A pioneering examination of the impact of new communications technologies and media practices on the religious life of American Jewry
Engaging media has been an ongoing issue for American Jews, as it has been for other religious communities in the United States, for several generations. Shandler’s examples range from early recordings of cantorial music to Hasidic outreach on the Internet. In between he explores mid-twentieth-century ecumenical radio and television broadcasting, video documentation of life cycle rituals, museum displays and tourist practices as means for engaging the Holocaust as a moral touchstone, and the role of mass-produced material culture in Jews’ responses to the American celebration of Christmas.
Shandler argues that the impact of these and other media on American Judaism is varied and extensive: they have challenged the role of clergy and transformed the nature of ritual; facilitated innovations in religious practice and scholarship, as well as efforts to maintain traditional observance and teachings; created venues for outreach, both to enhance relationships with non-Jewish neighbors and to promote greater religiosity among Jews; even redefined the notion of what might constitute a Jewish religious community or spiritual experience. As Jews, God, and Videotape demonstrates, American Jews’ experiences are emblematic of how religious communities’ engagements with new media have become central to defining religiosity in the modern age.
Jeffrey Shandler is Professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. His books include While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust, Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture, and (with J. Hoberman) Entertaining America: Jews, Movies and Broadcasting. He lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Author’s Note Introduction 1 Cantors on Trial 2 Turning on The Eternal Light 3 The Scar without the Wound 4 Observant Jews 5 A Stranger among Friends 6 The Virtual Rebbe New Media/New Jews? An Afterword Notes Index About the Author
What People are Saying About This
From the Publisher
“Overall, Jews, God, and Videotape is a well researched and insightful study. Shandler provides a series of convincing arguments. Rather than detracting from religious life, he argues, media can actually add complexity and texture to religious practices.” -H-Net Reviews
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“Shandler delivers a series of interesting essays on varied areas of American Jewish life sharing only some connection with modern media. . .His writing is clear, well-researched, and thoughtful.” -Jewish Book World
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"All I know is that after making my way through this wide-ranging and incisive book, I will never listen to music, surf the net, send a greeting card, screen a film, watch TV, or take a photograph, let alone a trip, in quite the same way again."-American Jewish History,
“Serving as the definitive road map through the history of American Jews’ encounters with modern media. Jews, God and Videotape demonstrates that although we tend to think of media and religion as opposed to one another, media practices can enhance religious identities even as they also shape and ultimately change them.” -Lynn Schofield Clark,author of From Angels to Aliens
“Insightful and engaging. . . . Jews, God, and Videotape details the remarkable success that Judaism has found beyond the pages of the book. There is a life for Torah and durability of its message, he shows us, outside the scroll.” -Samuel Heilman,Harold M. Proshansky Chair of Jewish Studies, City University of New York