Jewish Mad Men: Advertising and the Design of the American Jewish Experience [1 ed.] 9780813563770, 9780813563763

Citation preview

JEWISH MAD MEN

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JEWISH MAD MEN Advertising and the Design of the American Jewish Experience

KERRI P. STEINBERG

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Steinberg, Kerri P., 1959– author. Jewish mad men : advertising and the design of the American Jewish experience / Kerri P. Steinberg. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8135–6376–3 (hardback) — ISBN 978–0–8135–6375–6 (pbk.) — ISBN 978–0–8135–6377–0 (e-book) 1. Jews in advertising. 2. Advertising—United States—History. 3. Advertising—Social aspects—United States. 4. United States—Ethnic relations. I. Title. HF5813.U6S748 2015 659.1089’924073—dc23 2014014283 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2015 by Kerri P. Steinberg All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America

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For Howard

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations  ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: More than Advertising  1 1 Portrait of American Jewish Life  15 2 The Spaces and Places of Jewish Advertising: Joseph Jacobs and Market Segmentation  55 3 Manischewitz and Maxwell House: The M&M of Jewish Advertising  81 4 You Say You Want a Revolution: The Mainstreaming of Jewish Identity in American Advertising  119 5 Matchmaker, Matchmaker: JDating in the Digital Age  145 Conclusion: More than a Mirror  163 Notes 169 Bibliography 191 Index 201

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Color Plates 1. At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924  2. Double-page spread featuring array of JELL-O molds, At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924  3. Illustration depicting young boy making room for JELL-O wrapped box on furniture, At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924  4. Front cover of The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946  5. Honoring 1776 and Famous Jews in American History, 1975  6. Manischewitz Cook-Off advertisement, Cooking Light, 2006  7. Adam Rolston, Manischewitz American Matzos, 1993, painting  8. Manischewitz wine, “There’s a Seder in Every Bottle,” 1999  9. Manischewitz wine, “To all a good light,” 1998  1 0. Choirboy, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967  1 1. “End Bad Breath,” 1967  1 2. Stephanie and Avi JDate billboard, Times Square, New York, 2006  Black-and-White Figures 1. El Al airlines advertisement, Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1967   xviii 2. Kosher for Passover Rokeach Scouring Powder advertisement, the Forward, March 18, 1925   18 3. Ad for Cascarets patent medicine, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 23, 1900   25 4. Syrup of Figs patent medicine ad, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, 1900  25 5. “For a Man’s Easter Wearing,” Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, April 10, 1925   29 6. Advertisement for a gas water heater, Cincinnati, the American Israelite, July 27, 1933   31 7. Crisco shortening New Year’s greeting, the American Israelite, September 21, 1933   32 \\ ix //

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x \ \ I l l ust r at i o n s

8. Cover of the Jewish Herald-Voice, Houston, April 11, 1945   37 9. General Electric advertisement, Cincinnati, the American Israelite, March 3, 1955   38 1 0. “Saving lives—still our Goal,” Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 26, 1965   41 1 1. “General George Washington Lunching at the Home of Orthodox Corporal Michael Hart in Easton, Pennsylvania, on December 21, 1778,” Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 14, 1975   45 1 2. “The Month of Redemption for Ethiopian Jews Is Here,” Cincinnati, the American Israelite, March 21, 1985   47 1 3. “Why is this Passover different?” Cincinnati, the American Israelite, April 4, 1985   48 1 4. The Jewish Market booklet, 1940   60 1 5. Tales and Legends of Israel, front page, The JELL-O Company, Inc., 1933  63 1 6. Double-page spread with JELL-O ad and introduction to the Tales and Legends of Israel booklet, The JELL-O Company, Inc., 1933   64 17. Double-page spread with Bond Bread advertisement and introduction to The Biblical Picture Gallery, 1937  65 1 8. “Moses Appoints Joshua As His Successor” and “Moses on Mount Neboh,” pen-and-ink drawings and accompanying captions in The Biblical Picture Gallery, 1937  66 19. Ad for Chun King Frozen Dinners & Entrees and the Joey Adams Show on WEVD, 1960s   69 2 0. Ad for Pertussin cough syrup and the Ruth Jacobs Show on WEVD, 1960s  69 2 1. Double-page spread, “The Most Unique Sales Opportunity in the World,” The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946   71 2 2. Photograph of the Jewish housewife and accompanying caption, The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946  71 2 3. Kosher seals and emblems in “What Every Manufacturer Should Know About Kosher” pamphlet, 1955   73 2 4. Whitney’s Yogurt ad, Hadassah Magazine, 1994   77 2 5. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, the Forward, March 9, 1922   85 2 6. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, the Forward, March 16, 1922   85 2 7. Gold Medal Flour illustrated ad, the Forward, March 5, 1922   86

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Il l u s trat i o n s / / xi

2 8. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, Saturday Evening Post, April 28, 1923  89 2 9. Original Maxwell House Coffee Passover haggadah, 1934   93 3 0. Early Manischewitz matzo ad, the Forward, March 31, 1922   97 3 1. Maxwell House Coffee Passover haggadah, Ten Plagues illustration, 1965  104 3 2. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, 1960   105 3 3. Maxwell House Coffee haggadah advertisement, 2000   111 3 4. Manischewitz Wine ad, “We’ve Been at Your Holiday Table for Years . . . Take Us Out More Often,” 2001   113 3 5. Photograph of President Obama conducting Seder using Maxwell House Coffee haggadah, April 2009   114 3 6. Levy’s illustrated ad, “Are you buying a bread or a bed?” New York Times, January 19, 1953   128 3 7. Levy’s illustrated ad, “All Right Already . . . tomorrow, I’ll have it for you!” New York Times, September 30, 1954   129 3 8. Policeman, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967   137 39. American Indian, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967   137 4 0. Asian American, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967   137 4 1. Uncle Sam images from “We Answer to a Higher Authority” television commercial, 1972   139 4 2. JDate logo   155 4 3. JBaby Benjamin, JDate advertisement, 2010   157 4 4. Jennifer and Michael’s JFamily, JDate advertisement, 2010   157 4 5. Stefanie and Ethan, JDate advertisement, 2011   158 4 6. Cover page of “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam . . . Jewish Identity and Community in a Time of Unlimited Choices,” Reboot study, 2006   164

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ballyhoo, yet brilliant, advertising has entertained and elucidated, as it has obscured and intimidated the various publics who have succumbed to its spell. Wrestling with this conundrum over the past five years has been alternately rewarding and frustrating, but always eye-opening. Examining American Jewish life through the lens of advertising has enabled me to see the challenges and triumphs of American Jews. Most meaningfully, it has given me a deeper regard for the lost worlds of my grandparents and great grandparents. Researching and writing this book facilitated a visceral connection across time and space; American Jewish history came to life in my imagination, and I was enraptured. Advertising was both muse and medium, so to it, I am grateful. Yet, to claim that Jewish Mad Men sufficiently seizes even a single frame in the ongoing saga of the American Jewish experience would be overblown, because this story is so intricate, complex, and multivalent. On a more micro level, however, a flurry of personal, professional, and communal concerns that have shaped my life over the past five years converge in this book, imbuing its completion with extraordinary personal satisfaction. This project would have never seen the light of day were it not for the unstinting encouragement and support of Joseph Jacobs Advertising in New York. I first met the late David Koch, former president of the agency, in 2006 in my quest to uncover advertising materials on Manischewitz products for a talk at the Modern Language Association. When David made available the archives of Joseph Jacobs Advertising, I immediately knew that I had stumbled onto a gold mine. David facilitated my introduction to Richard (Dick) Jacobs, Joseph Jacobs’s son and long-time CEO of the company. I was privileged to interview Dick before his passing in 2011. My conversations with the dynamic David and Dick duo resulted in a transcription of the institutional history of Joseph Jacobs Advertising. I am content that Jewish Mad Men preserves for posterity the story of this agency, whose history coincides with and chronicles trends in American Jewish life over the past ninety-five years. Elie Rosenfeld, current CEO at Joseph Jacobs Advertising, has been unwavering in his support of this project. His generosity in reviewing my chapter on the organization, and providing continued access to archival materials allowed me to complete the work after Dick’s and David’s deaths. Elie has also served as a valued sounding board. \\ xiii //

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xiv \ \ A c kn o wl e dg m e n t s

Two Faculty Development Grants from Otis College of Art and Design, my home away from home, in the summer of 2006, and the summer of 2010, supported both initial and follow up research in New York. I am especially grateful to Debra Ballard and Parme Giuntini, the chair and assistant chair of the Department of Liberal Studies, for accommodating my schedule to facilitate completion of the book. Heather Cleary and Derek McMullen of the Visual Resources Center at Otis College, provided invaluable assistance in preparing digital image files for Rutgers University Press. The interest that all of my Otis colleagues—both in my home Department of Liberal Studies, and in the studio departments—have taken in this project has provided a steady source of energy and support, both necessary to see the book through its completion. I consider myself so fortunate to work in such a vibrant intellectual and creative community. A grant from the Posen Foundation to participate in the “Varieties of Jewish Secularism and Secularization,” seminar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley during summer 2010, helped me work through the history and historiography of Jewish secularism. I would like to express my gratitude to David Biale, Naomi Seidman, and Susan Shapiro for facilitating the seminar, and to my colleagues in the seminar for their close reading and analysis of a preliminary version of the chapter on Manischewitz and Maxwell House. Conversations with my constellation of personal friends/ colleagues illuminated my pathway, and helped me to see the light at the end of a long tunnel. I would like to express special affection to Ruth Iskin and Carol Bakhos who read earlier versions of chapters. Their cumulative wisdom and keen insights pushed me to delve deeper into issues of Jewish history and representation. Extended discussions with Tobin Belzer opened my mind to changes in American Jewish communal life, and to the value of experiential Judaism. Diana Linden’s unwavering support of this project has meant more than she can possibly know. Always availing herself to my work, sending useful sources my way, and extending her astute understanding of American Jewish visual culture to this project, Diana’s friendship and generosity have inspired me, and interrupted this long process with welcome laughter. I wish to thank my students, especially those in the Communication Arts Department at Otis College of Art and Design, for humoring me and giving me the opportunity to share with them my passion for the history of graphic design and advertising. My former MFA graphic design student, Sam Siavash Anvari, who worked as a junior designer at JDate, was instrumental in open-

