Writing Jewish culture : paradoxes in ethnography / edited by Andreas Kilcher and Gabriella Safran.

Selected papers presented at a conference titled "Jewish ethnography between science and literature" held in Zurich (Switzerland) in September 2013.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Focusing on Eastern and Central Europe before WWII, this collection explores various genres of "ethnoliterature" across temporal, geographical, and ideological borders as sites of Jewish identity formation and dissemination. Challenging the assumption of cultural uniformity among Ashkenazi Jews, the contributors consider how ethnographic literature defines Jews and Jewishness, the political context of Jewish ethnography, and the question of audience, readers, and listeners. With contributions from leading scholars and an appendix of translated historical ethnographies, this volume presents vivid case studies across linguistic and disciplinary divides, revealing a rich textual history that throws the complexity and diversity of a people into sharp relief.---publisher website.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed March 18, 2016).

Machine generated contents note: pt. 1 REINVENTING THE "JEWS" IN ETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING -- 1. The Voice of a Native Informer: Salomon Maimon Describes Life in Polish Lithuania / Liliane Weissberg -- 2. Legends of Authenticity: Das Buch von den polnischen Juden (1916) by S.J. Agnonand Ahron Eliasberg / Sylvia Jaworski -- 3. The Cold Order and the Eros of Storytelling: Joseph Roth's "Exotic Jews" / Andreas Kilcher -- 4. Yiddish Ethnographic Poetics and Moyshe Kulbak's "Vilne" / Jordan Finkin -- pt. 2 SEEING, HEARING, AND READING JEWS -- 5. Listening in the Dark: The Yiddish Folklorists' Claim of a Russian Genealogy / Gabriella Safran -- 6. Ethnoliterary Modernity: Jewish Ethnography and Literature in the Russian Empire and Poland (1890 -- 1930) / Annette Werberger -- 7. Imagining the Wandering Jew in Modernity: Exegesis and Ethnography in Leon Feuchtwanger's Jud Suss / Galit Hasan-Rokem -- 8. Exclusion and Inclusion: Ethnography of War in Kriegsgefangene (1916) and Das ostjudische Antlitz (1920) / Eva Edelmann-Ohler -- 9. Avant-Garde Authenticity: M. Vorobeichic's Photographic Modernism and the East European Jew / Samuel Spinner -- pt. 3 SPACES OF JEWISH ETHNOGRAPHY BETWEEN DIASPORA AND NATION -- 10. Zionism's Ethnographic Knowledge: Leo Motzkin's and Heinrich York-Steiner's Narratives of Palestine (1898 -- 1904) / Alexander Alon -- 11. Eastern Europe in Argentina: Yiddish Travelogues and the Exploration of Jewish Diaspora / Tamar Lewinsky -- pt. 4 POLITICS AND THE ADDRESSEE OF ETHNOGRAPHY -- 12. From Custom Book to Folk Culture: Minhag and the Roots of Jewish Ethnography / Nathaniel Deutsch -- 13. In Search of the Exotic: "Jewish Houses" and Synagogues in Russian Travel Notes / Alia Sokolova -- 14. Ballads of Strangers: Constructing "Ethnographic Moments" in Jewish Folklore / Dani Schrire -- APPENDIXES -- Note to Readers -- Appendix A What Is Jewish Ethnography? (Handbook for Fieldworkers) / Khayim Khayes -- Appendix B Research Your Shtetl! / H. Aleksandrov -- Appendix C "A Strange Experience" / A. Almi.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide