jewish history, right? Helps you think about this, this cuisine that represents a certain type of American Jewish history and your feelings towards it. I think you can go to synagogue and do those other things, right? You can identify as a Jew by religion and find meaning in a pastrami sandwich. I don't think I'm not trying to start divide. I'm trying to erase that stark divide.
Speaker 0 00:08:11 Right. So I'll leave aside the question of like, of the whole social science research question, but I think you're right when you said there's a whole bunch of other scholars who are not only contesting those, the questions that are asked, but the implicit assumption and one of the best ways to kind of summarize that trend is a shift away from, are you Jewish based on these pre-existing categories that I've given you versus how do you Jewish or when do you Jewish, but then I think it's probably for a different podcast episode than, than the one that's focused on your book. But let me, let's go back to the definition of religion. And I'm interested in a couple of different phenomenological features of how religious studies scholars tend to define religion for better or worse. And then maybe get some examples of how definition of these behaviors as religious fits into those categories.
Speaker 0 00:08:58 So one of them that I was thinking throughout is, uh, the idea of the sacred, uh, that religion is in the grip of the Holy to quote Avishai Mark elite. That there's something that, um, uh, that can't be when, when, when there's something at the center that's Holy, uh, can't be compromised because of the minute you compromise it or its integrity. You're not just compromising a, um, a pathway to something Holy but something Holy itself. So how does the notion of holiness or sacredness play into some of these behaviors that you're identifying as features of a broader features of American Jewish religion?
Speaker 1 00:09:33 I think of religion as existential, meaning something that provides deep meaning in our lives and connects us to bigger stories and connects us to people, um, living and dead and imagined, um, that w that with whom we find a kind of deep existential community. So I build on the definition of religion, um, by scholar Robert, or see religious studies scholar, Robert, or see who's at Northwestern. And he thinks of religion as networks, networks that connect us to, uh, or relationships rather, um, relationships to the divine, right, um, relationships that might connect us to, um, ancestors or to spiritual beings. He studies Catholicism. So he's really interested in relationships to, um, saints and things that spiritual beings like that. Um, and, and also to living people around us, to networks of people around us. Um, and I think when we focus, um, away from like this idea of the sacred, I'm not saying that that something out there is sacred, isn't important, but I think we find the sacred, the Holy in our relationships in a lot of times.
Speaker 1 00:10:53 And that could be a relationship to God. That's not something that I study necessarily. Um, I'm interested in the ways that Jews are connected to the people around them, to ideas of other Jews Claudius or L we might say that that's not a term I tend to use in my book. Um, and relationships to two big stories about Jews. I think finding our place in those stories about Jews is the work of religion that we do that work by placing ourselves in those stories, placing our families in those stories. That's existential, meaning that's finding our place in the world. And I don't know, what's more important than that really.
Speaker 0 00:11:35 So I guess that bridges to me for two other kind of categories that tend to appear a lot when we talk about religion, which are norms and boundaries and questions of norms and boundaries are all over this book, actually. And I want to, we'll dig into a little, a little bit deeper later on how much do you, when you define these as religious in nature beyond the, the, the networks that provide meaning, um, do you take for granted or do you resist the idea that that means that there are going to have to be very clear norms about what Jewish food ways are supposed to look quite what heritage sites is supposed to look like and so forth. And also the question of boundaries, which includes who can, who can authentically participate in these activities?
