Book Discussion | Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer (in-person and online)

It's conventional wisdom that the mid-20th century ushered in a heyday for American Jewry as the economy soared, antisemitism waned and the talents of a new generation of Jews reshaped American culture. Yet few people discuss how these Jewish geniuses managed to navigate their restrained traditional culture to conquer the American mainstream, and what they brought from the past as they transformed the future.

In his fascinating new book, writer and critic David Denby of The New Yorker does just that, focusing on three men and one woman from different fields whose Jewish heritage was electrified by American liberty and who became free, for good and for ill, in ways that Jews had never been before.

Leonard Bernstein, the son of Ukrainian Jews, became the first American-born conductor to achieve international fame. Bernstein wrote Broadway shows, became the world's greatest teacher of music, and wove Hebrew, Yiddish, Jewish music and biblical narrative into his classical compositions.

Mel Brooks, the quintessential Jewish comic and EGOT-winning actor, writer and director, used parody and burlesque to thrust his obsession with death into the furthest reaches of Jewish suffering and freedom.

The feminist Betty Friedan, raised in a secular family, declared at the 1970 Women's Strike for Equality, "Down through the generations in history, my ancestors prayed, 'I thank Thee, Lord, I was not created a woman.' From this day forward women all over the world will be able to say, 'I thank Thee, Lord, I was created a woman.'"

Norman Mailer, grandson of a rabbi, double Pulitzer Prize winner and author of 11 best-selling books, was a rebel and self-created disturber of the peace who proudly declared, "If the Jews brought anything to human nature, it's that they developed the mind more than other people."

David Denby discusses these eminent Jews, the worlds in which they operated and what their stories teach us both about America and the American Jewish experience.