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Ack no w l e d g m e n t s / / xv

ing doors at the company. I would also like to express my gratitude to Arielle Schechtman, Senior Manager of Public and Community Relations at JDate. com for reviewing my chapter on JDate, and providing access to their images. My sincere thanks to David Nimmer for his counsel on copyright law issues, and to Rachel Friedman for her close reading of the manuscript. Working with Leslie Mitchner, associate director and editor-in-chief at Rutgers University Press, the past several years has been both an honor and a privilege. From beginning to end, Leslie’s belief in and stewardship of this project encouraged me to surmount the inevitable travails that accompany a sustained effort of this nature. Her guidance and wisdom have taught me so much about writing, and live on through the recommendations I now make to my students. I was also so fortunate to meet Simone Krug at the Yale Graduation Ball in 2008. Little did we know in that brief encounter that we were about to embark upon a research and outreach journey that would span both years and continents. Simone, in the beginning you were my research assistant, and now you are my friend. For your many talents, and for your dedication to this project through its duration, I wish to express my sincere appreciation. I am one of those most fortunate individuals whose parents would follow them to the end of the earth, and so it has been with this project, as it been throughout my entire life. I wish to thank my mother, Linda Platt, for assisting me with research at the New York Public Library. Both my mother and father, Shearn Platt, read portions of the manuscript and offered thoughtful feedback. In addition to providing unconditional love and support, I remain inspired by my parents’ commitment to arts and culture—both Jewish and otherwise—and by their exemplary service to the organized Jewish community. My dear children, Andrew, Ross, Joel, Maya, Sidney, and Zachary, keep me grounded, move me to open my eyes, and give me perspective. Thank you for listening to me drone on about advertising and American Jews until your eyes glazed over. A special thanks to Andrew for reading several chapters and offering a valued perspective on Jewish life both historically and at present, in America and abroad. All six of you help me with the hip factor—a necessity for any book on the topic of advertising and pop culture. From A to Z, so divergent are you in your passions, personalities, and abilities that food metaphors most aptly cover your delicious spectrum: you are a wondrous fruit medley, a sweet and savory salad, a most extravagant desert buffet. Individually and collectively, you delight my senses and fill my heart. I am breathless.

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Finally, to my husband, Howard, whose patience, reassurance, guidance, and wisdom constitute the pillars of my existence. In my mind, you are decorated with every medal of honor, but none more meaningful than your dedication as my lifelong partner and soulmate. Just as the magical essence of our children takes my breath away, your devotion allows me to reach new heights and soar. As a token of my eternal gratitude, I dedicate this book to you.

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JEWISH MAD MEN

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Figure 1. El Al airlines advertisement, Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1967  •  The altered face of the flight attendant emphasizes her painted-on smile. This quirky advertisement positions El Al as an airline that genuinely cares about its passengers. Use of the unexpected became a hallmark of Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising in the 1960s.  •  El Al Israel Airlines.

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Introduction More than Advertising

I

n 1967, El Al airlines stunned viewers with its disarming advertisement featuring an attractive flight attendant. The headline announced, “Maybe You Don’t Want to Look at a Painted-on Smile All the Way to Europe” (see figure 1). A heavy black line delineated the woman’s lips, extended across her face, and concluded in short, upright curved strokes that framed her cheeks and likened her to a clown. Cleverly alluding to the body and wingspan of an airplane seen head-on, the ad was playful, yet also sober. Pronounced rounded contours seen in the sweep of the attendant’s cap on the left side of her face, the arc of her hairline on the right, the arch of her eyebrows and wide eyes, and the exaggerated curves of her lips, underscored the ad’s lightheartedness. El Al was distinguished as the airline of authenticity whose “engines should turn on at the flick of the switch,” not its stewardesses. This claim alluded to the superficiality and artificiality commonly associated with airline attendants, and suggested to prospective passengers that they could expect better service. The quirky ad for the Israeli airline used the rebellious spirit of the late sixties to capture the novelty and enthusiasm of travel to Israel. It also redirected travel to the Jewish homeland away from the provincial and religious. Instead, the ad hinted that El Al—the official airline of Israel—offered passage to a modern Jewish state, connecting visitors to a country invested in contemporary fashion, advertising, and culture. Like other media and material culture more generally, each ad tells a story. When examined under scrutiny, advertising comments on the priorities of the present, and also sometimes affords viewers a glimpse into bygone times. Certainly, the veiled objective of an ad is to persuade viewers to buy a product or an idea. For this reason, many are loath to take advertising seriously, especially \\ 1 //

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2 \ \ J EW I S H MAD MEN

in an era where we are inundated with sales pitches from the minute we boot up our electronic devices in the morning until we shut down at day’s end. Yet, it is precisely because of its ubiquitous presence and influence that we must heed advertising. Media theorists such as Sut Jhally and Noam Chomsky have expressed misgivings about advertising. Both view it from a Marxist point of view, as a mechanism of exploitation of the masses by those in power. Jhally claims that advertising works in a closed circle, delivering images of what people think they want based upon what it sells. Many of these images are tied to family, friendship, and community. Curiously, Jhally suggests that the vision or fantasy proffered by much advertising more closely resembles socialism rather than capitalism.1 Through the lens of advertising it often seems that accessibility to goods is for the many rather than the privileged few. Additionally, when products are associated with family and community, it is easy to overlook advertising as an underlying profit-driven enterprise. Even if cynicism is warranted and healthy when deciphering the codes and objectives of advertising, hidden within advertisements are critical historical, cultural, and sociological lessons concerning race, gender, and identity. Our El Al example offers a perfect case in point. What lies buried beneath that painted-on smile? We can begin our inquiry by situating the ad within the socio-political milieu of the year it was created. For Jews worldwide, and especially for American Jews, 1967 represented a renaissance of Jewish attachment. Whether a compensatory reflex to the Jewish genocide of World War II, or in response to the defiant mood of the 1960s, Israel’s Six Day War against the much larger countries of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in June 1967 caused American Jews to awaken from years of quiet resolve to support the young Jewish state. The threat of Israel’s annihilation prompted a renewed and unswerving recommitment of many American Jews to the Jewish homeland; the country’s subsequent triumph over neighboring Arab states secured the identification and commitment of Jews in America to this emerging regional superpower. The overwhelming sense of pride experienced by American Jews at that moment encouraged a psychological shift from self-conscious to self-assertive minority. Now the concept of the willful sabra (native-born Israeli) trumped that of the weak and powerless Eastern European Jewish nebbish (misfit). Travel to Israel in the aftermath of the Six Day War supported the economy of this developing nation while simultaneously rooting American Jews in a twothousand-year-old history and vibrant culture. For the first time, many Jews understood themselves as part of an extraordinary Jewish continuum. The painted-on smile was not the first time that an unspoiled image had been defaced. Back in 1912, Marcel Duchamp drew a moustache and goatee

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Intro d u c t i o n / / 3

on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, inviting viewers to look again at Leonardo da Vinci’s smiling icon. Disrupting an image and making something unfamiliar out of the familiar is a sure way to get observers to take a second look. In 1966, the Deconstructivist philosopher Jacques Derrida wrote that the act of disturbing a text (written or visual) would remind readers that it was merely an arrangement of marks and grammatical syntax. Through this recognition, Derrida aspired to make critical thinkers out of readers, so that they would not take what they saw or read at face value. René Magritte did something similar in 1927 when he pictured a pipe, and then informed readers below, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe). The image of the pipe was not to be confused with an actual pipe. Even if representation is artificially constructed, as these examples attest, the attitudes embodied within these texts still open a window onto their times. El Al’s painted-on smile brings us face to face with the creative revolution in advertising in the late sixties, attributed to the audacious practices of the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency. Doyle Dane Bernbach opened its doors in 1949. An outsider to the gentile Madison Avenue inner circle, copywriter Bill Bernbach used his exceptionality as both a Jew and a creative trendsetter to set new industry standards. Under the creative direction of Bernbach, Doyle Dane Bernbach launched a legendary advertising revolution, to which most of today’s memorable advertising is indebted. Capitalizing on the rebellious mood of the sixties, thanks to divisions over Vietnam and civil rights, Bernbach in turn created revolutionary ads. The abundance and intrusiveness of advertising in our daily lives makes it easily dismissible. Beyond the point of sale, however, the best examples of advertising, like the best examples of other media, are a mirror of the creators and consumers of advertising and their culture. The El Al painted-on smile advertisement instructs us about the revolutionary sixties—both in America and in Israel—the coinciding creative revolution in advertising and the ascendance of American Jews. Beyond this, the ad also sardonically comments on stereotypes and raises questions about gender and the subservience of women in servile professional and domestic roles during a time of social insurrection and the beginning of the feminist movement. The Jewish trajectory from outsider to insider, and the concomitant experiences of immigration, acculturation, social-economic upward mobility, and suburbanization have been recounted across various media: film, theater, literature, television, and the fine arts. They have also been the topic of numerous academic studies in anthropology, sociology, history, and cultural history. Yet, the advertisements aimed at the immigrant population in the late nineteenth