Speaker 1 00:12:14 Absolutely. So this book is arguing that certain types of, um, nostalgic practices, um, should be understood as American Jewish religion. So I don't think I'm, so I'm making an argument about nostalgia as a normative practice, that nostalgia, um, for the story of Eastern European Jewish immigration to the United States around the turn of the century is, um, is, uh, a central feature of American Jewish life. I think that's in arguable, um, or that's easily argued. Um, that's true. I think this one is, is, uh, is pretty clear. Um, but that feeling a certain way towards this story has become a norm and that it's reinforced through certain institutions and certain mainstream practices, um, that there is a way that we're instructed to, uh, to feel right that feelings aren't just, um, out of the ethics that were taught how to feel and were taught how to feeling ways that connect us again to communities. And as you say, this creates boundaries, um, it creates boundaries in terms of what's acceptable, right? And it creates boundaries in terms of who's left out. So some examples of people who might be left out of these stories are obviously non-cash Ganassi Jews, or even Ashkenazi Jews whose families don't fit this particular history. And we can talk about that if you'd like,
Speaker 0 00:13:58 Yeah, I do. I want to come back to it. But actually there was a lot continuing on this boundary question, there was a line on page one 50, three of your book that I, I will admit, I read it like five times in a row because I was like, I want to think about that. The line was, you were talking about the American girl dolls and some of the kind of toy and doll culture, and the ways in which, uh, the American girl dolls in particular are fostering, not just representing, but fostering a certain image of the American Jewish immigrant and the American Jewish immigration story as part of a larger argument for American progress. I need that story from the past in order to articulate a story for the future. And the line was, um, non-Jewish audiences are key to the reception of Jewish nostalgic children's materials.
Speaker 0 00:14:44 And I was convinced you're right, right. That there are, um, all of these behaviors are being litigate. Like we're litigating nostalgic memory in public with others and sometimes, um, uh, for others. Um, and I, I don't know, I would love for you to riff on that a little bit, because it means that when we're describing these as religious behavior and non Jews are really important to the story, religious behavior by M by American Jews is actually in concert with, or maybe in performance for people who are not part of the quote unquote part of that religion. So run with that.
Speaker 1 00:15:25 I mean, I think thinking about non Jews and being, um, in conversation with ju with non Jews, working with non Jews is a huge, huge part of American Jewish identity. So, um, I, my PhD is in American religious history, um, and that's always been an important part of my scholarship that I think it's really important to not just to think about Jews, uh, in a kind of siloed way. But if we're thinking about American Jews, we should be thinking about real people in the world in conversation with, with the many different parts of their communities. Right. Um, and to go back to part of American Jewish identity, is that especially as a, as a religious minority in the United States, I think Jews are pretty self-conscious about this, right? We're, self-conscious about the ways we present ourselves in public, um, whether we're doing so consciously or unconsciously, um, and to go back to the example of, of children's books, which she brought up, um, children's books are, are such an important way that we shape our identity, our families, our communities.
Speaker 1 00:16:40 Sometimes I talk to people about my research and they don't always understand like that children's books are so important. Um, but they, they are a way that we, that we shape our children, that we shaped children in our families, in our communities. And, um, the books that I look at in my book are all distributed by PJ library, which if your listeners aren't familiar with, um, is an incredibly important organization that distributes free books and music, um, to Jewish families and interfaith families. Um, and those books and music always have Jewish content. And, um, I think PJ library is as one of the most important and influential organizations, um, on the Jewish scene right now, um, in the United States and increasingly worldwide, I think, and their intention is to explicitly to shape Jews, to shape Jewish families, like reaching them at a tender and intimate moment. The moment of bedtime reading there, they're called PJ library for pajamas. Sometimes people don't know that, um, I get, um, what does the PJ stand for?
Speaker 0 00:18:02 Yeah, it's easier in Israel where it's called Cypriot, the Java pajama library.
Speaker 1 00:18:06 Um, but it's, it's a tender and intimate moment that matters. And it turns out if we think broadly about children's books, um, that they are often authors are Jewish, but sometimes the illustrators are not, the publishers are not. Um, and, and often we don't, it's not important for us to be, but they're the publishers and the illustrators and everybody involved in creating these books, um, are, are shaping our families and, and are shaping our children in, in deep ways.
Speaker 0 00:18:41 Yeah, it's interesting. I love your observation about why children's books are not fully taken seriously as objects for critical discourse or scholarly discourse, or even more importantly as windows or witnesses into what matters to us. And I'm reminded when I was doing my doctoral work, which was back in the first and second century before I kind of skipped up to the present, um, you know, ancient historians, it trying to figure out like, what did Jews say, think or do in the first and second century, you study cave drawings, you study garbage pieces of paper that people throw away and, uh, you know, and then you fast forward to the present. And there's a kind of snobby resistance to the stuff that actually pertains to Jewish people's lives as not really the description of Judaism is what Jewish people do. Um, and it's kind of, it's just striking to notice the difference between if it's old, it's interesting, regardless of what it is.
