28646 - MOVIN’ ON UP: JEWS AND UPWARD MOBILITY IN POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT (IN-PERSON)

Course Description

Long before Tevye sings about the kind of ostentatious house he wishes his family could inhabit in Fiddler on the Roof, the complicated Jewish relationship with our homes has been key to understanding depictions of Jews in American pop culture. From Lower East Side tenements to uptown luxury apartment buildings to Catskills hotels to suburban McMansions, the locations of Jewish settlement and the dwellings that Jews have occupied have been a major theme in American humor. This talk will look at representations of Jewish residences in vaudeville, stand-up comedy, and sitcoms (including Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm) to trace how increasing affluence among Jews has been satirized in ways that reveal underappreciated aspects of the American Jewish domestic experience.

10 a.m. ET: Light Breakfast & Coffee
10:30 a.m.–noon ET: Lecture

Jewish Studies programming is supported by the Fund for the Jewish Future of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and The Laura and Alvin Siegal College of Judaic Studies Educational Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.