The Jew

This text examines questions of Jewish identity by applying cultural theory to the social and political condition of the Jew at particular moments of the 19th and 20th centuries in Britain and America. Using case studies, this text looks at the representation and construction of the notion of Jews as alien. The case studies include legislation in Britain on alien immigration; art exhibitions staged in London's so-called Jewish East End; figures such as Mark Gertler, Clement Greenberg and R.B. Kitaj. The book argues that all these, in different ways, shed light on the limits to and processes of, Jewish emancipation, raising questions of assimilation and the dialectic of identity and difference. While the book acknowledges assumptions of Jewish identity, it also disassembles the old myths of identity.