ABSTRACT
Much like the texts written by Siskin ( C18 ) and Gold ( C19 ), “Middle Class Judaism: A Case Study” represents an uncomfortable response to the rapid upward mobility that transformed American Jewish life in the decades following World War II. During these years, Jewish leaders from a variety of religious and political backgrounds despaired over what they viewed as the spiritual vacuity of middle-class Judaism. At the same time, they romanticized the history of Jewish poverty. In their writings and sermons, idealized images of economically insecure Jews living richly satisfying Jewish lives provided the measure against which middle-class American Jews consistently fell short.