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4 \ \ J EW I S H MAD MEN

century, then at suburbanites in the mid-twentieth century, and now at hipster and post-denominational Jews have never served as more than a passing reference in the aforementioned fields. From Yiddish to English, and from the Lower East Side to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and even to the Moon where astronaut Gene Cernan symbolically took the Manischewitz brand in 1969, this book follows advertising that documents Jewish concerns, trends, and attitudes. It aims to bring out of invisibility the innuendos and inconsistencies that defined the American Jewish experience in the twentieth century. It charts an inverted trajectory of Jewish advertising in America, whose beginnings endeavored to lure traditional Jews outside into the modern marketplace of mainstream abundance, while these days, much Jewish advertising aims to lure wandering American Jewish identities back to Jewish tradition. Just like film, theater, and music, advertising too—whether in early twentieth-century Yiddish publications, late twentieth-century general interest publications, or billboards in Times Square—has constituted an important expression of popular culture, suggesting new possibilities for Jews in America, and helping them to reimagine their lives. Ads reference how Jews both absorbed and influenced the broader history and culture of America. We cannot fully understand their acculturation, accommodation, and navigation process over the past one hundred years without exploring advertising, an undervalued field of inquiry. Just as Jews left an indelible mark on the field, advertising likewise shaped the experiences of Jews, simultaneously accelerating integration into America, yet reinforcing their uniqueness. On Design and Advertising “We are becoming more and more a designed and a designing society,” wrote the historian Clive Dilnot in his two-part essay on “The State of Design History,” published in 1984.2 Dilnot’s careful word choice redirected the concept of design from noun to adjective and verb. Steering his readers toward the power and influence exercised by design, Dilnot declared, “Both an understanding of design and its public communication are not only necessary professional demands, but also urgent social needs.”3 He inserted design into a social context and asserted that “the social is not external to the activity, but internal to it and determining of its essential features.”4 Dilnot attempted to guide design away from a superficial preoccupation with style, taste, and fashion, and toward the gravity of the humanities, science, social science, and global markets. In so doing, he ascribed intentionality to design as a practice that shapes society. His pathbreaking work advocated for design’s authority.

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In 2002, William McDonough, architect and a pioneer of “cradle-to-cradle” sustainability, shifted Dilnot’s focus from the broader society to the individual, claiming that design reflects the first signal of human intention.5 Even the most stripped-down, objective-appearing design is never neutral, but always has an agenda. Consider the well-known Chase Manhattan Bank logo, created by the New York–based firm Chermayeff and Geismar in 1961. Defined by four blue trapezoids surrounding an empty square in the center, the exterior of the logo completes the shape of an octagon. The heavy blue wedge forms that identify the logo, though abstract, emphasize solidity and stability, reassuring clients that Chase Manhattan is a safe bet for their banking needs. Promoting an awareness of design as a verb associated with agency, activism, and systematization alongside its customary recognition as a noun, these theorists highlight the inevitable intersection between design and human practices, policies, and ideas. Dilnot’s and McDonough’s texts, in fact, encourage an understanding of society, culture, history, and politics as a grand design. Regardless of whether a society is communist or capitalist, totalitarian or democratic, the application of design achieves a “desired and foreseeable end;” it is part of a society’s essential structure.6 “Design is the way we plan and create the complex wholes that provide a framework for human culture,” according to Richard Buchanan, “the human systems and subsystems that work either in congress or in conflict with nature to support human fulfillment.”7 One need only recall the efficient propaganda machine of the Nazi regime during World War II to be reminded that effective advertising becomes synonymous with well-designed communication, just as ineffective advertising usually points to a breakdown in design. While it is difficult to dispute the influence exercised by advertising and design in modern society, by and large commercial artists—advertisers and graphic designers—have not enjoyed the same prestige as fine artists. In fact, their output often remains anonymous to the broader society. In his pivotal 1936 article, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” the philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin observed that art that is reproduced, like advertising and graphic design, loses the aura of the original. He further explained, “The work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility,” that is, for display and exhibition rather than ritual. This shift in purpose, according to Benjamin, reinforced art’s loss of authenticity, power, and aura. Even as mechanical reproduction extended viewing privileges to the many rather than the few, Benjamin remained concerned about how easily the masses could fall under the spell of images in the age of mechanical reproduction.8

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This perception of weakness was also exploited by some psychoanalysts in the 1940s, who used their understanding of human nature to influence the emerging field of public relations and helped big business create model consumers.9 Some, like Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, believed that advertising could create a stable society by mobilizing the public around particular products, ensuring compliance with acceptable behavior. The consumption of products essentially became equated with the consumption of societal norms and standards. The underlying hypothesis here was that people were irrational by nature. Advertising capitalized upon this assumption in order to back the American economy.10 In the late forties and in the fifties, the public became aware of advertising’s trickery. Frederick Wakeman’s incendiary novel, The Hucksters, published in 1948, identified advertising professionals as “yes men,” complicit in promoting the irrational side of human behavior.11 Vance Packard further disparaged advertising in his book The Hidden Persuaders, published in 1957, wherein he accused psychology and advertising of turning people into unsuspecting participants in planned obsolescence. Even the creative revolution of the sixties ignited by Bill Bernbach’s advertising irreverence offered nothing more than an illusion of advertising in the public’s interest. It is little wonder then, that since the forties advertising has been regarded with both reservation and suspicion, however much we are seduced by it. Over the past twenty-five years, as technology has enabled advertising to evolve to a place where it now can inhabit new public and private spaces, including the walls of buildings, Internet banners and pop-ups, and even flash mobs, it continues to inspire both fascination and repulsion. Advertising’s visual allure and promises of transformation are compelling and hard to resist. As advertising gradually colonizes our public and personal spaces, it is more imperative than ever that we become astute and critical readers of its messages. Jewish Mad Men Since 2007 advertising has been showcased in the television series Mad Men. Set in the early 1960s, the show pays homage to a riveting and seductive Madison Avenue world at a time when advertising was transitioning from the formulaic 1950s to the more liberated 1960s. Madison Avenue was notorious as an impatient, fast-paced, and fickle commercial center. Novelty reigned supreme. However, the show unfolds in a quiet and deliberate manner—at least by today’s hurried standards—which gives it a certain period authenticity. This authenticity is furthered through stylized frames capturing the fashion and interior

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designs of mid-century modernism. Yet, for all its superficial flourishes, Mad Men also more seriously illustrates prominent social topics of the time, including issues of gender and sexuality, civil rights, and anti-Semitism. It purposefully agitates its viewers by portraying the bittersweet reality of an era when “Jews worked in Jewish advertising agencies, blacks were waiters and careful not to seem too uppity, and doctors smoked during gynecological exams. Women were called ‘girls.’ Men who loved men kept it to themselves.”12 Mad Men meticulously captures a world of conformity and fear of the other, endemic during the height of the Cold War. Diversity was rare on Madison Avenue. In Mad Men advertising becomes a screen through which to view American life, a generation caught between post–World War II consumerism, Cold War paranoia, and the undoing of rigid social and cultural notions of decorum in the 1960s. Just as American Jews gradually stepped out publicly as Jews in that period, the prominence of Jews and Jewish issues has risen to the fore on Mad Men over the course of six seasons. Beginning in season one, Don Draper’s existential drama and unease in the white-collar world of Madison Avenue resonated with pre–baby boomer American Jews. Like Draper, this generation of Jews suppressed their backgrounds in social settings, and couldn’t let their guard down.13 Draper’s exterior finesse and polish conceal his discomfort, and belie nothing of the inner turmoil of someone who has stolen his identity and lives as an imposter. Matthew Weiner, the show’s creator, and an American Jew himself, uses mood, setting, costume, and dialogue to exquisitely capture the unease of the outsider. In the first season, Draper’s mysteriousness, coupled with his fling with Rachel Menken—a Jewish woman who runs her father’s department store—led some viewers to speculate that the protagonist was even hiding his Jewishness, due to the anti-Semitic climate of Madison Avenue during the sixties.14 Jews were simply not visible on Madison Avenue in the early 1960s. In fact, when the Sterling Cooper advertising agency attempted to procure the business of Rachel Menken and her family’s department store during the first season, agency principal Roger Sterling suggested that they should include a Jewish colleague in the meeting to make her feel more at ease. When Don responded that there were none, Roger took it upon himself to fix the problem, claiming, “I had to go all the way to the mailroom, but I found one.”15 Even if Jews were not explicitly visible on Madison Avenue, Matthew Weiner uses a range of devices from personality types to names regularly associated with Jews to remind his viewers of their presence. For example, during season two Weiner used the stereotype of the loud, overbearing figure and the overly adorned female to encourage viewers to see comedian Jimmie Barrett and his

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wife, Bobbie (Don’s love interest in season two), as “transparently Jewish.”16 The show continued its interest in Jews during season three when Roger Sterling married Don’s Jewish secretary, Jane Siegel. While this interest in Jews was often delivered through innuendo during the first few seasons of Mad Men, by season five—set in 1966–1967—the attention paid to Jews becomes unavoidable. Indeed, the growing interest in Jews parallels their rising visibility in the late sixties. Now viewers are introduced to Michael Ginsberg, a promising young copywriter. His last name, together with his abrasive and manic personality, underscore his Jewishness. Although a minor character, Ginsberg’s enigmatic past and brilliance as a copywriter present him as a Jewish counterpart to Draper. Both Draper and Ginsberg were unwanted when they were born; Draper was born in a brothel and Ginsberg in a concentration camp. Each man is ashamed of his past, and each leads a double life. However, Ginsberg’s life outside of the office, unlike Draper’s, is not enshrouded in mystery and intrigue, but rather in ritual. Although he claims to have no family, we see that he lives with his observant father, and viewers are privy to the religious rituals practiced in the Ginsberg home. Wiener vividly enacts the clash between the ritualistic world of Ginsberg’s father and the disinterest of Madison Avenue, where difference is hidden (even though Ginsberg’s mannerisms cause him to stand out). Ginsberg actually suffers an anxiety attack during season six when he is requested to visit the Manischewitz company to straighten things out with the agency’s account. The collision of his two worlds seems more than he can bear. Through the insertion of Jewish love interests, Jewish clients, and eventually, Jewish employees, Weiner paints a grittier and arguably, more authentic version of Madison Avenue than is customarily portrayed. Even if difference was denied on Madison Avenue, it still existed, but most often behind the scenes. With each successive season, Weiner gradually lifts the curtain on the presence of Jews on Madison Avenue. From a Jewish perspective Mad Men probes what it meant to be Jewish in the context of white America at a time when Jews themselves were only beginning to feel white. The show probes the moral and ethical dilemmas antiSemitism raised in the advertising workplace, not so much by tackling the issue head-on, but rather by using dialogue and setting to reproduce the unease and discomfort experienced by Jews in a society largely adverse to difference from the mainstream.17 “To succeed in the U.S.,” says Matthew Weiner, “one of the deals is that you will have to become a white man, and what that means is you will have to give something huge up”—namely, that which differentiates an individual from the Anglo, Protestant, heterosexual mainstream.18

