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WALDEN / AMERICAN JEWISH NOVEL
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and Anzia Yezierska. From the 40s on we have read Saul Bellow,
Delmore Schwartz, Isaac Rosenfeld, Leslie Fiedler, A lfred Kazin,
Irving Howe and N o rm an Mailer. And from the 1950s on we
have read Philip Roth, B e rna rd Malamud, Chaim Potok, Cynthia
Ozick, H ugh Nissenson, Norm a Rosen, Cu r t Leviant, Elie Wiesel,
I.B. Singer, and so many others.
T ru e , recently, questions have been raised. A recen t session at
the 1978 Modern Language Association Convention was devoted
to an exam ination o f the statement by Leslie Fiedler tha t the
American Jewish literary gen re was dead. Cynthia Ozick, though
she was un su re what the term meant, served as a rem inde r tha t
whatever it was, it was thriving; and Daniel Walden, Leslie Field,
Bonnie Lyons, and Keith Opdahl, panelists, agreed that, difficult
as the concept was, the ou tpu t continued, the form was in process,
the “gen re” was alive and well. T he Eastern European experi
ence, written by the Yiddish writers, gave way to the American
Jewish writers and they in tu rn gave way to the Jewish American
writers. It is an experience tha t is unparalleled in modern times.
Its evolution is worth tracing.
EARLY THEMES
Even before 1930, American Jewish novelists used the themes
o f sex and love. They are persistent needs in the works o f B runo
Lessing, Anzia Yezierska, and James Oppenheim . Cahan’s David
Levinsky, a kind o f Jewish Horatio Alger, continually tried to find
love. T h a t he ended with loneliness, a millionaire, only highlight
ed the paradox: His success was a measure o f his estrangem en t
from the community o f old. “T h e re are cases when success is a
tragedy ,” David knew. He never forgot the Jewish g reenho rn
who arrived here penniless and without friends. He never forgot
what m ight have been if he had gone to the City College o f New
York. Similarly, the Jew as Don Ju a n conflicted with the traditions
o f the Old Country, as Ludwig Lewisohn, Myron Brinig, and
Meyer Levin found out. T h e hold o f ghetto mores, the fear o f
what “they” would say, were barriers. Until the 1960s, American
Jewish writers did no t easily use these themes. In any case, the
image o f the Jew was more meaningful than it had been. An
inarticulate sense o f inherited identity, la ter to be articulated,
reflected a gfowing interest. Secular and cultural Judaism , gen
erational problems, in term arriage , all vied with traditional forms.