New York Jews and the Making of American Pop Culture
Dr. David E. Kaufman
Tuesdays, April 21, 28, May 5, 12, 19, 26
6:30 – 8:00 PM
Who can imagine American theater, music, comedy or television without New York Jewish luminaries like Fanny Brice and Eddie Cantor, Samuel Goldwyn, Stephen Sondheim, Woody Allen, Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, George Gershwin, Jerry Lewis, Barbra Streisand, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Jerry Seinfeld? Impossible.
This course will explore the extraordinary — perhaps even unlikely — dominance of New York Jews in popular culture. The survey begins with Yiddish theater and American vaudeville and continues with the Judaization of Tin Pan Alley, the invention of Hollywood, the Golden Age of Broadway through to the emergence of stand-up comedy and the triumph of the TV sitcom.
The Jane Moyse Gilder Chair in American Jewish History
212.507.9580 | EmanuelStreickerNYC.org