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A Right to Sing the Blues : African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song
A Right to Sing the Blues African Americans Jews and American Popular Song Author:Jeffrey Melnick "Black-Jewish relations," Jeffrey Melnick argues, has mostly been a way for American Jews to talk about their ambivalent racial status, a narrative collectively constructed at critical moments, when particular conflicts demand an explanation. Melnick elaborates this idea through an in-depth look at Jewish songwriters, composers, and performers w... more »ho made "Black" music in the first few decades of this century. He shows how Jews such as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, and others were able to portray their "natural" affinity for producing "Black" music as a product of their Jewishness, while simultaneously depicting Jewishness as a stable white identity. Melnick also contends that this cultural activity competed directly with Harlem Renaissance attempts to define Blackness. Moving beyond the narrow focus of advocacy group politics, this book enriches our understanding of the cultural terrain shared by African Americans and Jews. "In his complex and challenging book, A Right to Sing the Blues, Jeffrey Melnick seeks to interpret the narrative of 'Black-Jewish relations' within the context of the efforts of Jews in the American entertainment business to 'reorganize Jewishness as a species of whiteness' … Melnick's analysis is intriguing and provocative." —James C. Cobb, Times Literary Supplement« less