After the Death of Jewish Culture

Investigates the boom in Jewish literature and popular culture in the twenty-fist-century United StatesAs the end of the 20th century approached, critics predicted that Jews would no longer play major roles in American culture in the new millennium. They were profoundly wrong. In the first decades of the 21st century, popular and literary culture in the U.S. turned out to be more deeply influenced by Jews than it had been at any time since the late 1960s. Across literature, sound work, television, and film, many established and emerging voices centered their Jewish questions and concerns in their creative production.After the Death of Jewish Culture argues that two factors drove the profusion of new Jewish cultural creativity in the twenty-first century U.S.: institutionalization and technological change. The book advances this claim with detailed case studies of books such as Everything is Illuminated, the television series Transparent, and the PlayStation game The Last of Us, Part 2, as well as examinations of institutions including Ivy League universities, The New Yorker, the Jewish Book Council, This American Life, and Amazon Prime Video. While demonstrating the continuing vitality of Jewish culture, these cases reflect the complex, often deeply ambivalent consequences of gatekeeping, philanthropy, and technological development.At its core, the book provides an overview of Jewish literary and popular culture in the U.S. over the past quarter century, explaining the factors that led to its development. It demonstrates that the rumors of the demise of Jewish culture were greatly exaggerated—instead, the new millennium heralded renewed prominence and an effusion of cultural production for American Jews.