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According to Karen Brodkin, author of How Jews Became White Folks, the transformation of American Jews from outsiders to “white folks” soared in the aftermath of the post–World War II economic boom and its accompanying expansion of the middle class.19 Jews were upwardly mobile compared to other immigrants before the war, and thus, were well poised to enter professional, technical, and managerial positions after the war. Brodkin claims that the whitening of American Jews depended upon continued racial segregation, with institutions like the Federal Housing Administration insisting on homogenous neighborhoods.20 She maintains that Jewish integration into America, and the possibility of Jewish assimilation, depended upon Jews distinguishing themselves as a model minority who valued hard work, education, and strong two-parent families. America’s acceptance of Jews as a model minority caused the “deficiencies” of other minorities like African Americans to appear more pronounced by contrast. Difference or otherness, as the feminist scholar Ann duCille argues, always implies “different from,” thereby suggesting standards of normalcy based upon gender, skin color, religion, language, and sexual orientation.21 Using the measure of skin color, Jews came closer to the white “normative” standard than African Americans did. Still, even as Jews could more easily blend into white America, so long as segregation and discrimination existed, they could not let down their guard. Centuries of persecution and the Holocaust served as stark reminders of Jewish difference. Between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s, Jews occupied a strange position, speaking as white Americans for white America, yet still uneasy about the limitations for which white America actually stood.22 Mad Men effectively captures the ambivalence of this position. Beyond Hollywood’s portrayal of this conflict, a few legendary figures actually achieved stardom in the world of advertising in spite of their Jewishness. These were the real Jewish “Mad Men.” Early in the twentieth century, Albert Lasker, originally from Galveston, Texas, became sole owner of Lord and Thomas, a Chicago-based advertising agency. Lasker is often recognized as the father of modern advertising because of the importance he attached to copywriting. As a practicing Jew who maintained strong ties to the Jewish community, Lasker’s prominence in the field of advertising was rare. Leo Burnett, who established another prestigious Chicago-based agency in 1935 that used his name, is credited for introducing the importance of the brand image. Figures like Tony the Tiger, the Jolly Green Giant, and the Marlboro Man attributed a specific personality to particular products, causing them to stand out in a marketplace of abundance. Without doubt, Lasker and Burnett were the exceptions in the first half of the twentieth century. A Who’s Who in Advertis-

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ing report from 1931 revealed that only 92 out of 5,000 men in advertising were identifiably Jewish. Of these, less than 10 percent worked for large agencies.23 Until the 1960s, most Jews who worked in advertising operated behind the scenes in media or market research positions. When employed at large agencies, they worked apart from clients for fear that their Jewish affiliation might damage client relations; therefore, they did not hold account management positions, nor were they visible in the front office. Where Jews did take on the roles of account managers or directors, it was most often under the auspices of a Jewish advertising agency, such as Weintraub or Grey Advertising, established in 1917 by eighteen-year-old Lawrence Valenstein.24 Both firms developed reputations as Jewish agencies, because many who held prominent positions were Jewish. For example, at Weintraub, art director Peretz Rosenbaum (Paul Rand), and copywriter Bill Bernbach worked alongside each other, integrating text and image to magnify the meaning of ads. Out of Grey Advertising came two directors, Bernbach and Ned Doyle, a nonJew. Together, Bernbach and Doyle merged with Maxwell Dane in 1949 to establish the legendary three-man partnership: Doyle Dane Bernbach. A two-thirds Jewish partnership, the firm handled a steady stream of Jewish accounts, including Levy’s bread, Ohrbach’s department store, and of course, El Al airlines. Just as Jews eventually begin coming out of the woodwork on Mad Men in the 1960s, the work of Doyle Dane Bernbach dared to project a Jewish sensibility during this decade, featuring, for example, the perspective of the underdog rather than the hero, or in the case of Levy’s rye bread, actually calling it what it was—Jewish. Successful advertising depends upon somehow causing the public to take notice. Doyle Dane Bernbach used its marginality along with snappy written copy, clever imagery, and a synergy established by the integration of written and visual texts to create novel approaches in advertising. Standing on the shoulders of a few prominent Jews who came before, they contributed to what advertising is today. Ironically, it would appear that anti-Semitism and its admonition of difference was the catalyst for much of the originality and novelty associated with and expected of advertising.25 There were also lesser-known Jewish Mad Men—people like Joseph Jacobs, who introduced the value of market segmentation long before it was fashionable. In fact, much of the space reserved for advertising in Jewish publications like the Forward was filled by the efforts of Joseph Jacobs and his advertising agency formed in 1919. Jacobs encouraged large corporations to place ads in Yiddish newspapers, and later in Jewish journals published in English. By introducing Yiddishisms and Jewish expressions, Jacobs helped

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to invent the concept of a “Jewish” product. He specialized in “mixed marriages” between everyday or secular products like Maxwell House coffee and Jewish consumers. Indeed, as a Jewish advertising and marketing pioneer, Jacobs made a career of creating alliances between the general marketplace of food consumables and the Jewish consuming public. Even though a market research study from 1960 disclosed that 55 percent of Jewish households surveyed had heard of Joseph Jacobs or his organization, he never achieved the same prominence of established Madison Avenue icons like Lasker or Bernbach.26 His efforts challenged Jewish consumers to set aside their habitual food choices and enter an open field where they could still observe their dietary laws while participating in the larger marketplace. The marketing, advertising, and consumption of products originating from non-Jewish companies contributed to the secularization of Jews in America. Yet, so long as these products were stamped with a heksher (stamp of kosher certification), they indicated to Americanizing Jews that they could have it both ways. As younger Jews were distancing themselves from their parents’ ways, advertising supported and perpetuated the value of a discrete Jewish enclave within the broader American society. The same holds true today. The American Jewish Experience With widespread assimilation in the 1960s, advertising informed the public that you didn’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s rye bread or enjoy Manische­ witz wine. It innocuously began to insert Jewish customs and experiences into mainstream America. Divisions between the Jewish and non-Jewish domains started to diminish, as the Rachel Menkens of the real world began consulting with established non-Jewish advertising firms to broaden their client base, and as advertising began to familiarize American society with the Jews. Yet the trauma of the Holocaust, coupled with American-Jewish empathy toward Israel in the late sixties, secured an enduring attachment to Jewish life for many. Moreover, “the Holocaust and Israel gave Jews a degree of critical resistance from mainstream American whiteness, a sense of otherness even in the midst of being ardently embraced by the mainstream.”27 The Jewish concern with social justice ensured that American Jews were well poised to capitalize upon their newly awarded white status when it came to civil rights activism of the sixties.28 Although Jews were anxious about appearing “too Jewish” or different in the first half of the twentieth century, by the 1970s some worried about the loss of a valuable heritage due to their successful absorption into the white

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mainstream.29 In 1973, Charles Liebman, a sociologist, expressed apprehension in The Ambivalent American Jew, stating: “Judaism, as I understand it, is threatened by contemporary currents in American life. . . . More than ever before the values of integration and survival are mutually contradictory. . . . It seems to me that Jewish survival requires a turning against the integrationist response.”30 Indeed, the wave of Jewish acceptance now challenged concerned Jews to articulate what differentiated them from mainstream society, so that they wouldn’t disappear. The organized Jewish community responded through the initiation of task forces and studies to better understand and address the priorities of American Jews. Yet, around the same time, market research commissioned by the Joseph Jacobs Organization showed that between 1963 and 1980, New York Jews retained their ties to Jewish media. While the distinction between those who tuned into the media in English versus those who preferred Yiddish would be important to know, as this would shed light upon different threads of Jewish identification and practice, the market research did not differentiate between the populations of Yiddish versus English readers or listeners. Instead, the results were listed under the broader heading of “Exposed to Jewish Media.” Still, between 73 and 77 percent of those surveyed during these years indicated that they listened to and/ or read Jewish targeted news in either English or Jewish (Yiddish).31 Even during this time of heightened concern about their future in America, the loyalty to Jewish media disclosed a solid connection to Jewish life. In this context, advertising targeting Jews spotlighted their uniqueness, and, significantly, imposed a group affiliation upon them. Jews had now become both insiders and outsiders. As insiders, admission into the mainstream required shedding their ethnic and cultural specificity.32 However, absorbing the zeitgeist of postmodern times, in which difference was no longer dismissed, but rather entertained and celebrated, some Jewish artists began to explore Jewish themes. In 1996, Norman Kleeblatt, a curator at the Jewish Museum in New York, organized the exhibition, “Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Jewish Identities.” Artists chronicled contemporary Jewish attitudes toward family, liturgy, the Bible, and the Holocaust, and asserted the rising comfort of Jews as outsiders in a society where diversity was more accepted. Since the introduction of the Internet in the mid-1990s, the assimilationist concern of looking or acting “too Jewish” has been turned on its head. Not only has the Internet challenged the authority of what we now deem traditional media, like print and television, it has changed our sensibilities by enabling a 24/7 connection to remote people, places, and times. Seducing the public through the click of a button, the Internet engages its users, and empowers