Speaker 0 00:19:33 Whereas if it's new, then it has to be this kind of thing, as opposed to that. But let me push on one piece of this when it comes to the boundary, the boundary question, because in your introduction to the book, you also, in addition to resisting the classification schemes of how we tend to talk about what's Jewish, what's serious Jewish. You also resist what has traveled with those cloth classification schemes, which is a description that American Jewish religion is fundamentally in decline. Um, and, and we can talk about the stakes of Jewish, social science research, where description is juxtaposed to prescription all the time, uh, in this business. But you're pushing against the idea that American Judaism is in decline because you say, look, it's just not, you're not looking in the right places to find this. However, here's the big, however, as American Jewish food ways and nostalgic practices and family structures winds up, uh, and this is maybe a bad word becoming hybridized to all sorts of other cultures.
Speaker 0 00:20:31 Isn't that aren't these forms of American Jewish religion going to inherently be in decline. Also, if it's only, now it's only a quarter of my family is Ashkenazi Eastern European. And therefore those food ways are still important to me, but they're not, hegemonically important to me. I'm not loyal to them in the same way. I'm I also have nostalgic attachment to this other side of my family that doesn't have ethnic Jewish background. So w w I guess I'm wondering, like, isn't, even by the definition that this is what American Jewish religion is, couldn't somebody make the argument that this is in decline or risks being in the coming. Also,
Speaker 1 00:21:09 I strongly prefer the language of change to decline. I'm studying a particular moment or a particular range of moments in American Jewish life. I'm looking at the 1970s to the present. I'm looking at how nostalgia functions from the 1970s to the present heavily weighted towards the 21st century. Um, and I actually, you didn't use this word, but what a word that often comes up in this conversation is assimilation. Um, and I really try to push back against the idea of assimilation often when Jews use the word assimilation there, they're talking about the decline you're naming. They imagine that Jews came from central and Eastern Europe at a particular moment at the turn of the century to the United States. And once they hit the United States, um, their Americanism, whatever that means it was on the rise and their Judaism, whatever that means, um, is on the decline.
Speaker 1 00:22:15 Well, you go back to central and Eastern Europe in the S uh, matching pre turn of the century time, their Judaism, their culture was changing, right? Any, you pick any moment in Jewish history, um, and Jewish culture practices, whatever you want to call religion, um, is going to be changing and interacting with the cultures and practices and even religions around them. And, and I imagine, you know, this from your study of, of ancient Jews, that ancient Jews were absolutely in contact with, um, ideas and practices of the non Jews around them. And I think what if we take that idea of change and, and recognize that American yes, American Judaism, American Jewish practices and culture at thought are changing, but we don't look at it from a place of fear, but look at it as recognizing that as, as I tell my students, the study of history, this is the basic definition of history, as you're probably aware of the study of history is the study of change over time. Right? So what if we look at this as this is, this is what human societies do they change over time, and yes, American Judaism will be changed to continuing to change over time. That's not in itself a bad thing. That's simply how human societies work,
Speaker 0 00:23:39 Right. It would, it might, right. It, it might still force the question for those who are at American Jewish, uh, anthropological religious studies and social science research for a better understanding of who we are, where we're going. It might not resolve their anxiety about that change. Um, and what they fear is being lost because the, the resistance to the resistance to change is usually a resistance to loss or a sense of loss. Um, it might not what Eve, but I guess what you're proposing is the simple shift in terminology from assimilation as declined to something else as change could be part of the vehicle of helping people adapt to the notion of change. Even if at times, that pace of change is going to be vastly faster than they're prepared for
Speaker 1 00:24:24 Change is always faster than we can pay, and the world is changing. Absolutely. And it's often scary. Um, and, and, and our cultures, um, changing is, is absolutely terrifying. Um, but that's, that's, again, I think a fundamental notion of human existence. The other thing that, that happens here in this equation of assimilation, of, of Judaism declining. Um, and I think that the way American Jews normally think about this is the Americanism in that has to remain stable. Um, which I think is a really bad way of thinking about American culture, right? That, that a lot of times people freeze this notion of, Oh, our immigrant ancestors, right? These, um, this norm that we all have immigrant ancestors who came from Eastern Europe at the turn of the century center, settled on the lower East side. I know not all of us do actually. Um, but in this imagined moment, well, that's what Americanism is right there.
