ABSTRACT
This chapter takes that anxiety as its starting point; but it explores how such reality gaps creates generative tensions within contemporary British-Jewish writing. The chapter reviews on Alderman's story that presents a future Britain in which Jewish ness has, in effect, died out. It is, instead, reproduced in a mediated form at the annual 'Festival of Judaism'. It is narrated from the perspective of Ellie Markowitz, a single woman in her thirties, who reflects somewhat wistfully on what has been lost in this heritage park version of Jewish ness. The chapter discusses by outlining some of the debates relating to continuity and suggests the ways in which ideas of half-Jewish and different permutations of Jew-ishness might be explored. It then moves on to readings of three high profile recent literary texts: Eva Harris's The Marrying of Chani Kaufman; Francesca Segal's The Innocents; and Howard Jacobson's J. Howard Jacobson's novel, J (2014) presents Jewish ness in a far more opaque manner.
