"Skillfully demonstrates how Jewish American women writers employ image of blackness to undermine the division between `white' and `black' identity. The figure of the `White Negress' thus
becomes the site for feminist critique of whiteness."---Martha J. Cutter, editor of Melus
"Placing gender squarely at the intersection of black-Jewish cultural imaginings, The White Negress makes a stunning contribution to our understanding of whiteness, race relations, and ethnic
literature."---Joyce Antler, author of You Never Call You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother
During the first half of the twentieth century, American Jews demonstrated commitment to racial justice as well as an attraction to African American culture. Until now, the debate about whether
such black-Jewish encounters thwarted or enabled Jews' claims to white privilege has focused on men and representations of masculinity while ignoring questions of women and femininity. The
White Negress investigates literary and cultural texts by Jewish and African American women, opening new avenues of inquiry that yield more complex stories about Jewishness, African American
identity, and the meanings of whiteness.
Lori Harrison-Kahan examines writings by Edna Ferber, Fannie Hurst, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as the blackface performances of vaudevillian Sophie Tucker and controversies over the
musical and film adaptations of Show Boat and Imitation of Life. Moving between literature and popular culture, she illuminates how the dynamics of interethnic exchange have at once produced
and undermined the binary of black and white.
