Description
Book SynopsisDiscusses how media technology impacts the Jewish experience. This title explores mid-twentieth-century ecumenical radio and television broadcasting, video documentation of life cycle rituals, and museum displays and tourist practices as means for engaging the Holocaust as a moral touchstone.
Trade ReviewThe new book Jews, God and Videotape reveals the many ways in which text-oriented Judaism, at least on an unofficial basis, has adapted to the digital media age. * Religion Watch *
The message that this richly theorized, well-researched, and crisply written book delivers to historians is that communication, no less than politics and economy, society and culture, can and should become a major venue of historical research. -- Menahem Blondheim * The Journal of American History *
Shandler's mastery of the relevant scholarly literature, his penetrating eye, and his sharp ear for a telling anecdote make this volume fascinating and illuminating. It is a valuable balance to the many institutional histories on American Jewry or analyses of American Jewish thought. It is equally important as a model of how new methodologies can offer valuable insights into phenomena that are well known but rarely understood. -- Scott Ury * Religious Studies Review *
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
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
[An] insightful analysis of the impact of modern media on religious beliefs and practices. * Library Journal *
In Jews, God, and Videotape, Shandler provides a fresh and fascinating account of the impact of technology on the religious life of American Jews during the last one hundred years. * Philadelphia Inquirer *
In this richly detailed study, Shandler examines the complex and multivalent relations between Judaism and media in the US . . . Highly recommended. * Choice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 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
