Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia   Fiction
in the United States  Stein, Gertrude - still image [media] Full
image    by Sylvia Barack Fishman  Literature by American Jewish
women reflects historical trends in American Jewish life and
indicates the changing issues facing writers who worked to
position themselves as Americans, Jews, and women. Eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century writers descending from affluent
Sephardic and German families tended to portray Jews and Judaism
though a Judeo-Christian lens, playing up the commonalities
between Judaic and Western/Christian traditions. As Eastern
European immigrants exponentially increased the number of Jews
in American cities, many first- and second-generation authors
depicted the distinctive Jewish immigrant experience and the
ways in which women struggled with the competing pulls of
American and Jewish civilizations. In contrast, other authors,
who identified with socialist or secular, international
intellectual circles, wrote from a virtuall