'Muggers in black coats': Gender and the ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish American imagination

The past two decades have seen a rise in literature and film written and directed by American Jews that purport to describe the inner world of ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. In contrast to earlier works by writers such as Abraham Cahan and Chaim Potok that emphasize the romantic aspects of an orthodox Jewish past, I argue that these recent tales of the Jewish American imagination are laden with suspicion rather than sentiment, nerves rather than nostalgia. Such profiles of the ultra-Orthodox coincide with a rapidly growing cultural polarization among American Jewry. Differing views on how to reconcile Judaism with the general culture have resulted in an at times undeclared culture war, largely between Orthodox and non-Orthodox practitioners of Judaism. Liberal Jews tend to see the uncompromising nature of the ultra-Orthodox as threatening to Jewish claims of American-ness. On the other side, the ultra-Orthodox view liberal movements such as Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Judaism as succumbing to assimilation and therefore as threatening to Jewish survival.;This dissertation will examine selected literary and cinematic narratives featuring ultra-Orthodox characters written between 1985 and 2005 by non-haredi Jews. This study includes a description of the way Orthodoxy, and specifically ultra-Orthodoxy, has been represented by American Jews in both page and screen. I will examine selected narratives as examples of a larger genre of American Jewish literature and film featuring haredi characters. These chapters demonstrate different themes that can be seen as core factors in this contemporary culture war, and highlight a deeply rooted concern over acculturation, Americanization, and Jewish continuity.