Speaker 1 00:25:25 The Americanism that they encountered and that they shaped that they were a participant in shaping, um, that, that gets frozen in time too. And actually American is like, when I tell, when I teach this to my students, I say, well, well, what's an American, right? Like what, what is to be an American and my students, um, who are wildly diverse, not all Jewish at San Francisco state university are very quick to pick up on the idea that, of course we don't know how to define an American, um, in all kinds of ways. And I would say, okay, in all kinds of ways, you also don't know how to define what being Jewish is.
Speaker 0 00:26:05 Yeah. I, I, um, I found when I was reading the chapter on, on the stories of American progress, again, it goes back to the, the dolls and the books, right, as being one of the sites of this, but also the, the kind of a pilgrimage sites, like, like a tenement museum in New York. I had this moment of like, Oh, this is going to be a really interesting article two years from now, when we can already start seeing the ways in which the, the, uh, the ideological trends that are skeptical of the myth of American progress, which are already deeply seeping into the Jewish community, are going to force the re litigation of this story for American Jews. And I was reminded actually there was some great research number of years ago. I think it was, yeah, L's Aruba Val. And I think also shovel Kellner did a similar project where they were tracking, um, tour guides at Masada.
Speaker 0 00:26:53 And, um, and noticing that the narrative that people were telling about Masada changed with the political circumstances that they were in, sometimes zealotry was good, and sometimes that the tree was bad. So I wonder whether that, you know, that's going to be a piece of the next iteration of this story, which is this nostalgic mitzvah of the American Jewish immigration story, which is incredibly valuable to how American Jews see themselves is totally going to be challenged by the emerging belief. That that story was really blind to the fact that America was not a story of immigrant progress for everybody.
Speaker 1 00:27:31 Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how much that, that shapes how much that changes in the mainstream narrative. I'm, I'm not yet convinced that, um, I, you know, I'm, I'm on board that America, the United States, is that a place in progress for everybody? Um, I'm, I'm not sure we're all going to get there. Yeah, I think it's,
Speaker 0 00:27:59 Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk, let's talk about food for a little bit, um, which is, uh, uh, uh, shared favorite topic of, of yours in mind, sometimes on Twitter and other places. Um, uh, so let's start with this, um, in his book, um, adventures in Yiddish land, uh, and in some of his lectures, Jeffrey Shandler talks about one of the ironies of Yiddish culture as it's emerged in America, is that there are aspects of Yiddish culture that are considered to be really important by American Jews. That would be unrecognizable as important to the shuttle itself. And his, one of his great examples is like if people from the shuttle showed up and realized that their strongest brand ambassadors were the klezmer band, they might be mortified that those are the people who are like telling the story of what you just culture is. And, um, I'll get to the question in a second, but I remember learning as a kid from the big book of Jewish humor, I think, feel like one of my most formative educational books as a kid that bagels and lox were like things that only wealthy Jews had on occasion, as opposed to being like the classic Jewish food, maybe that's right.
Speaker 0 00:29:06 Maybe that's wrong, maybe the same for brisket. Also, I'm just curious, like how much of what counts as American Jewish nostalgic food ways, um, is actually a construct, a construction of a version of the past, as opposed to the past itself, acknowledging that it's always that right. Anything we talk about from the past is an invention of the past, but I'm curious whether your thoughts on, on what's being created and invented as part of the nostalgia of Jewish food, as opposed to really hearkening back to the food of our ancestors.