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them to navigate the World Wide Web as they choose. Subjects and issues at one time taboo and on the fringes of social life, such as queer Orthodox Jews, have now entered the limelight of mainstream media to challenge and expand the public’s understanding of what is “normal.” Young Jews have unabashedly employed their outsider status to create edgy and audacious websites and blogs that would have mortified their great-grandparents (like Jewcy, Jewlicious, and Heeb) and have impaled the “too Jewish” prohibition. “Too Jewish” of late has been transformed into a banner of strength and confidence. As with radio and television before it, the Internet has rearranged how the public literally and metaphorically sees, owing to its all-inclusive nature. This shift in vision has inspired new treatments of Jewish history and experiences. Scholars like David Biale have examined Jewish history through the prism of culture, and more recently by honoring the tradition of Jewish secular thought.33 To the extent that “the secular denotes an orientation toward this world, this life,” rather than the sacred realm of the heavenly, it does not necessarily negate the religious; instead, it ascribes religious interest to worldly concerns and activities.34 For example, in America, many children of immigrant families looked to step out of the traditional, old-world ways of their parents and into mainstream modern lifestyles. They abandoned ritualistic practices that kept them separate and apart from full participation in American society, and instead preserved their attachment to Jewish life through a trilogy of family, community, and culture. In effect, these second- and third-generation American Jews had voted in favor of Jewish lives grounded in the earthly rather than the heavenly. Secularization, as Biale and others maintain, need not immediately imply a negation or rebellion against religion, but rather, a departure from it. Seen from this perspective, secularization constitutes a lifestyle that ensues from religion.35 Secular Jewish studies broaden their scope from the religious to the quotidian, ever mindful of the connection between the two. Frequently, the holy work of tikkun olam (repair of the world) binds together these two realms. Take, for example, campaigns from the organized Jewish world to preserve Jewish life both abroad and at home through institutes like the Joint Distribution Committee or Jewish Family Services. Secular in tone and devoid of overt religious pronouncements, these efforts nevertheless have upheld strong ties between Jews, and, as Biale suggests, have brought heaven down to earth, resituating the locus of Judaism.36 More recently, the dating service JDate has taken its bold assertion of Jewish confidence and celebration to the streets, catapulting Judaism into the center of American popular culture in Times Square and online with the explicit

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purpose of ensuring that “Jewish traditions are sustained for generations to come.”37 For the past one hundred years, Jewish advertising and design have upheld Jewish life in America. Brands like Manischewitz, Jewish through and through, and even Maxwell House coffee—Jewish by association only—have relied upon modern advertising, marketing, and design to connect American Jews to actual Jewish rituals and tradition. The enduring popularity of Manischewitz, Maxwell House, Streits, Hebrew National, and other brands across America speaks to the ability of these companies to reinvent themselves according to changing times, to the strength of tradition, and to the loyalty of millions of Jews to products that have become synonymous with American Judaism. Like the communal world, advertising is a valuable index of Jewish life, and must be recognized and credited for its role in sustaining Jewish life and values. To speak of American Jewish values and concerns is to call to mind a plethora of epochs, religious positions, political persuasions, and social standards—each offering a valuable entry and distinct pathway into the experiences of American Jews. This book narrows the axis of inquiry to showcase the stunning role of advertising in documenting and guiding the preferences of American Jews from the late nineteenth through early twenty-first centuries. It represents the beginning of much more substantial possibilities with respect to advertising, marketing, and design in the contouring of distinctive American Jewish identities from mainstream religious denominational perspectives, to countercultural social and political perspectives, and to everything in between. Jewish Mad Men: Advertising and the Design of the American Jewish Experience offers advertising as a new lens through which to explore some of the experiences of American Jews over the past one hundred years. These events are anchored in the illustrations, photographs, jingles, and taglines of advertising. In this age of profligate consumption and visual pollution, it is critical to scrutinize the mechanisms of advertising—itself responsible for much of the clutter and noise that floods our environment. In 1984, Apple unveiled its personal Macintosh desktop computer in a one-time, sixty-second commercial aired during the epitome of American fanfare and consumption: the Super Bowl halftime. The commercial concluded: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh, and you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like Nineteen Eighty-Four.” This book illustrates why advertising is not just advertising, but rather, a conduit of Jewish life in America. Advertising constitutes a portrait of the American Jewish experience, recording and preserving for posterity its challenges and triumphs.

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A Portrait of American Jewish Life

I

n 1775, the artist Gilbert Stuart, who would later become the leading portraitist of the federal period, depicted Sarah Rivera Lopez and Joshua, the wife and son of Aaron Lopez, a wealthy Jewish merchant. Decades later, Stuart gained acclaim for painting distinguished political figures, including presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. However, he was only twenty years old at the time of the Sarah Rivera Lopez and son portrait, and his painting therefore lacks the nuance and polish of his later works. Even if Stuart captured the likeness of their facial features and expressions, both figures lack the necessary depth to convince viewers that they are seeing lifelike representations. The anatomy of Sarah Rivera Lopez is unnaturally elongated; her shoulders are barely wider than her neck. Joshua, placed by her side, is small in stature—he appears the size of a toddler alongside his mother—although his face is that of a mature man. His hairline is even receding. Both figures are elegantly dressed and wrapped in rich fabrics. Joshua wears a waistcoat with a black tie fashioned in a bow. Sarah wears a blue-gray dress with a Portuguese lace insert to fill in an open neckline. A piece of Portuguese lace also sits atop her pile of dark hair, revealing her Sephardic heritage. Although this portrait does not number among Stuart’s most impressive display of talent, it is important because of its attention to the rank some Jews in the mercantile class achieved in colonial America. It is also important because, other than referencing lace from the Iberian Peninsula, it does not disclose evidence of the pair’s Jewish identification. Colonial Jews, in fact, began following the European tradition of recording their likeness in portraiture shortly after arrival to the American colonies in \\ 15 //

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1654. Through portraiture, successful Jews declared themselves participants within the colonial mercantile society.1 As Richard Brilliant says in Facing the New World: Jewish Portraits in Colonial and Federal America, to commission portraits, and display them in nicely furnished homes along the eastern seaboard (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston) “represented a visual claim by early American Jews to membership in the propertied class of merchant-traders, shippers, and bankers.”2 Unlike in Europe, where skilled portraitists were abundant, due to a shortage of talented local artists, compositions of Jewish notables in America often lacked both vitality and fluidity. Like the portraits of their non-Jewish compatriots, the style of portraiture and its skilled practice greatly improved over time. In addition to preserving the likeness of such eminent individuals, and those striving for greater prominence, Jewish portraiture remains valuable for detailing how American Jews began to “negotiate both sides of the hyphen.”3 From their formal arrangements, to their detailed portrayal of fashion, to their recording of social standing, these compositions provide an intriguing window into how the earliest American Jews looked, sought to appear to others, and behaved as they began to accommodate to a new world. Jewish signifiers such as yarmulkes (skullcaps worn by men) or ceremonial articles found in homes were typically omitted from these portraits, as early American Jews selected to appear like others of the overwhelmingly Protestant merchant class, identifiable by their wealth and business rather than religiosity.4 Jewish portraiture during the colonial and federal periods shows men like Benjamin S. Judah, a New York City merchant, attired in a powdered wig, the fashion of the day worn by statesmen including Washington and Jefferson. Others like Major Mordecai Myers appeared in military uniform, proudly portraying allegiance to his new country. Women likewise were outfitted in sumptuous fabrics in the fashion of the day, usually European in origin. Plunging necklines identify just how far these women had moved from the modest attire worn by the more religious. Often, the attribution of Jewishness was left solely to the name, if it wasn’t previously altered in countries like Spain where Jews were largely accepted before the Inquisition.5 Far from following a nonrepresentational tradition, as is often assumed due to the injunction of the Second Commandment against graven images, such portraits attest to the importance of representation especially within the modern Jewish world.6 These portraits take us as close as we may ever come to knowing how the earliest American Jews wanted to be seen in an era before the invention of photography. Centuries later, not only photography, but advertising could be relied

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upon to convey the more discrete elements that shaped American Jewish subjects from food to fashion, and from entertainment to their household preferences. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, advertising in papers such as the American Israelite made Jews aware of goods and services for sale, both within and outside of their communities. At the end of the century, advertising informed new immigrants how and where to acquire the provisions necessary to practice their religion, and helped them to navigate the unfamiliar social and economic terrain of a new country. Even as advertisements encouraged Jews to experience the larger world beyond their familiar communities, they remained a gauge of Jewish interests and concerns. The scholarly neglect of typically mundane newspaper advertising in the Jewish press or general press is understandable, fading in comparison to striking posters in the early century, radio announcements, mid-century billboards, and television commercials in the late twentieth century. Yet, to the extent that the influence of the Jewish press cannot be underestimated in contouring American Jewish life, neither can advertising, for advertising space funded these publications. We need only consider the authority of the Jewish Daily Forward, the most formidable Jewish journal in publication throughout the twentieth century, to underscore the persuasive power of advertising. The Forward was established in 1897 in New York by Abraham Cahan as a successor to Di Arbeter Tsaytung (The Workman’s Paper). A Yiddish-language socialist paper published daily, the Forward (known in Yiddish as the Forverts) quickly grew in circulation alongside the massive influx of Eastern European Jews to America between 1890 and 1920. Many of these immigrants entered America through Ellis Island and remained in New York on the Lower East Side, where the Forward was headquartered. Between the late twenties and early thirties, the paper became a leading metropolitan daily, with a national circulation of over 275,000.7 Although the paper was published in Yiddish, by 1925 it also had an “English Section” with articles presumably targeting younger English speakers who were reasonably well adjusted to life in America and interested in both national and international affairs. For many, especially in its first few decades, the Forward was more than a paper; it became a trusted guide and source of education and entertainment.8 Like numerous journals, the Forward remained secular in orientation; religious Jews turned elsewhere for their news. Through its stories and advertisements, the Forward introduced firstgeneration immigrants to the American way. Readers could take their family troubles to Abraham Cahan’s “Bintel Brief ” in the form of letters to the editor.

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Figure 2. Kosher for Passover Rokeach Scouring Powder advertisement, the Forward, March 18, 1925  •  Soap products often included animal fat. Here, the Jewish star and text on the packaging assure its users that the product is kosher certified. The ad further demonstrates how to use the product.  •  Forward Association.

