Judaism, Jewishness, and the Universal Symbols of Identity: Re-Sacralizing the Star of David and the Color Yellow

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze socially constructed symbols of Jewish American identity that are produced by members of an elite intelligentsia: two groups of Jewish American authors who write short stories. Our discussion takes issues of identity formation in the Jewish American context and asks what processes act on the formation of a specific Jewish American group identity over time. It identifies the kinds of events that are incorporated into identity formation and institutional practices within the Jewish American community that offer a special way to understand issues of victimization. As evidence of how this process works, this study uses a random sample of 100 short stories written between 1946 and 1995 by Jewish American authors. Intended for consumption by Jewish American readers, these stories describe daily life within the Jewish American community and with surprising regularity bring issues of victimization into the imagined experience of readers. Their presentation of issues of Jewish American identity provides an easily accessible window, making visible the community's concerns through time. Perhaps more significantly, an analysis of a random sample of these stories allows identification of the strategies used to create ethnic identity when describing daily experiences. More specifically, this study examines how Jewish American short story writers present the Holocaust, victimization, and anti-Semitism as part of the processes of identity formation within the Jewish American community across three time periods: 1946-1956, 1957-1972, and 1973-1995. For many decades there has been an ongoing discussion and a certain amount of tension in the Jewish American community regarding what it means to be Jewish