Jewish Cultural Studies

It takes chutzpah to single-handedly write a book entitled Jewish Cultural Studies—there is no subtitle—and yet Simon Bronner is up to the task. In this latest publication, Bronner, a prolific and accomplished folklorist—his many accolades include receiving the Chicago Folklore Prize in 2020 for The Practice of Folklore: Essays toward a Theory of Tradition—synthesizes a lifetime of thoughts and ideas that examine Jewish culture through a folkloric lens.Jewish Cultural Studies consists of 12 essays bookended by an introduction and an epilogue. Apart from the epilogue, all the essays were previously published (albeit expanded and updated) either in journals such as Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Journal of the Folklore Institute, New Directions in Folklore, and Children's Folklore Review, or in edited book volumes, most notably the Jewish Cultural Studies series for the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization (Liverpool University Press), for which Bronner was an editor. In the preface and acknowledgments of Jewish Cultural Studies, Bronner describes how the epilogue was “inspired in large measure by illuminating Shabbat discussions” and gatherings with Jewish clergy, colleagues, and congregants (p. xv). I point this out because it highlights how Bronner's lived experiences, along with years of research and fieldwork, shaped this publication.Although Bronner is somewhat of a generalist in the discipline of folklore—with publications ranging from genre-based studies in material culture and oral traditions to “big picture” concepts such as tradition and history—he has also been a leader in Jewish folklore studies: convening the Jewish Folklore and Ethnology section of the American Folklore Society, editing the aforementioned Littman-Liverpool University Press series, and currently serving as editor for the peer-reviewed journal Jewish Folklore and Ethnology. While Bronner's many publications testify to his scholarship and commitment to the discipline of folklore, his ability to create networks of scholars in Jewish folklore studies is equally remarkable. His dedication shapes the field—on the one hand, through his own research, and on the other, by fostering dialogue and creating opportunities for mentorship and new scholarship.Bronner's book pulls together themes from a sweeping field. The essays are in three parts: (1) Conceptualization, (2) Ritualization, and (3) Narration. Each section consists of four essays based on Bronner's original research and ethnographic fieldwork. From identifying ideas of Jewish culture and Jewish cultural studies, to musings on rites of passage such as bar mitzvahs and baby namings, to Jewish oral traditions such as jokes and belief legends, Bronner holds Jewish customs, ritual, thought, and narrative up to the light. He sets out “to uncover elusive issues of and needed answers to questions of Jewishness for both Jews and non-Jews” (p. xi). Does he get there? I am not certain about specific “answers,” but he succeeds in raising questions—which in my mind are more significant than answers anyway.Bronner's careful scholarship and personal considerations of Jewish life and expressive culture are at the heart of this book. I appreciate Bronner's candor in acknowledging the extent to which his colleagues and conference engagements have shaped his work over the years, and in a Jewish way. Like the adage “two Jews, three opinions,” Bronner understands the many threads that connect Jewish cultural studies as he pulls it together. The chutzpah of Jewish cultural studies, as Bronner explains in the introduction, is “in its sensibility and sensitivity to meanings generated by cultural expressions” (p. 33), while the epilogue contemplates that “Jewish culture is a distinctive and weighty shlep” (p. 373). Although Bronner notes that his use of these Yiddish words (“chutzpah” and “shlep”) “does not exclude Sephardic, non-European, and other Jewish cultural identities” (p. 373), the very use of these terms would indicate otherwise. My mother was the daughter of Yiddish-speaking immigrants; I love and connect with Yiddish language and culture, but moving forward, I wonder if this is a time to decenter the Eastern European Yiddish culture that seems to dominate understandings of Jewish culture for both Jews and non-Jews alike.The book's flaw stems from its strength: it covers such a wide scope that it may challenge readers to connect with the material. Also, although Bronner has updated and expanded the essays, new directions—for example, queer, marginalized, and alternative knowledges—would add so much. My feeling is that Bronner acknowledges the shifting field, but at what point do we move from “shifting” to “shifted”?And yet Jewish Cultural Studies fills a much-needed gap on the folklore bookshelf: addressing genre-based Jewish expressive culture, as well as conceptual frameworks and ethnographic perspectives. There is a chapter in Barbara Myerhoff's Number Our Days: A Triumph of Continuity and Culture among Jewish Old People in an Urban Ghetto (Simon & Schuster, 1978) entitled “Jewish Comes Up in You through the Roots.” Indeed, Bronner's Jewish Cultural Studies comes up through his roots; as he explains, he came to “probe Jewishness through culture,” not so much in his scholastic studies, but rather in the “dizzying array of Jewish traditions” that surround him (p. xi). In this way, Jewish Cultural Studies is a very personal book—a culmination of Bronner's academic oeuvre of Jewish life, informed by the everyday experiences and relationships that shaped him.

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