When the paper covered news events like the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, it expressed the collective sentiments of the Jewish community of the Lower East Side with emotional headlines such as “Our Daughters in Ashes.”9 It also maintained a Gallery of Disappearing Men to assist deserted wives. The Forward understood the challenges of its readership, and it strived to help them along in their daily lives. Alongside its publication of Yiddish literature, the Forward also educated its readership by translating such classics as Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.10 Over the years, the array of articles retained relevance for both first-generation immigrants and their English-speaking children, and the paper served as an intergenerational bridge. On par with the “Bintel Brief ” in terms of influence, advertising implicitly guided readers in their adjustment process. On March 18, 1925, a Rokeach ad for scouring powder informed readers that the product was kosher for Passover, and demonstrated how to apply the substance to a scouring pad and wash the dishes (see figure 2). Yet another ad promoted Gold Dust Washing Powder and announced that it was kosher for Passover. Such ads helped make readers aware of the necessity of cleanliness and good hygiene as they

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evolved into acquiescent Americans. Other advertisements for handkerchiefs furthered the paper’s emphasis on proper comportment, as did ads that depicted dapper young men and women in the latest fashions of the day. In the spring of 1925, for example, multiple ads appeared for fashionable men’s hats. Immigrants looked to these illustrated ads for social signals and clues on how to dress, behave, and act as proper ladies and gentlemen on the streets. Often the names of products were transliterated from English to Yiddish to familiarize immigrants with the pronunciation of English, while reinforcing American brands.11 As a result of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which drastically reduced the number of Jews entering the country, along with the successful absorption of many first- and second-generation Jewish immigrants into mainstream America, the readership of the Forward started to decline following World War II. Still, between the 1950s and 1970, the paper remained a Yiddish daily; as always, advertising illustrations kept now aging immigrants up-todate on important new cleaning, hygiene, and health products like Clorox bleach, Colgate toothpaste, and Bayer aspirin, and also provided examples of contemporary fashion, while reinforcing appropriate gender roles. Though published in Yiddish, the paper included substantially more English by 1975. There was no longer a need for the paper to transliterate brand names or common English words into Yiddish because now most of its audience read and spoke English. Therefore, much of the advertising copy appeared only in that language. Photographs became more prominent in the Forward as in other mass-circulating publications. By 1975, images of typical homemakers from the fifties were being replaced by those of independent women, who could confidently make assertions such as, “I smoke for only one reason. I smoke because I enjoy it.” The feminist movement had officially found the Forward. Albeit iconic in stature, the Forward was only one of many Jewish journals that withstood the test of time during much of the twentieth century, and it remains in publication—both in print and online—still today. From Orthodox to Reform, and from the Midwest to the Southwest, surveying a selection of journals alongside their ads from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century offers a glimpse of the concerns, priorities, and pleasures of American Jews. The pages of the American Israelite, established in Cincinnati in 1854, the Los Angeles B’nai B’rith Messenger founded in 1897, along with the Texas Herald and Chicago Sentinel, established respectively in 1908 and 1911, together with the 1933 founding of the Orthodox Union, offer both a repository of the inner-dialogue of Jewish communities across the nation

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in English, while simultaneously recording ongoing dialogues between Jews and non-Jews.12 Who advertised, what was advertised, and the language used in advertising across this array of publications guided American Jews in their adaptations. While often unexceptional in appearance, the underlying meaning of ads in these journals was anything but banal. Their summative messages encouraged a Jewish/American parity early on, but later, in response to changing social and cultural trends, they highlighted the ascendance of Jewish interests. Advertisements in American Jewish journals recorded the evolving, complex social and cultural portraits of Jews across America. Be a Man on the Street and a Jew at Home: 1854–1925 When Czar Alexander II liberated the serfs in 1863, Judah Leib Gordon, a Russian Hebrew poet of the haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), believed that Russian Jewry sat on the threshold of a new era.13 Beginning in Berlin in the late eighteenth century, the haskalah followed on the heels of the Enlightenment and aspired to the rights of full citizenship for European Jews. Judah Leib Gordon’s recommendation to Jewish compatriots in his 1863 text, “Awake My People,” was “To the treasury of the state bring your strength, Take your share of its possessions, its bounty. Be a man abroad and a Jew in your tent, A brother to your countrymen and a servant to your king.” This advice relegated the particular Jewish customs to the home in an effort to fit more easily within the non-Jewish world outside. It also echoed the importance of the family home for Jewish ritual and observance, so the idea nicely accommodated religious traditions. Gordon’s words, subsequently popularized as “Be a man on the street and a Jew at home,” suggested a mode of comportment for those Jews who aspired to become citizens of Europe. They also implied a set of boundaries between the inner and outer understanding of the modern Jewish self, essentially differentiating the traditionalists from the reformers. Various reforms to Judaism inaugurated by German Jews in the early nineteenth century implicitly sanctioned Gordon’s words. And when these same Jews made their way to America in the mid-nineteenth century, many continued to follow Gordon’s platform. Ofer Shiff ’s 1995 article, “At the Crossroad between Traditionalism and Americanism: Nineteenth-Century Philanthropic Attitudes of American Jews toward Palestine,” uses philanthropic activity toward Palestine in the second half of the nineteenth century to underscore the survivalist/integrationist response pursued by American Jews. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, a German immigrant, founder of the Cincinnati

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weekly journal The Israelite in 1854 and spokesperson for American Reform Judaism, encouraged philanthropic activity toward Palestine as a pathway for American Jews to pursue their quest of normalization within American society.14 Rabbi Wise believed that philanthropic activity could solidify the American Jewish community without threatening Reform Jews’ quest for integration. By contrast, traditionalist Isaac Leeser subscribed to the theory that only selective adaptation to American life could save Judaism from extinction. Wise’s position prevailed in the end, for it avoided differentiating Jews from their non-Jewish surroundings and singling them out from mainstream America. It evolved into the integrationist response that continues to characterize much of American Jewish existence to the present.15 Perusing the pages of the earliest printed publications in Jewish America, we see how, over time, Judah Leib Gordon’s message came to life. The Israelite (renamed the American Israelite in 1874) was one of the first Jewish publications in America. The paper’s mission was to advance the principles of Reform Judaism while helping local Jews stay connected to Jewish affairs. Significantly, the paper was published in English rather than Yiddish, attesting to the integrationist agenda of its founder.16 The paper’s motto was “Let There Be Light,” referencing the idea of light as a symbol of knowledge and illumination, in addition to the religious mandate that Jews should serve as a light unto the nations. According to Leo Wise, Rabbi Wise’s son, and publisher of the paper following his father’s death in March 1900, the American Israelite recorded the growth and development of Reform Judaism in America, boasting a wide circulation beyond Ohio, especially in the West and in the South. In an era before clever copywriting or printing technology, which facilitated an integration of text and image, the advertisements resembled a classified ads section and appeared at the end of the publication. Each page of advertising was divided into four columns and each ad appeared in its own text box. The companies’ names were most often set on a separate line of text, and further highlighted through the use of bold upper-case letters. Of interest in the September 22, 1854 issue, was an ad promoting Spratt’s patent for a hermetical self-sealing can—noteworthy because the details of the information actually appeared within the outline of the form of a can, ascribing more visual attention to the ad than was customary at the time. Aside from this exception, the ads were text only. From the services of attorneys at law, to hotels and furniture stores, even though the advertisements appeared in English, the majority of them promoted services by Jews and for Jews, and featured items that ranged from the religious to the secular needs of Jewish American citizens. These pages created a space where

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Jews, for the most part, spoke between themselves, acting as a message board where they could exchange information while establishing a foundation for their lives in a new homeland. By 1902, the American Israelite assumed an anti-Zionist position out of concern that the movement might compromise the acceptance of Jews both in America and abroad. The paper devoted much of its space to the activities of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and to the Hebrew Union College, likewise founded in Cincinnati in 1875, some twenty-one years after the establishment of the American Israelite.17 Substantial changes to the advertisements occurred early in the twentieth century. New linotype and monotype printing technology facilitated typesetting, such that the length of numerous papers increased by several pages, including the American Israelite. In the early twentieth century, the four-column classified ads style of the past century was replaced by a two-column layout, with the right-hand column double the size of the left. This meant that some ads were oversized, occupying anywhere from one-quarter to a half page. As the length of the paper grew, so too did opportunities for advertising revenue. By 1907 the advertisements were often accompanied by visual illustrations, and occasionally, even photographs, attesting to advancements in visual reproduction, such as new photogravure and halftone technology. New reproduction technology resulted in a greater spectrum of advertisements. In the spring issues of 1907, advertisements for matzos appeared alongside advertisements that referenced Easter, due to the approaching Passover and Easter holidays. For example, in March 1907, the Mabley and Carew Co.’s ad for “Women’s Smart Easter Suits” appeared on the same page as Browning, King, & Co.’s ad for hats, shirts, neckwear, and gloves, informing the reader of the availability of these goods from “now until Easter.” No longer were Jews speaking strictly between themselves in the advertising pages of the paper. These early Easter advertisements corroborate how a hearty assimilationist project was presented to ambitious Jews ready to immerse themselves in the modern, non-Jewish world. The American Israelite was not alone in its inclusion of advertisements associated with a gentile lifestyle. The completion of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885 ignited a land boom in Southern California. With a Jewish population in the range of 2,500, the Los Angeles–based B’nai B’rith Messenger was established as a Jewish weekly in 1897 by Lionel L. Edwards with Victor Harris as its editor. The journal’s masthead distinguished it as the “oldest Jewish newspaper in Southern California.” From its origins, the B’nai B’rith Messenger encouraged a path of both Jewish and universal fraternization, and this

