ABSTRACT
Jewish-American fiction since the 1960s can make large claims. The achievements have been impressive, and limited space in this survey means that only brief mention can be made to writers who have written on Jewish experience, but have not made that subject the central concern of their work. Undoubtedly, Chaim Potok, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Cynthia Ozick have made significant contributions in this respect, and their work will be the main focus of this chapter and the next. It will also be necessary to look at more contemporary writers, but the first task is to define the importance of two novelists who have written in completely different ways about Jewish America: Chaim Potok and Saul Bellow. Nevertheless, while they represent polarities of that immense spectrum of life and experience, they have something fundamental in common. They are preoccupied with the status of the intellect within Jewish identity, albeit with different uses in mind.
