Culture Bibliography

To go directly to a specific category, click below:
General Books about Jewish Culture
Art
Film
Food
Humor
Languages
Literature
Music
Sports
Theatre & Dance

General

The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, edited by Glenda Abramson, Dovid Katz, Nicholas de Lange (Blackwell Publishers, 1990).
The Jews: A Treasury of Art and Literature, edited by Sharon R. Keller (Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1992).

Art

Jewish Art, by Grace Cohen Grossman (Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1995).
Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts, edited by Vivien Mann (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness and Modern Art, edited by Mathew Baigell and Milly Heyd (Rutgers University Press, 2001).

Film

Reel Jewish, by Joel Samberg (Jonathan David Publishers, 2000).
American-Jewish Filmmakers: Traditions & Trends, by David Desser and Lester D. Friedman (University of Illinois Press, 1993).
Over the Top Judaism: Precedents and Trends in the Depiction of Jewish Beliefs and Observances in Film and Television, by Elliot B. Gertel (University Press of America, 2003).
Independent Jewish Film: A Resource Guide, by Janis Plotkin, et al (San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, 2000).
Ethnic Images in American Film and Television, edited by Randall M. Miller (Garland Publishers, 1987).
The Jewish Image in American Film, by Lester D. Friedman (Citadel, 1991).
Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust, by Annette Insdorf (Vintage Books, 1983).
Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds, by Jim Hoberman (Museum of Modern Art and Schocken Books, 1991)
Visions, Images and Dreams: Yiddish Film Past and Present, by Eric A. Goldman (Ergo Media, Teaneck, 1979).

Food

The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, by Claudia Roden (Knopf, 1996).
Sephardic Cooking, by Copeland Marks (Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1992).
Eat and Be Satisfied, by John Cooper (Jason Aronson, 1993).
Jewish Cooking in America, by Joan Nathan (Random House, 1998).
The Foods of Israel Today, by Joan Nathan (Knopf, 2001).

Humor

101 Classic Jewish Jokes: Jewish Humor from Groucho Marx to Jerry Seinfeld, by Robert Menchin (Mustang Publishing, 1997).
The Schlemiel As Metaphor: Studies in Yiddish and American Jewish Fiction, by Sanford Pinsker (Southern Illinois University Press, 1991).
Shtick Shift: Jewish Humor in the 21st Century, by Simcha Weinstein (Barricade Books, 2008).
Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters, by Ted Cohen (University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Big Book of Jewish Humor, by William Novak and Moshe Waldoks (Harper Collins, 1981).
Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews, by Joseph Telushkin (William Morrow, 1992).
The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America, by Lawrence Epstein (Public Affairs, 2001).
Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor: From Biblical Times to the Modern Age, by Henry D. Spalding (Jonathan David, 2001).
Jewish Wry: Essays on Jewish Humor, by Sarah Blacher Cohen (Wayne State University Press, 1990).

Languages

Jewish Languages, Theme and Variation, (Association for Jewish Studies, 1978).
The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Calvin Rosten (Crown, 2001).
A History of the Hebrew Language, by Angel Saenz-Badillos (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Death of a Language: The History of Judeo-Spanish, (University of Delaware Press, 1994).
Meshuggenary: Celebrating the World of Yiddish, by Payson Stevens, Charles Levine, and Sol Steinmetz (Simon & Schuster, 2002).

Literature

The Modern Jewish Canon, by Ruth Wisse (Free Press, 2000).
Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, edited by Jules Chametzky, John Felstiner, Hilene Flanzbaum, Kathryn Hellerstein (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000).
Modern Hebrew Literature, edited by Robert Alter (Behrman House, 1975).
What is Jewish Literature?, edited by Hana Wirth-Nesher (Jewish Publication Society, 1994).

Music

Jewish Music: Its History, People, and Song, by Ronald Isaacs (Aronson, 1997).
Jewish Musical Traditions, by Amnon Shiloah (Wayne State University Press, 1992).
Passport to Jewish Music, by Irene Heskes (Greenwood Publishing, 1994).
Discovering Jewish Music, by Marsha Bryan Edelman (Jewish Publication Society, 2003).
Rock ‘N’ Roll Jews (Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art), by Michael Billig (Five Leaves Publications, 2000).

Sports

When Boxing was a Jewish Sport, by Allen Bodner (Prager Trade, 1997).
Emancipation Through Muscles, edited by Michael Brenner and Gideon Reuveni (University of Nebraska Press, 2006).
Jews, Sports, and the Rites of Citizenship, edited by Jack Kugelmass (University of Illinois Press, 2007).
Jews and the Olympic Games
, by Paul Yogi Mayer (Vallentine Mitchell, 2004).

Theatre & Dance

Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater, by Nahma Sandrow (Syracuse University Press, 1995).
Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92nd Street Y, by Naomi M. Jackson (Wesleyan University Press, 2002).
Ha-Rikud: The Jewish Dance, by Fred Berk (American Zionist Youth Federation, 1972).
Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel, by Glenda Abramson (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
International Encyclopedia of Dance, edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen (Oxford University Press, 2004).

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