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becomes apparent in an early review of both the content of its articles and advertisements. Like the American Israelite, the B’nai B’rith Messenger promoted Easter shirts and perfumes. In 1898, Murray M. Harris placed a large illustrated ad in the paper for church, chapel, and parlor pipe organs. The ad featured a reproduction of the organ used in the Los Angeles B’nai B’rith temple. Despite the prominence of the organ—an insignia of Christian musical liturgy—assorted Judaica including a menorah, a Jewish star inscribed on the pulpit located in front of the organ, and Kiddush cups placed on top of the pulpit identified this as a Jewish locus.18 Not only did Jews adapt outwardly on the street, but also within their sacred spaces, as Reform Judaism appropriated the musical liturgy of Christian worship.19 Unlike the early classified ads of the American Israelite, the advertisements in the May 27, 1898 B’nai B’rith Messenger made readers aware of the plethora of goods and services available in and immediately outside Los Angeles, from Redlands oranges to tents and camp furnishings, and from the Southern Pacific railcars to Mexican wax figures. By 1920, the Jewish population swelled to some 20,000—many of whom came to the city in pursuit of employment opportunities, especially in the developing garment and sportswear industries and the new motion picture industry.20 Consequently, many of the dry goods and ready-to-wear advertisements were associated with Jewish businesses. If the advertisements portrayed the outward interests and integrationist impulses of America’s Reform Jews, the content of the feature articles revealed the readership’s priorities as Jews. On October 7, 1898, following the Yom Kippur holiday, the paper published a sermon that expressed concern about the danger of total absorption into the “immense concourse of nations with whom they mingle.” The rabbi beseeched readers to preserve two words, “Evree onochee”—“I am a Hebrew—especially during a moment when “the wealthier classes, while taking delight in entertaining those whom they consider their equal in social standing, disdain to admit into their circle those whom they look upon as their inferiors; much less those who were not lucky enough to become fortune’s favorites. By such procedure, the very foundation of our religion is undermined; a religion which teaches us first and foremost to befriend the poor and the stranger, and to consider all God’s children as equals.” He reminded B’nai B’rith Messenger readers of their imperative as Jews to “befriend the poor and the stranger” as they realized their mandate to serve as a light unto all nations. The content of such articles, unlike the ads, anchored Jewish moral and ethical responsibilities, impervious to the seductive social world on the streets. For example, in the late 1890s, the paper

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began to follow the ordeal of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a soldier in the French army who was wrongfully accused of providing secret information to the German government. Despite his claims of innocence, Dreyfus was found guilty in a secret military court-martial, stripped of his rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The famed French writer Émile Zola came to his defense with a “J’Accuse” to those who framed the young captain.21 Madame Dreyfus’s illustrated image appeared repeatedly over the course of the year between 1898 and 1899, indicating the preoccupation of Jews in America with this case. Even though the Jews of France had been emancipated 100 years earlier, the Dreyfus Affair reminded Jews worldwide that they could not afford to become complacent due to continued overt and latent anti-Semitism, and of their imperative of mutual responsibility. By 1900, the B’nai B’rith Messenger had grown to a fifteen-page weekly journal. Unlike preceding years, the advertisements were now fully integrated and displayed throughout the paper. Also, by this time, patent medicine advertisements, which accounted for the majority of advertising space in non-Jewish publications, had found their way into the pages of the B’nai B’rith Messenger. “Educate your bowels!” ordered Cascarets “candy cathartic,” which took out a nearly full-page ad in the March 23, 1900, issue, offering readers the fantasy of overcoming undue suffering from bowel troubles (see figure 3). Accompanying the ad copy was the illustration of a gentleman attired in a three-piece suit, bowler hat, cravat, and spats. His distended belly depicted a gastrointestinal response familiar to the lactose intolerant, especially Ashkenazi Jews. Prevalent but not limited to Jews, lactose intolerance became common among cultures late to incorporate dairy products into their diets, including many Africans and Asians, in addition to European Jews. The ad depicts a mature subject, as lactose intolerance increases with the onset of time, when production of the lactase enzyme responsible for breaking down the lactose sugar found in milk decreases.22 The visual exaggeration of the ad helped Cascarets reassure readers that their product could provide relief. Despite the visual humor, this condition was no laughing matter at a time when newly settled Jews attempted to blend in as gentlemen on the streets. The fluid form of the logo referenced the then popular Art Nouveau design style. Likewise, Syrup of Figs, a patent medicine (most probably akin to prune juice) that acted “gently on the kidneys, liver, and bowels” to cleanse the system to overcome “habitual constipation,” and “effectually, dispel colds, headaches, & fevers” also borrowed the organic forms of Art Nouveau for its logotype (see figure 4). From Easter shirts and pipe organs, to patent medicine remedies, these ads opened a window for Jews onto the streets, both en-

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Figure 4. Syrup of Figs patent medicine ad, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, 1900  •  Typical of patent medicines, Syrup of Figs positioned itself through advertising as a cure-all that “acts gently on the kidneys, liver, and bowels and cleanses the system,” while dispelling colds, headaches, and fevers.

Figure 3. Ad for Cascarets patent medicine, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 23, 1900  •  Before the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, patent medicines readily made outlandish claims about their healing abilities. In this ad, prospective customers are encouraged to “Educate their bowels,” and prevent other serious disorders through the use of Cascarets Candy Cathartic.

couraging the consumption of non-Jewish products, and gravitation toward the non-Jewish world outside. By the time the Chicago Sentinel was founded in 1911, Chicago had become home to numerous German Jews who immigrated to America from Europe in the 1840s and 1850s. Starting out as peddlers and small shop owners, many went on to establish national companies, including Florsheim Shoes, Hart Shaffner and Marx, and Sears, Roebuck, & Company. Numerous German Jews arrived in America with a solid secular education, unlike more traditional Eastern European Jews, who in the early twentieth century lived apart from the German Jews and supported their

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own institutions. German Jews demonstrated the potential of Jewish immigrants to harness the opportunities in this new industrial mecca. Many felt ashamed of the traditionalist orientation of Eastern European newcomers, who had arrived in large numbers between 1880 and 1924, and feared being classified with them by the broader society. From its Art Nouveau masthead, to its interest in high society, to its proud proclamation as “A Weekly Newspaper Devoted to Jewish Interests Published Every Saturday,” the Chicago Sentinel targeted an “enlightened and progressive” Jewish public. In an editorial in its first issue on February 4, 1911, Rabbi Abraham Hirschberg shared the Sentinel’s goal to “appeal to a large clientele of readers who, they are convinced, are deeply concerned about the future of our religion and who, they are sure, welcome a sturdy opponent of tendencies that are now strongly manifesting themselves and threatening to make Judaism an insipid and spineless religion.” This disapproving statement became clearer three years later in an editorial in the March 23, 1914, issue of the Daily Jewish Courier. “A Novelty in the Anglo-Jewish Newspaper World,” read the title of the article, which captured Hirschberg’s anomalous position vis-à-vis traditional Judaism and Zionism. The article explained that Anglo-Jewish papers are largely organs of the editors, most of whom are rabbis. It noted, however, that, “The Sentinel is distinguished from all other newspapers because its editorials . . . are rather diametrically opposed to the views of the editor,” and that Rabbi Abraham Hirschberg is a Jew who “believes that every Jew who is a Zionist ought to be deported from America. Yet the Sentinel is adorned with the Star of David and its associate editors are constantly disseminating the principles of Zionism.”23 The anti-Zionist position of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise’s American Israelite appeared mild alongside Rabbi Hirschberg’s hardcore stance on “dual loyalty” to America and the Jewish state. Endeavoring to reach a broad audience, the Sentinel turned away from tradition and toward a bright future of American Jewish integration. With such titles as “The Emancipated Jew,” “The Chicago Hebrew Institute—And the Creating of Good American Citizens,” and “What Influence Will the Jews Have Upon America?” the Sentinel, though claiming not to be a political journal, clearly revealed its acculturationist objectives:24 “In the United States the Jew has found the land for which he was looking during his pilgrimages for ages. There is here no right or privilege that is accorded to others and withheld from him. Nothing inimical to his interests can be done under the law, but must be done, if at all, in defiance of it. . . .The United States has . . . afforded him a home—one of the very few—in which oppression for religion’s sake is entirely unknown. . . .”25 The Sentinel mounted its case for the

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imperative of integration in a country where religious oppression was unknown, lest the Jews lose the privileges afforded them in this land of opportunity. Columns such as “Woman and Her Club,” “As the World Moves,” and “Plays and Players,” along with a “Society” section, underscored the pleasures available to Jews in America, and offered a snapshot of the upwardly mobile concerns of many Chicago Jews. Between February and April 1911, the advertisements ranged from automobiles to diamonds, and from tailored clothing to voice training for the stage, consistent with the cosmopolitan interests of the publication and its readership. Significantly, the ads did not include any references to the Passover holiday. However, more than one advertisement in the March 25, 1911, issue alone promoted the work of funeral directors who were licensed embalmers—in spite of the fact that embalming is not customary within Jewish burial practices. The columns and concerns detailed in the pages of the Sentinel, along with advertisements that represented largely nonJewish interests, painted the portrait of a transforming American Jew. In spite of such assimilationist tendencies, Chicago’s Reform Jews still wrestled with the preservation of Jewish integrity, evidenced by a September 1911 article titled, “Preservation vs. Intermarriage.” Here author Meyer A. Novick revealed the obstacles posed to young Jewish men in the West and South due to the paucity of “marriageable girls” in these parts of the country. Novick recognized the challenges of intermarriage to Jewish continuity over the course of Jewish history. He reminded his readers that intermarriage was “the greatest destructive agency of Judaism” and that the best means to combat the threat of intermarriage was to “awaken the Jewish consciousness in the individual Jew . . . to raise the curtain of his glorious history and unfold the marvelous drama of his race. Undoubtedly the tableaux will elicit his applause—nay, his heart will receive a new impulse; his atrophied Jewish veins re-vivified by a fresh current of Jewish blood, and his whole constitution reanimated with the zeal, fervor and patriotism that has characterized the lives of our martyred forefathers!”26 This message to “re-vivify” Jewish blood did not cross over into the advertisements. Unlike the nondenominational or secular products and services promoted through advertising meant to draw the Jews out into the broader community, these discussions aimed to retain Jewish insularity. Changes to the cover pages of the B’nai B’rith Messenger and the Chicago Sentinel in 1925 signaled both the professionalization of the journals and a more universalistic orientation. For example, though still retaining the Star of David within its logo, the Sentinel shifted from its earlier Art Nouveau– inspired illustration and masthead to more reductive concentric rectangles,

