The Hebrew Orient: Palestine in Jewish American Visual Culture, 1901-1938

Author/Contributor(s):	Carr, Jessica L
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Date:	07/02/2021
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

In the decades before the establishment of the State of Israel, striking images of Palestine circulated widely among Jewish Americans. These images visualized the Orient for American viewers, creating the possibility for Jewish Americans to understand themselves through imagining Oriental counterparts. In The Hebrew Orient, Jessica L. Carr shows how images of the Holy Land made Jewish Americans feel at home in the United States by imagining the Orient as heritage. Carr's analyses of periodicals from Hadassah and the Zionist Organization of America, art calendars from the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, the Jewish Encyclopedia, and the Jewish exhibit at the 1933 World's Fair are richly illustrated. What emerges is a new understanding of the place of Orientalism in American Zionism. Creating a narrative about their origins, Jewish Americans looked east to understand themselves as Westerners.