T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

Meyer Levin, Ludwig Lewishn, Samuel Ornitz. Myron Brinig,Michaelold, Henry ~oth, Albert Halper, Daniel ~uchs and AnziaYezurska. The Forties produced Saul Bellow, Delmore Schwartz,Isaac Rosenfeld, Leslle Fledler, Alfred Kazin, Irvlng Howe andNorman Mailer. The Flfties saw Phllip Roth, Bernard Malamud,chain Potok, Cynthia Ozick, Hugh Nissenson, Norma Rosen, CurtLeviant, Elie Wlesel, 1.0. Singer and many others.In the new chosen land of America, the Jews wantednothlng so much as the chance to be a part of the largersoclety. The typlcal Jew seeks an ldeologlcal posltion whichdenles the existence of any tenslon, Chosenness, thetraditional vehicle for self-deflnltion among Jews, became inAmerica along with related concepts of covenant and exile-apointer to traditionally gulded Jewish self-understanding. Thischosenness marks the polnt at whlch the three linesof relatlon which deflne Jews-those binding them toGod, to their fellow-men, and to each other-ofnecessity intersect. The people of Israel enteredthe world, according to its own sacred history, notthrough a natural growth from famlly and tribe, butsuddenly, with a single event that they did not~nitiate: the covenant at Slnai. Jews wereidentified from the start as a 'kingdom of priestsand holy nation' paradoxically commanded to dwellapart from humanity In order to serve a divinepurpose in which all humanity was somehow included.(Elsen 1983,s)The vlclssitudes of life In the many Dlaspora communities