In this sparkling debut, a young critic offers an original, passionate, and erudite account of what it means to feel Jewish--even when you're not. Self-hatred. Guilt. Resentment. Paranoia. Hysteria. Overbearing Mother-Love. In this witty, insightful, and poignant book, Devorah Baum delves into fiction, film, memoir, and psychoanalysis to present a dazzlingly original exploration of a series of feelings famously associated with modern Jews. Reflecting on why Jews have so often been depicted, both by others and by themselves, as prone to "negative" feelings, she queries how negative these feelings really are. And as the pace of globalization leaves countless people feeling more marginalized, uprooted, and existentially threatened, she argues that such "Jewish" feelings are becoming increasingly common to us all. Ranging from Franz Kafka to Philip Roth, Sarah Bernhardt to Woody Allen, Anne Frank to Nathan Englander, Feeling Jewish bridges the usual fault lines between left and right, insider and outsider, Jew and Gentile, and even Semite and anti-Semite, to offer an indispensable guide for our divisive times.

"Coupled or uncoupled, none of us lives outside the cultural and psychological influence of marriage. But why has this ancient and highly contested practice remained relevant for so many? Is it an act of love, a leap of faith, a holy bond, a contractual commitment, a bid for security, a framework for family, a hedge against loneliness? Or could it conceal something a bit more radical? Drawing on philosophy, film, literature, psychoanalysis, and music, Baum considers the understudied idea and practice of marriage: as organizing principle, as creation, as conversation, as afterlife-and as a cover story for power and its abuses. What are we really talking about when we talk about marriage? And what are we really doing when we say "I do"? Entertaining, illuminating, candid and consoling, On Marriage critiques and celebrates the many contradictions of matrimony and its profound effects on us all"--