Engaging media has been an ongoing issue for American Jews, as
it has been for other religious communities in the United States,
for several generations. Jews, God, and Videotape is a pioneering
examination of the impact of new communications technologies and
media practices on the religious life of American Jewry over the
past century. Shandler's examples range from early recordings of
cantorial music to Hasidic outreach on the Internet. In between he
explores mid-twentieth-century ecumenical radio and television
broadcasting, video documentation of life cycle rituals, museum
displays and tourist practices as means for engaging the Holocaust
as a moral touchstone, and the role of mass-produced material
culture in Jews' responses to the American celebration of
Christmas.
Shandler argues that the impact of these and other media on
American Judaism is varied and extensive: they have challenged the
role of clergy and transformed the nature of ritual; facilitated
innovations in religious practice and scholarship, as well as
efforts to maintain traditional observance and teachings; created
venues for outreach, both to enhance relationships with non-Jewish
neighbors and to promote greater religiosity among Jews; even
redefined the notion of what might constitute a Jewish religious
community or spiritual experience. As Jews, God, and Videotape
demonstrates, American Jews' experiences are emblematic of how
religious communities' engagements with new media have become
central to defining religiosity in the modern age.
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