Hasidic Judaism in American literature

Abstract

This thesis brings together literary texts that portray Hasidic Judaism in Jewish-American literature, predominantly of the 20th and 21st centuries. Although other scholars may have studied Rabbi Nachman, I.B. Singer, Chaim Potok and Pearl Abraham individually, no one has combined their works and examined the depiction of Hasidism through the codes and conventions of different literary genres. Additionally, my research on Judy Brown and Frieda Vizel raises urgent questions about the gendered foundations of Hasidism that are largely elided in the earlier texts. The thesis demonstrates how each text has engaged with Hasidic identity, thought, customs, laws, values and communities in its own particular way, creating tensions between the different literary interpretations. Furthermore, the thesis is structured chronologically and contributes to a cultural historical understanding of a people that has been threatened by modernity, nearly annihilated by the Nazis and uprooted from their motherlands in order to survive, and in fact thrive, in the United States. This historical development is described in the various texts used in this thesis, which belong to different genres from the short story, to the novel, to online Life writing. My research has been truly interdisciplinary, which is reflected in the use of different methodologies belonging to different academic fields such as history, sociology, anthropology, theology, Western esotericism and literary studies.

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