ABSTRACT
The New York academics represent the latest form of status striving among descendants of East European immigrants. There's a stereotype that Jews don't have a visual sense that doesn't square with the brilliant Jewish artists of the New York School and critics like Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg who have influenced and formed the understanding of modern art. The judgment of the chairman may have been based as much on antipathy toward New York as toward Jews. Jean-Paul Sartre was criticized for his failure to honor the Jewish tradition when he wrote that the Jew was a construction of anti-Semitism. James Joyce seems to parallel Sartre, but he comes to another conclusion: in the face of anti-Semitism, the Jew is humanity. There was perhaps a difference in tone in the way certain Jewish scholars and critics approached texts, less reverent and more critical.