Speaker 1 00:29:34 Yeah. So I think that's a, that's a wonderfully complicated question. Um, the, the food waste I'm talking about the Ashkenazi Jewish food ways that I'm talking about are absolutely, um, a moment of reflection on Ashkenazi American food ways. Um, not, I, I'm not interested in searching out, you know, the pure food ways of our ancestors kind of thing. Um, but the people that I'm examining, um, are, are restauranters and entrepreneurs who are, um, interested in thinking about the food ways of, of their ancestors, of our communal ancestors and making Ashkenazi food consciously fit for the 21st century. So I'm looking at, um, places that are sometimes called artisinal DeLuz. Um, so in the, in the Bay area where I am, I'm looking at cells deli, um, I don't look so much at, at Y sun's here, but there are another example, um, places that are rethinking Ashkenazi American cuisine in terms of, um, in terms of things that are really important, um, to, to many folks right now, in terms of sustainability, environmental practices, local food ways.
Speaker 1 00:31:02 And in some parts of this, there's a nostalgic idea that like, Oh, you know, back back in before the 20th century, um, in, in Europe, and, and I would say generally before the industrialization of our food in the 20th century, people were eating more local food. So they're, they're drawing that in, but they're really consciously taking, what's become Ashkenazi American food and, um, and rethinking it in terms of contemporary concerns. So when I think about nostalgia and I think about nostalgic food ways, I don't think that can, that means it can't be changed. Um, it also can be playful, a lot of, uh, um, places that I'm thinking about, give their sandwiches, delightfully silly names right there. They're doing this extremely. I think if you're running an artisinal deli, there's a, there's a certain self-consciousness and a certain humor that comes along with it. That is really fun.
Speaker 0 00:31:56 Yeah. It's a whole life choice. I guess what's telling about that with your w as you, as you're spelling it out. And I, and I discerned this in the book, but you've made it more clear here is effectively. You're looking more at the culture makers and producers than you are at the consumers. Um, certainly in the food section, cause you're talking, when you talk about the restaurant tours that it's effectively like the rabbis of the food industry in a certain way. And when you get to the, when, and I guess the connection here is even more profound because you do talk about whether or not these delis consciously refer to themselves as kosher or not, and what's at stake for them, but that in many ways, by interrogating the values, choices, local, sustainable, et cetera, um, ethically sourced and harvested, they're basically trafficking in a, in the same type of values conversation that a cost route, a kosher consumer might be trafficking in. And that brings the kind of full circle. So the notion of these practices, religious,
Speaker 1 00:32:53 Um, nostalgia is, is all about values, right? Nostalgia is, is about what we value from the past. What's meaningful in our present and what values we want to pass on to, to the next generations. Absolutely. Um, sorry. There was something I wanted to say in relation to something you just said, um, sorry.
Speaker 0 00:33:15 That's a different question. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:33:18 You're you're right. That I do focus more heavily on the producers in this book. Um, and what that leads us to is actually a really interesting question on who are Jewish community leaders. And, um, we don't often think of these folks as Jewish community leaders. The folks I'm looking at here are a range of people. They're Jewish genealogists folks who found, um, Jewish genealogical societies and databases. They're, um, docents at historics and synagogues, Gox and staff members as well. Um, their children's book authors and illustrators and they're people who run artisinal delis, right? We don't think when we think either religious leader or more broadly Jewish community leader, these are not the folks we're going to write when we say Jewish community leader. Most of us, I think probably most of your listeners probably think rabbi, maybe a head of a Federation head of another Jewish nonprofit. Um, those are the, those certain types of nonprofits get, get counted as heads of certain types of nonprofits get counted as Jewish community leaders. But like, what if we look at the way these people who shape our everyday activities are, are really shaping Judaism, that they are Jewish community leaders. I think that that gives us a really different way of looking at Jewish practices.
