Jewish American Material Culture

This chapter covers the typical methods and objects that Jewish studies scholars use for studying material culture. Scholars tend to examine three types of Jewish objects: Judaica, intimate possessions, and hyperobjects. Just as types of objects vary, so too analyses of material Judaism have pulled from a wide range of methods and disciplines. Each of these methods has had important implications for understanding which items have been collected and exhibited, and how Jewishness is defined. This chapter argues that the field scholars pull from (anthropology, art history, archaeology, cultural studies, and environmental theory) often influences their choice of whether to study Judaica, intimate possessions, or hyperobjects. Key scholarship in the field is reviewed for each type of object and approach. Overall, the chapter argues that the type of object contains important subtexts about where scholars believe the essence of Jewish American culture and identity lies.