Title Bringing Zion home : Israel in American Jewish culture, 1948-1967 / Emily Alice Katz

Published Albany : State University of New York Press, [2015] ©2015

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Description 1 online resource Contents Postwar American Jewry reconsidered -- Before Exodus : writing Israel for an American audience -- Hora hootenannies and Yemenite hoedowns : Israeli folk dance in America -- A consuming passion : Israeli goods in American Jewish culture -- Cultural emissaries and the culture explosion : introducing Israeli art and music Summary Bringing Zion Home examines the role of culture in the establishment of the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel in the immediate postwar decades. Many American Jews first encountered Israel through their roles as tastemakers, consumers, and cultural impresarios--that is, by writing and reading about Israel; dancing Israeli folk dances; promoting and purchasing Israeli goods; and presenting Israeli art and music. It was precisely by means of these cultural practices, argues Emily Alice Katz, that American Jews insisted on Israel's "natural" place in American culture, a phenomenon that continues to shape America's relationship with Israel today. Katz shows that American Jews' promotion and consumption of Israel in the cultural realm was bound up with multiple agendas, including the quest for Jewish authenticity in a postimmigrant milieu and the desire of upwardly mobile Jews to polish their status in American society. And, crucially, as influential cultural and political elites positioned "culture" as both an engine of American dominance and as a purveyor of peace in the Cold War, many of Israel's American Jewish impresarios proclaimed publicly that cultural patronage of and exchange with Israel advanced America's interests in the Middle East and helped spread the "American way" in the postwar world. Bringing Zion Home is the first book to shine a light squarely upon the role and importance of Israel in the arts, popular culture, and material culture of postwar America Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Jews -- United States -- Attitudes toward Israel Israel and the diaspora. Jews -- United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century Public opinion -- United States HISTORY -- Middle East -- General. Israel and the diaspora Jews -- Attitudes toward Israel Jews -- Social life and customs Public opinion SUBJECT Israel -- Public opinion Subject Israel United States Form Electronic book ISBN 9781438454665 143845466X

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