Speaker 0 00:34:48 That's super interesting. I remember seeing the grow and behold people showing up at lewd conferences, and of course there's a sales orientation there too, but it wasn't really about that. It was actually about, no, this is a shift in the value system and we're going to actually infiltrate it into the educational system much as you might, any other type of growth or development, uh, in, in Jewish identity or behavior. Um, you know, I know you're located in the Bay area. Uh, Hartman has a big presence in the Bay area. So I've spent a lot of time there in all years except 2020. Um, I remember when I first started coming to San Francisco that a number of the Jewish community leaders out there, Dr. Anita Friedman, sissy swig, a few others, it was really important for them to understand that if you're going to come work in the Bay area, the Bay area, Jewish community has a very specific history.
Speaker 0 00:35:35 And I got introduced to the, when there was the stained glass windows or whether it was, you have to understand that when you, you know, it was conveyed very clearly to me, don't think that this is a Jewish community, like New York, where the Jews used to be in one area and move somewhere else. We came as Americans like everybody else. Um, and I, as I read your book, I was like, Oh, they were effectively practicing business Daljit practice in order to create a norm. In order for me to understand that, to work here was to operate within these terms. So I'd love for you to unpack how much of this is, is super local. Also, you know, you've mentioned the bit, the delis and the Bay area. Do you see this as a, as a unit, as in what ways is this a uniform set of American Jewish practices? And in what ways is it depending where you are in the American Jewish community geographically, you're going to wind up with a totally different nostalgic.
Speaker 1 00:36:27 So, um, some of the Jewish community leaders, uh, where I am, might not love this answer, but the things I'm looking at, I see as really national big national trends, right? Um, to some extent I I'm very much an East coast person. I was raised and educated all the way through grad school on the East coast, um, mostly in the mid Atlantic and, um, uh, I'm very much an East coast person. And I, I having moved now to the Bay area, I recognize that there is a different culture and a different Jewish culture here, but there are w we live in, we live in a global world now, right. We certainly live in a national world. And I think the things I'm looking at are big national trends. Um, to some extent they can play out differently in different places. A lot of the places that I'm looking at, the food stuff certainly gets its start in the Bay area. To some extent you can, you can make that argument and trace that history, but I'm looking at, um, people, um, selling this kind of nostalgic Jewish route across the country, um, in, in New York, certainly in the Bay area, in food trucks, in Ohio, right? Th these are big national trends, I think. And, and the fact that that we're T you and I are now talking across the coast and having this conversation, I think, I don't think that can be discounted, but that we live in a national Jewish world.
Speaker 0 00:37:56 Yeah. No local Jewish community likes to think that what they're dealing with is national, but I've kind of with you. Um, one other big question, um, which is that I felt as I was reading, especially on the food section, that one of the outliers to this is actually ironically to these food behaviors is ironically the Orthodox community where if Kosh root is the normative, uh, signifier, that's what makes food Jewish is because route, just as a test, as a hypothesis, what we've seen in the Orthodox community over the last 30 years is a huge prolific proliferation of kosher restaurants with all sorts of foods that Jews didn't eat, right? This is the ant and weird hybrids. That's the sushi falafel pizza shop, right? And, and a kind of total access democratization to any type of food. And the food that seems to kind of get left behind is the stuff that's called traditionally Jewish. My hypothesis on this is it's kind of exactly this inverse of where authenticity and its relationship to identity can be mined. Whereas if, if authentic Jewish authenticity and identity is discoverable through how the food is prepared, namely cashew fruit, I need less for my food to remind me of my ancestors. What do you think of that theory?
