Jewish, Half-Jewish, Jew-ish: Contemporary Identities

Writing Jewish has explored the ways in which British-Jewish culture has increased in confidence and visibility in recent years. However, it is also apparent that this current wave of self-assurance has emerged from an earlier backdrop of insecurity. So, in my survey of contemporary British-Jewish writing in Chapter 1, it was necessary to contextualize this insecurity in order to understand how certain anxieties have permeated even recent Anglo-Jewish writing. The following chapters on the importance of memory within Jewish culture, and the effects of postmemory in relation to the Holocaust, articulated some of the profound uncertainties that have characterized the experience and self-perception of British Jews. These chapters also considered the importance of memory and postmemory in constructing and perpetuating a sense of Jewish identity for an increasingly disconnected generation of British Jews.