Magical American Jew: The Enigma of Difference in Contemporary Jewish American Short Fiction and Film by Aaron Tillman (review)

Abstract

Aaron Tillman’s Magical American Jew: The Enigma of Difference in Contemporary Jewish American Short Fiction and Film is a worthy contribution to our understanding of the workings of Jewish identity within a number of canonical as well as less known short stories, a movie, and a stand-up performance. Tillman is skilled at reading the interplay of belonging in the United States and being an outsider at the same time, even in texts by writers and performers who are deeply assimilated into American culture. He brings forward a variety of themes and perspectives such as excess, masochism, shame, trauma, Judaism as a religion, and narcissism to present different aspects of his main theme, which is the dual identity of Jews as it is expressed in magical realist works of fiction and film. This main theme, magical realism in Jewish American culture, however, is the Achilles’ heel of this book when one looks at it as a unified text and not one chapter at a time. Even though each chapter on its own is highly useful for either teaching or building one’s own argument about a specific artist, I remain unconvinced by the argument that Magical American Jew presents as a whole. The issue that bothers Tillman is that of the elusive difference within Jewish American identity. American Jews feel, look, and act more or less like any other white American, and yet there remains a sense that they maintain a unique identity. Tillman characterizes this “indefinite yet undeniable difference” as “enigmatic” (2). That is to say, the survival of Jewish particularity is explored not on the basis of sociology or culture, but as mystifying conundrum, indeed an enigma. AV ID H ADAR EIT BERL COLEGE