Jewish Identities in the American West uses a well-theorized “relational” approach to help readers understand how Jewishness has been construed, and sometimes racialized, in different ways in different times, in relation to other minorities’ experiences, construals and racializations. Complicating the simple “whitening” thesis, the contributors to this volume think of their Jewish subjects alongside Black, Chinese, Indigenous and Mexican peoples, resulting in a volume in deep dialogue with both Western U.S. and global Jewish diaspora studies’ scholars. Eisenberg offers a brilliant introduction, with fittingly nuanced perspective about Jewishness and difference in the American West. She also provides useful through-line section introductions that weave together the book’s timely, well-informed, fine-grained, readable, and fascinating case studies.
Ellen Eisenberg
Ellen Eisenberg holds the Dwight and Margaret Lear Professorship in American History at Willamette University. Her published work includes five books on American Jewish history and, particularly, the history of Jews in the American West, including National Jewish Book Award finalist The First to Cry Down Injustice? Western Jews and Japanese Removal during WWII and a two-volume history of Jews in Oregon, Embracing a Western Identity: Jewish Oregonians, 1849–1950 and The Jewish Oregon Story, 1950–2015.
