Speaking of Jews : rabbis, intellectuals, and the creation of an American public identity / Lila Corwin Berman.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-251) and index.

Spiritual missions after the Great War : the reform movement and the Jewish Chautauqua Society -- The ghetto and beyond : the rising authority of American Jewish social science in interwar America -- The sacred and sociological dilemma of Jewish intermarriage -- Serving the public good and serving God in 1940s America -- Constructing an ethnic America : Oscar Handlin, Nathan Glazer, and post-World War II social research -- What is a Jew? : missionaries, outreach, and the Cold War ethnic challenge -- A Jewish Marilyn Monroe and the Civil-Rights-era crisis in Jewish self-presentation -- Conclusion: speaking of Jews.

Investigates a wide range of sourcesradio and television broadcasts, bestselling books, sociological studies, debates about Jewish marriage and intermarriage, Jewish missionary work, and moreto reveal how rabbis, intellectuals, and others created a seemingly endless array of explanations about why Jews were indispensable to American life. Even as the content of these explanations developed and shifted over time, the very project of self-explanation would become a core element of Jewishness in the twentieth century.