Why Are Jewish Children’s Books so Bad?

Debates over the quality of Jewish culture in the United States—books, film, art, music, museums, you name it—often boil down to an unmodulated choice between full-throated celebration and bitter lament. Take, as a recent case in point, reaction to the opening of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, whose displays express the often explicit premise that Jewish contributions to American arts and culture constitute a triumph not only for American society but for the future of American Judaism. Enthusiastically embracing this trope, many reviewers duly praised the museum as another sign of Jewish cultural vitality, of the successful weaving of Jewish ideas and traditions into the modern American fabric, and of the endlessly metamorphic capabilities of Judaism itself. Mourners, by contrast, saw the artifacts on display, with their wispy and sometimes barely visible traces of ethnic identity, as symptoms of Jewish illiteracy and further evidence of a community rapidly undergoing dilution and loss.

Of course this dichotomy, like all dichotomies, fails to reflect the full complexity of the phenomenon. As one who usually finds himself in the camp of the mourners, I confess to moments of (selective) delight in the cultural achievements of American Jews. My own lament is less a funeral cry than an abiding sensation of hunger and frustration: the cultural bandwidth is so narrow; so much more could be imagined, created, and enjoyed. I especially object to the celebrators’ complacent readiness to applaud the mediocre or the manifestly cheesy, whether it be the latest allegedly highbrow Jewish novel or the latest work of Jewish children’s literature.

It’s the last-named area that I want to focus on here.