The Hebrew Orient: Palestine in Jewish American Visual Culture, 1901-1938 by Jessica L. Carr (review)

Abstract

Jessica L. Carr’s highly analytic book aims at understanding Jewish Americans’ self-image from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the Second World War through their visual culture of the “Hebrew Orient,” the term she uses for Jewish Americans’ view of Palestine. The author assumes that the self-image is well reflected through viewing others and aims to explore multiple self-images and identities, particularly in terms of cultural and gender identities. A broad systematic introduction depicting the analytic approach of the author explains the aims, major terms, and concepts used in the book. It is here that the term “visual culture” is defined as “everything that the eye can see, as well as mental processes brought at the moment of seeing” (13). The book is full of illustrations, photographs, and other images presented and analyzed in depth. Chapter 1, “ ‘The Orient’ as Jewish Heritage” discusses the book’s key term “Hebrew (or Jewish) Orient” in vast detail. The author highlights the “Hebrew Orient” as a tool to reveal American Jews’ cultural self-image through viewing their understanding of their “Hebrew Oriental” Jewish heritage and the contemporary inhabitants (pioneers, Mizrahim, and Arabs) of Palestine. This is the raison d’être of the author’s preference for using the term Hebrew Orient rather than Palestine. Carr acknowledges her inability to include all Jewish American groups of the time under examination (1901-1938) and consequently decided to choose five representatives, or case studies. The book’s chapters are constructed accordingly: Chapter Two explores the Orientalist visual culture of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA—initially, the Federation of American Zionists) as reflected in its publications. The third chapter explores the visual culture of the “Hebrew Orient” of the Reform National Federation of Temple Sisterhood (NFTS) through the lens of the NFTS’s chapter conferences, yearbooks, letters, posters, and newsletters. Here and in other places in the book the author exceeds her declared aim and reaches additional valuable conclusions. In this case she analyzes among other things how the organization’s women “created a new space for themselves in the practice of Reform Judaism without challenging traditional roles of men” (25). Chapter Four focuses