Jewish Issues In Multiculturalism

This book is a major contribution to the field of multicultural counseling, psychology, and education.

The Jewish Struggle in the 21st Century: Conflict, Positionality, and Multiculturalism is about the needs of the Jewish community in the United States, and it addresses the lack of representation in the diversity and multicultural education classroom at the university level.

In this powerful and wide-ranging study, Sander Gilman explores the idea of 'the multicultural' in the contemporary world, a question he frames as the question of the relationship between Jews and Muslims. How do Jews define themselves, and how are they in turn defined, within the global struggles of the moment, struggles that turn in large part around a secularized Christian perspective? Gilman uses his subject to unpack a sequence of important issues: what does it mean to be multicultural? Can the experience of diaspora Judaism serve as a useful model for Islam in today's multicultural Europe? What is a multicultural ethnic? Other chapters look at specific figures in Jewish cultural history – Albert Einstein, Franz Kafka, Israel Zangwill, Philip Roth, the hermaphrodite N.O. Body (aka Karl Baer, raised as Martha Baer) – to explore issues within Jewish identity. Throughout, Gilman pays keen attention to the ways in which contemporary literature – Chabon, Ozick, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, Gary Shteyngart – taking the idea of Jewishness and multiculturalism into new arenas.

Jews in Dialogue discusses Jewish post-Holocaust involvement in interreligious and intercultural dialogue in Israel, Europe, and the United States. The essays within offer a multiplicity of approaches and perspectives (historical, sociological, theological, etc.) on how Jews have collaborated and cooperated with non-Jews to respond to the challenges of multicultural contemporaneity. The volume’s first part is about the concept of dialogue itself and its potential for effecting change; the second part documents examples of successful interreligious cooperation. The volume includes an appendix designed to provide context for the material presented in the first part, especially with regard to relations between the State of Israel and the Catholic Church.

Some have called Canada, the first post-modernist society. Canada is widely acclaimed as a multicultural and immigrant experiment. In this lively collection of essays, Canadian scholars provide a wealth of information and analysis on how those abstractions actually operate in practice. The history of immigration to Canada and the legal decisions, legislation and policies that have created Canadian multiculturalism are succinctly presented. Recent constitutional debates and the 1992 federal referendum focusing on Quebec as a distinct society are analyzed. In all cases, the significant roles of Jews and Jewish organizations and the impact on them of those critical events in Canadian national life are dissected. These developments have not been without tensions and controversies. Anti-semitism arose in the provocative Show Boat affair."

"Invaluable reading for anyone interested in multiculturalism."—Julius Lester, author of Lovesong "I know of no other work that, through numerous insights and useful distinctions, so alerts us to and comprehensively documents the ongoing constitutive role of Christian and anti-semitic perceptions of Jewish existence and the interactions between them. Whereas much contemporary historiography has become so specialized that historians have surrendered the larger picture, Biale's panoramic perspective reveals the great value and interest of this work."—Steven E. Aschheim, author of Beyond the Border: The German-Jewish Legacy Abroad

"Jews and the study of antisemitism are often disregarded in multiculturalism in the United States. This "brushing aside" of the Jewish community places Jews in a very difficult situation because, due to continued discrimination and prejudice, Jews need recognition and acceptance in the multicultural community. While light-skinned American Jews are often perceived as White, they are positioned between being considered White and somehow less than when they are found to be Jewish. Therefore, Jews find themselves in this nebulous "space between" the Black/White binary. This text takes a personal approach to the study of Jewish people, antisemitism, and the inclusion of the Jewish experience into university multicultural discourse. It also introduces a new Jewish critical race framework that develops from Critical Race Theory and has similarities in the fight against racism and injustice in U.S. society. The Jewish Struggle in the 21st Century: Conflict, Positionality, and Multiculturalism addresses the needs of the Jewish community in the United States as it pertains to its tenuous position in the fields of multiculturalism and critical race studies. It addresses the lack of representation in the diversity and multicultural education classroom as well as issues of antisemitism at the university level"--

This volume offers a multidimensional and interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary Jewish identities amidst globalization processes, with special emphasis on Latin American socio-political, communal, and cultural milieu. Stretching from political science to sociology, from art to cultural studies, it provides systematic tools for understanding different aspects of the Jewish experience.