Is There Such a Thing as Jewish Fiction?

That was the question recently discussed at Moment magazine.

From the article...

Let us start by asking: Is there such a creature as a Jewish writer? Jewish mothers gave birth to Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud, but these idiosyncratic giants of mid-20th-century American fiction consistently suggested that they were not Jewish writers but rather Jews who wrote about American life in its many incarnations, sometimes focusing on Jewish characters and themes and motifs, sometimes not. Is Bellow’s fabulous seeker of a character Henderson the Rain King a Jew because his creator was born Jewish? Or is he a Gentile character invented by a Jewish-born writer who finds in him a universal quality of cosmic questing? We don’t have to look at Henderson’s matrilineal connections to find him fascinating and important, do we?

And Malamud? Is he a Brooklyn writer? And when he writes a comic masterpiece about identity in the contemporary American West—A New Life—does he thus become a Western writer, or does he remain a Jewish-American Brooklynite writing about the West? This is all sociological fine-tuning and interesting to consider. But does it get us to the heart of a writer’s work or merely keep our eyes on the surfaces? Malamud’s finest work suggests that all of his characters are Jewish, even the Gentiles. If all Gentiles are Jews, does that make all Gentile writers Jewish writers? Does this play out for black American writers? Are James Baldwin’s white characters in Giovanni’s Room and Another Country actually black characters under the skin?

The argument gets murky. Maybe Malamud is right. All men are Jews and all Gentiles are Jews, so all writers are Jewish writers.