The “new Jew” is a term proposed by scholars Caryn Aviv and David Shneer to assign the outline of a sociopolitical identity to the twenty-first century Jewish individual. This “new Jew” is informed by a plethora of new perspectives that have emerged particularly in the United States as a result of sociopolitical and sociocultural progress. This thesis highlights three specific dimensions/ perspectives to the new Jewish identity: the post-Holocaust perspective, which refers to the new Jew’s active engagement with the Holocaust memory and history; the post-Jewish/ post-ethnic perspective, which refers to the deconstruction of traditional identity parameters and negative “optics” of Jewishness in the wider cultural and political landscape, and the post-Zionist perspective, referring to the new Jew’s interrogation of the Zionist project and their place in Zionist schematics. These perspectives are all examined through the lens of third-generation Jewish American literary fiction, examining works by Jonathan Safran Foer, Nathan Englander, Joyce Carol Oates, Tony Kushner, Nicole Krauss, and Michael Chabon. Each author develops a clear ideological voice through their selected fiction, and each narrative is informed by these authors’ personal experiences with the subjects of Holocaust memory, ethnic identity and visibility, and the Zionist narrative. This thesis investigates and examines their individual perspectives against collective ideologies and histories, and aims to achieve and provide a more thorough and detailed understanding of the twenty-first century Jewish American individual and society at large.
- Jewish-American Literature
“New Jews”: Perspectives on Jewish Identity in Third-Generation Jewish American Fiction
Lebbal, H. (Author), Coughlan, D. (Author). 20 Jan 2026
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis