Reflection on Jewish-American Literature Collection

Overall, I think that the collection of texts I used for this final project is a decent one, although incomplete. It would be impossible to believe that an outsider to the Jewish culture, or anyone for that matter, would be able to select a complete text set with only four books.

There were several themes that I discovered throughout all of the texts I looked at for this project. Although I tried to stay clear of Jewish-American texts focusing on the Holocaust or the holidays, it was nearly impossible. Three of my selected texts focused on World War II. Two of the books were survivor stories, actually survivor biographies, and the the third was a fictional piece about a Jewish-American family during the war. I found this to be an amazing contrast to the usually represented survivor stories. The fourth text in my collection was a true account of a Jewish family's history and tradition of passing a quilt through the generations.

After reading all of the texts in this collection it is clear that immigration to America has been a major factor in many Jewish-American families and that much of this illuminated immigration occurred during World War II. Family ties and morals are also illustrated through each of these texts which leads to the inference that Jewish families are very close knit within their own family and treat their friends and neighbors as family often too.

By reviewing the books in this collection, I also found that Jewish-American literature is and should be much more than just teaching outsiders about surviving and holidays. This set demonstrates that a Jewish family is like all others and that no one person should be fully defined by only one aspect of their identity. I found personal connections to these texts myself and I think that these books would be uplifting to all readers, and especially to the Jewish-Americans typically underrepresented in a positive and authentic way.