Write like a man.
Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals
Ronnie A. Grinberg
Princeton University Press
Julia Pascal
Ronnie A. Grinberg’s detailed analysis of mid-twentieth century America’s masculine Jewish literary elites is a careful examination of the major personalities. It also contributes a vital examination of a socio-political journey from left wing radicalism to neoconservatism which remains vibrant today.
The book is both an academic, yet accessible, critique which gives time and space to the literary giants from the 1930s to the 1970s. These include Alfred Kazin, Lionel Trilling, Norman Mailer, Norman Podhoretz and Irving Howe. Happily, there is also some focus given to Elizabeth Hardwick, Diana Trilling. Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy. However, the female authors do remain as sidelined figures within this study.
The exception is Grinberg’s thorough exploration of Midge Decter, ‘The First Lady of Neoconservatism’. Decter is the only woman to have her own chapter. Most scholars know of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem as trailblazing Jewish feminists but Grinberg allows us to understand Decter’s complex and crucial role within the anti-feminist movement.
Where this work is most exciting is when it reveals how women snuck into this noisy, male-dominant Jewish intellectual forum. Grinberg emphasises how postwar American literature was often a form of masculine sexual display. This is, of course, true of both Jewish and gentile writers and explains why Ernest Hemingway is better known than Martha Gellhorn who is unmentioned in this book.
Where women do enter the war of ideas, Grinberg highlights the public spectacle of the Germaine Greer/ Norman Mailer 1971 Town Hall debate where feminism/antifeminism and ‘the Jewish dick’ were part of the conversation. She writes ‘Three of the five panelists were Jews: Mailer, Trilling and Greer’. Is Greer Jewish? No matter. Grinberg shows that it was the provocative, women who were allowed entry to Jewish male literary coteries. They were all attractive and gained acceptance by performing ‘secular Jewish masculinity’. Grinberg tells us that Arendt, was accepted as an exotic German intellectual and because she ‘already wrote ‘like a man’.
Diana Trilling called Arendt, McCarthy and Hardwick ‘power women’ who ‘crossed the line and were accepted among the boys’. These three, according to Grinberg ‘exuded a sexual radicalism’. Arendt’s charm can be witnessed in her 1964 interview with Gunter Gaus (on YouTube) where she almost seduces her interlocutor, and the viewer, with her wit, intelligence and physical confidence.
Write like a Man enables the 21st century reader to understand the shift from early 20th century radicalism to mid-century conservatism as expressed within the Jewish literary fraternity. It also has wider political resonances. Max Nordau’s late 19th century concept of the New Jew; who morphs from the puny Talmud- scholar into the muscular fighter of the Zionist Dream; parallels the journey of the American Jewish male. His soldiering is the war of words and his muscles are trained to punch hard whether his opponent is of the Right or of the Left.
Julia Pascal © 2025.
Write like a man.
Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals
Ronnie A. Grinberg
Princeton University Press
Julia Pascal
Ronnie A. Grinberg’s detailed analysis of mid-twentieth century America’s masculine Jewish literary elites is a careful examination of the major personalities. It also contributes a vital examination of a socio-political journey from left wing radicalism to neoconservatism which remains vibrant today.
The book is both an academic, yet accessible, critique which gives time and space to the literary giants from the 1930s to the 1970s. These include Alfred Kazin, Lionel Trilling, Norman Mailer, Norman Podhoretz and Irving Howe. Happily, there is also some focus given to Elizabeth Hardwick, Diana Trilling. Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy. However, the female authors do remain as sidelined figures within this study.
The exception is Grinberg’s thorough exploration of Midge Decter, ‘The First Lady of Neoconservatism’. Decter is the only woman to have her own chapter. Most scholars know of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem as trailblazing Jewish feminists but Grinberg allows us to understand Decter’s complex and crucial role within the anti-feminist movement.
Where this work is most exciting is when it reveals how women snuck into this noisy, male-dominant Jewish intellectual forum. Grinberg emphasises how postwar American literature was often a form of masculine sexual display. This is, of course, true of both Jewish and gentile writers and explains why Ernest Hemingway is better known than Martha Gellhorn who is unmentioned in this book.
Where women do enter the war of ideas, Grinberg highlights the public spectacle of the Germaine Greer/ Norman Mailer 1971 Town Hall debate where feminism/antifeminism and ‘the Jewish dick’ were part of the conversation. She writes ‘Three of the five panelists were Jews: Mailer, Trilling and Greer’. Is Greer Jewish? No matter. Grinberg shows that it was the provocative, women who were allowed entry to Jewish male literary coteries. They were all attractive and gained acceptance by performing ‘secular Jewish masculinity’. Grinberg tells us that Arendt, was accepted as an exotic German intellectual and because she ‘already wrote ‘like a man’.
Diana Trilling called Arendt, McCarthy and Hardwick ‘power women’ who ‘crossed the line and were accepted among the boys’. These three, according to Grinberg ‘exuded a sexual radicalism’. Arendt’s charm can be witnessed in her 1964 interview with Gunter Gaus (on YouTube) where she almost seduces her interlocutor, and the viewer, with her wit, intelligence and physical confidence.
Write like a Man enables the 21st century reader to understand the shift from early 20th century radicalism to mid-century conservatism as expressed within the Jewish literary fraternity. It also has wider political resonances. Max Nordau’s late 19th century concept of the New Jew; who morphs from the puny Talmud- scholar into the muscular fighter of the Zionist Dream; parallels the journey of the American Jewish male. His soldiering is the war of words and his muscles are trained to punch hard whether his opponent is of the Right or of the Left.
Julia Pascal © 2025.
By Julia Pascal • added recently on London Grip, authors, books, literature • Tags: authors, books, Julia Pascal, literature