Karen Brodkin

On the politics of being Jewish in a multiracial state

The 1911 fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory is part of the cultural repertoire with which Jews in the U.S. con stitute themselves. Its telling has changed greatly in the last 50 years. Recent tellings suggest that it is performing identity work in the constitution of a progressive Jewishness, in rela tionship to issues of race and gender. In particular, by por traying Jewish womens identities in ways that emphasize social justice activism as Jewish, these tellings also give men a platform from which to rethink the repertoire of alternatives of Jewish masculinity embedded in the old stories.

How Jews became White Folks and What That Says about Race in America

The article offers a review of Karen Brodkin’s How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about America. Brodkin analyses the social and political transformations in America and puts the analysis in the context of her own autobiography. The fi rst issue that Brodki n investigates are the processes that led to the change in the social status of Jews and other immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe in the 20th century. Second, Brodkin tries to understand her own origins, as well as different life styles and ways of perceiving the Jewish identity present in her family. Beside the analysis itself, Brodkin also offers many interesting remarks on the construction of racial and ethnic categories, discrimination, and the interactions between the ethnic, class and gender aspects of one’s identity.