Speaker 1 00:39:10 So this is off the cuff, but I'm not sure I agree with you. I think there are a number of Orthodox Jewish cookbook authors and, and now, you know, Instagram, um, fo folks on Instagram and, and blogs, um, who are turning to traditional Jewish food ways, um, to Ashkenazi food ways. I think it's still out there. Um, and I would say, certainly what's really interesting to me also is, um, where food ways are going now in the pandemic. Um, I mean, nobody, nobody knows what's happening now in the Jewish community or in food ways. Um, right now at all. Um, it's been interesting to have this book come out in the pandemic at a moment when the restaurant industry is in upheaval. Um, but, and that's certainly affected the folks I talk about, but, um, what's been interesting to me as I've heard from a lot of them that they're, they're struggling like everybody else in the restaurant industry, but there is still a demand for their food, right? I think we're all turning to certain forms of comfort in that pandemic and, um, traditional food ways, food ways that remind us of, of our home and, and sometimes of our ancestors is a real comfort. So folks selling comfort food, um, has the demand, whether they can produce it because of whatever local regulations they have is another story. But there is absolutely a demand for comforting nostalgic food right now. I, and I would, I would see that across now across any kind of spectrum you want to draw.
Speaker 0 00:40:57 Yeah. You're definitely booked definitely made me think about like, why it really I've thought obviously thought about it before. Like why certain foods remind me of certain relatives and why the stakes were always so high at family gatherings, whether we were going to get the locks platter or the deli platter. And it was not just a culinary choice. There was also like, who are we evoking? Um, last, last question for you. And thanks for giving us so much time. Uh, last question is, you know, I know that the, the, where this book lives is in the Academy. Um, I know that you want us, you want people to buy your book. Do you want people to read your book, but, um, but sure there are all, there's also something that you want, um, you know, at least some of your Jewish readers to internalize, uh, as they think about their own Jewishness. So what, what might be one or two of those things that you would, you would want Jewish readers of this book who are not just studying it, this path, studying this dispassionately because you're, you're inviting us not to be dispassionate to actually investigate those very things that are part of our Lifeways and folk ways. Um, what do you want, what do you want your Jewish readers to internalize?
Speaker 1 00:41:59 What you just said is the first thing I want folks to take away, that the things we do in our everyday life are important. Um, scholars in my field use the in religious studies use the term, um, lives, religion to me, the things that, that we do every day, but they give us a meaning. Um, and I, I would love for listeners to take that away and say, what is it that I do every day that that is meaningful in my life, right? Um, whether it's eating a certain food or having family photos up, um, on your shelf. I think that those are the things that give us meaning those are, those are not, you know, tuning into to zoom sit on Gog. Um, but there, there are other kinds of practices that, that give us meaning, um, that's, that's the, that's the first thing.
Speaker 1 00:42:52 And I think that's the biggest thing, um, that I, I would love folks to take away. And I'm certainly not the only one, um, doing this kind of work. Um, I'd also love folks to think about the kind of stories that they tell about themselves and their families and their communities, whether they see themselves in, in this story of, um, central and Eastern European Jews who immigrated at the turn of the century, or whether there's, uh, there are other types of stories that they tell or that they'd like to tell. And as you said at the, at the beginning of our conversation, um, I think about this story that I'm talking about, this nostalgia for these Jews as a norm. And one thing that I want to do in naming that norm is, is opening up conversations for other types of stories to be told I'm not the one doing that work.
Speaker 1 00:43:44 I recognize that, but I think the first thing we need to do, um, in the American Jewish community is think about his name, how central this story has been. Sometimes folks use the term Ashkin normativity. Um, I don't tend to use that term. I don't use it in this, in this book anyway. Um, but, but I'm looking at a certain form of it, right? I'm looking at the street, the, the way that American Jewish history has been told and has been practiced really. Um, and if you find meaning in that, that's terrific. I'd love for you to think about the ways that you find meaning in that. And, and who's being left out. What other stories you could think about as well.
Speaker 0 00:44:29 Wonderful. Well, thank you, Dr. Rachel Gross for this, uh, for your book and for being here today, the book is titled beyond the synagogue. Jewish nostalgia is a religious practice it's available, where books are sold, and thanks to all of you for listening to our show identity crisis as a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute in partnership with the Jewish telegraphic agency, it was co-produced this week by Devinsky common and telly Cohen and edited by Alex Dylan with assistance from MIRI Miller and music provided by so-called to learn more about the shell apartment Institute, visit us online, Sholom, harman.org. We'd love to know what you think about this show. You can rate and review us on iTunes to help more people discover the show, and you can write to
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