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The New Jew in Film
Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema
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Book Presentation:
Jewish film characters have existed almost as long as the medium itself. But around 1990, films about Jews and their representation in cinema multiplied and took on new forms, marking a significant departure from the past. With a fresh generation of Jewish filmmakers, writers, and actors at work, contemporary cinemas have been depicting a multiplicity of new variants, including tough Jews; brutish Jews; gay and lesbian Jews; Jewish cowboys, skinheads, and superheroes; and even Jews in space.
The New Jew in Film is grounded in the study of over three hundred films from Hollywood and beyond. Nathan Abrams explores these new and changing depictions of Jews, Jewishness, and Judaism, providing a wider, more representative picture of this transformation. In this compelling, surprising, and provocative book, chapters explore masculinity, femininity, passivity, agency, and religion in addition to a departure into new territory—including bathrooms and food. Abrams’s concern is to reveal how the representation of the Jew is used to convey confidence or anxieties about Jewish identity and history as well as questions of racial, sexual, and gender politics. In doing so, he provides a welcome overview of important Jewish films produced globally over the past twenty years.
About the Author:
NATHAN ABRAMS is a senior lecturer in film studies at Bangor University in Wales. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles, including Jews and Sex and Studying Film.
Press Reviews:
"Abrams adds fresh perspectives on emerging global film depictions of Jews in an investigation of how old, fixed categories of stereotypes have been subverted since 1990. This is a brilliantly conceived study of representation. Abrams shows how cinema has become the vehicle for normalizing Jews, generally stereotyped and mocked but now framed in ordinary ways. Highly recommended." — Choice "Thorough, insightful, and solidly theorized, The New Jew in Film more than picks up where Erens and Friedman left off. Besides its international reach, the book opens—especially in its religion, food, and toilet sections—significant new areas of ethnic-based investigation." — Vincent Brook "Providing a comprehensive and engaging investigation of the new American Jewish cinema, Nathan Abrams builds upon previous studies to broaden the spectrum of both cinema and Jewish cultural scholarship." — Lester D. Friedman "‘Quiz Show’ Whistleblower Herb Stempel was a symbol of Jewish struggles" by Benjamin Ivry https://forward.com/culture/447742/quiz-show-whistleblower-herb-stempel-was-a-symbol-of-jewish-struggles/ — The Foreword "Abrams adds fresh perspectives on emerging global film depictions of Jews in an investigation of how old, fixed categories of stereotypes have been subverted since 1990. This is a brilliantly conceived study of representation. Abrams shows how cinema has become the vehicle for normalizing Jews, generally stereotyped and mocked but now framed in ordinary ways. Highly recommended." — Choice "Thorough, insightful, and solidly theorized, The New Jew in Film more than picks up where Erens and Friedman left off. Besides its international reach, the book opens—especially in its religion, food, and toilet sections—significant new areas of ethnic-based investigation." — Vincent Brook "Providing a comprehensive and engaging investigation of the new American Jewish cinema, Nathan Abrams builds upon previous studies to broaden the spectrum of both cinema and Jewish cultural scholarship." — Lester D. Friedman "‘Quiz Show’ Whistleblower Herb Stempel was a symbol of Jewish struggles" by Benjamin Ivry https://forward.com/culture/447742/quiz-show-whistleblower-herb-stempel-was-a-symbol-of-jewish-struggles/ — The Foreword
See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press
> From the same author:
Kubrick (2025)
An Odyssey
by Robert Phillip Kolker and Nathan Abrams
Subject: Director > Stanley Kubrick
Kubrick's Mitteleuropa (2024)
The Central European Imaginary in the Films of Stanley Kubrick
Dir. Nathan Abrams and Jeremi Szaniawski
Subject: Director > Stanley Kubrick
Eyes Wide Shut (2023)
Behind Stanley Kubrick's Masterpiece
Dir. Nathan Abrams and Georgina Orgill
Subject: One Film > Eyes Wide Shut
New Wave, New Hollywood (2023)
Reassessment, Recovery, and Legacy
Dir. Nathan Abrams
Subject: Countries > United States
The Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick (2022)
Dir. I. Q. Hunter and Nathan Abrams
Subject: Director > Stanley Kubrick
Eyes Wide Shut (2019)
Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film
by Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams
Subject: One Film > Eyes Wide Shut
> On a related topic:
Forgiveness and Resentment in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity (2025)
Jewish Voices in Literature and Film
Subject: Sociology
Reel Kabbalah (2024)
Jewish Mysticism and Neo-Hasidism in Contemporary Cinema
by Brian Ogren
Subject: Sociology
Yiddish Cinema (2024)
The Drama of Troubled Communication
by Jonah Corne and Monika Vrečar
Subject: Sociology
Jews in Contemporary Visual Entertainment (2022)
Raced, Sexed, and Erased
by Carol Siegel
Subject: Sociology
Cinema and the Shoah (2010)
An Art Confronts the Tragedy of the Twentieth Century
Dir. Jean-Michel Frodon
Subject: Sociology
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