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recalling the emerging moderne or Art Deco style. The B’nai B’rith Messenger adopted classical columns with scrolled finishes on top in its March 6, 1925, cover, implying its own longevity, as suggested in the feature article, “After Twenty-eight Years.” With an emphasis on appearance, food, and entertainment, both publications assumed an upwardly mobile readership, sympathetic to life outside the Jewish community. Significantly though, in the weeks leading up to Passover in 1925, both Reform journals temporarily resolved the more customary disparity between their advertising and editorial content. Jewish food manufacturers like Manischewitz placed advertisements for matzo and matzo derivatives such as matzo meal and matzo farfel. Camp Modin, a boys’ summer camp in Maine, solicited springtime readers of the Sentinel with an advertisement whose headline read, “Is Your Boy a Jew in the Summer?” ironically suggesting that Judaism should not be a seasonal occupation. Occasional ads for kosher restaurants appeared during the fall and spring seasons in the B’nai B’rith Messenger. A dry goods store also took out a print-only ad with the headline, “Passover Is Coming—How Will You Receive It?” encouraging readers to consider the purchase of an extra set of Community Plate dishes or Oneida table silver, to “add immeasurable charm to your Passover table and greatly enhance the wholesome ‘home-sweet-home’ spirit in your family throughout the years.” Even if home-sweet-home conjured visions of an American pastoral setting of Protestant heritage, “spirit in your family” invoked the idea of Jewish tradition. Then as now, both the High Holidays and Passover presented timely opportunities for businesses to capitalize on the heightened Jewish preoccupations of readers and consumers. During these two peak moments in the Jewish calendar, the boundary between the ads and articles temporarily dissolved. Despite the overtly Jewish concerns of the feature articles of the April 10, 1925, B’nai B’rith Messenger Passover issue, and the inclusion of some Jewishoriented ads, the largest ad of the week purchased by Coulter Dry Goods, nearly a half page in size, read, “For a Man’s Easter Wearing” (see figure 5). The ad did not exclude women. It also announced the sale of “Exquisite Perfumes for Easter Gifts or Personal Use.” The bottom section of the advertisement informed readers that the store was open all day Saturday. Clearly this was not meant for observant Jews who would otherwise be occupied in shul (synagogue) on the Sabbath. Even near Passover—a season of heightened Jewish participation and material consumption—ads promoting overtly Jewish brands and goods still remained scattered among the more predominant generic ads for spring frocks, hair and beauty, jewelry, appliances, and sur-

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Figure 5. “For a Man’s Easter Wearing,” Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, April 10, 1925  •  Coulter Dry Goods’ placement of an ad for men’s Easter attire and perfumes for Easter gifts in the B’nai B’rith Messenger during the Passover season demonstrated the seductive pull of the larger marketplace upon Jews. Its announcement that Coulter Dry Goods remained open all day Saturday disregarded observance of the Sabbath.

prisingly, even products for Easter. The relationship of advertising to editorial content mirrored the behavior of Jews on the street and at home. Indeed, from the late nineteenth century to 1925, the pages of the American Israelite, the B’nai B’rith Messenger, and the Chicago Sentinel outlined a stimulating relationship between the external and internal dimensions of American Jewish life. The seductive, secular world outside used advertisements to vie for Jewish consideration and dollars, while specifically Jewish feature articles equally struggled for the attention of readers and the retention of Jewish values. Reconstructionism and Civil Religion: 1933–1965 Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan captured the ambivalence of many American Jews in the August 4, 1920, issue of the Menorah Journal: “Judaism under democratic conditions such as obtain in this country has thus far not been able to develop that vitality which could endow it with creative power and make it capable of sustained effort and adaptability.”27 Neither Orthodoxy with its traditional emphasis nor Reform Judaism, which to Kaplan’s mind, would inevitably lead to the complete disappearance of Jewish life, given its dilution and negation of Judaism, could mend the fissures of Jewish life in America. Kaplan was influenced by the philosophies of Emile Durkheim, Simon Dubnow, and Ahad Ha’am. His program to reconstitute Judaism underscored the

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importance of group cohesion for religious survival and the value of Jewish life in the Diaspora—albeit enriched and illuminated by the vitality of Israel. Kaplan’s volume, Judaism as a Civilization (1934), detailed his vision for a revitalized Jewish religion, one that regarded Judaism as more of a civilization, encompassing “language, folkways, patterns of social organization, social habits and standards, and spiritual ideals.”28 Although Reconstructionism, as Kaplan named his movement, never caught on to challenge the established Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jewish denominations in America, the idea of a peoplehood became critical to American-Jewish self-understanding between the 1930s and the 1970s. The concept of a Jewish peoplehood especially satisfied the integrationist agenda of second-generation American Jews whose lives straddled the social world of the non-Jewish majority and the ritual realm of the Jewish minority. Outwardly identifying with a people rather than a religion downplayed Jewish difference in a pluralistic nation.29 The spirit of reconstituting Judaism as more a communal, ethnic, and cultural identity offered a viable strategy for American Jews to retain their ties to religion while making professional inroads in America. In fact, as American Jews grew increasingly aware that even non-German Jews were threatened by Nazism, they rebounded by strengthening their ties to community life. Because Reconstructionism emphasized peoplehood rather than religion, it enabled American Jews to become better equipped to battle the forces of intolerance, malice, and hatred flamed by the Nazis, both domestically and in Europe. This seemed a reasonable strategy given the volatility of the 1930s.30 At the same time that Kaplan recognized the necessity of adapting Judaism to the modern world, the advertising industry also made adaptations and devised new strategies to reach consumers facing economic challenges during the Depression years. Business as usual was no longer an option. In the 1920s, the advertising industry focused on inculcating a “consumption ethic” in consumers, converting their purchasing patterns from function and utility to fashion and convenience. New methods were required in the 1930s, however, to garner the trust of a public writhing from the effects of a damaged economy. Advertisements in Jewish journals began to demonstrate a sensitivity to cost, as they did in more mainstream publications. But that was not all. The savvy industry established innovative methods to exploit the instability the public already felt, including using children to increase the insecurity parents—especially mothers—experienced at a time when many were challenged to provide for them. The “parable of the captivated child,” designated by the advertising historian Roland Marchand especially emphasized the responsibility of mothers to protect their children’s health. “Healthy” children

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would appear in advertising as attentive and engaged, because they were well nourished and cared for, whereas “unhealthy” children might appear distracted—too sad or hungry to focus. During this time of scarcity and instability, first impressions became more important than ever. The “captivated child” reflected favorably on both the social status and parenting abilities of the mother, while the unfocused child reflected poorly.31 Take, for example, the advertisement for a gas water heater appearing in the July 27, 1933, issue of the American Israelite (see figure 6). The headline announces, “Gas for Jimmy Reed’s Bath Costs Only a Half a Cent.” The body copy states, “It would seem to me that any mother with small children would have a difficult time in getting

Figure 6. Advertisement for a gas water heater, Cincinnati, the American Israelite, July 27, 1933  •  This gas and electric company ad uses the familiar doting mother-and-adoring-child motif as a clear reminder of the imperative for parents to oversee the well-being of their children. This expectation was especially challenging during the trying years of the Depression.

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Figure 7. Crisco shortening New Year’s greeting, the American Israelite, September 21, 1933  •  During the Depression, comic strip ads provided a cheap means of entertainment, and like the gas water heater ad, often heightened insecurities Americans already felt. Here, the (Jewish) mother-in-law introduces Crisco shortening as a more easily digestible product to an impressionable young bride.

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along without an automatic gas water heater. This is especially so as they seem to cost so little to use.” The implication was clear: devoted parents would know that meeting children’s physical needs would have to take precedence over all else even during difficult economic times. Little Jimmy Reed directs his expression of complete satisfaction toward his mother from the comfort of his warm bathtub. In the context of the American Israelite, little Jimmy Reed could have been a stand-in for little Lenny Cohen, and the sheltering instincts of the attentive mother would have certainly struck a sympathetic chord with doting Jewish mothers, who, since the days of shtetl (ghetto) life in Eastern Europe, endeavored to wrap their children in layers of protection against the harsh realities outside. Numerous brands, like Crisco—a kosher vegetable shortening—also made flagrant appeals to price, using the comic strip and speech balloons to satisfy the public’s preference for sensational tabloid layouts, which both entertained and alarmed beleaguered consumers.32 Advertising, like salespeople, had to work harder now to arrest the public’s attention and make a sale. Marchand claims that, “From no other source did people receive such frequent reminders that other people were constantly sizing them up and whispering about them behind their backs, or that they had so many reasons to feel a sense of shame.”33 Crisco’s three-box comic strip in the September 21, 1933, American Israelite aptly illustrates this assertion, along with ingrained gender stereotypes about gossipy and naïve women (see figure 7). Sue overhears a couple of catty women critiquing her cooking and the fact that her bridegroom must live on soda mints to soothe his troubled stomach. She consults her (all-knowing Jewish) mother-in-law who advises the new wife that she need only turn to Crisco—a much lighter and more digestible cooking fat. One month later, Sue’s hus-

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band marvels that he no longer needs to take soda mints, and that the young bride has become quite a good cook. Thanks to Crisco, Sue acknowledges that she has grown wiser. Indeed, comics and conversational selling reinforced a sense of Depression-era resolve; advertising was prepared to become more “undignified” so long as copy could be converted into sales.34 Even as references to “Christmas specials” and “Easter sales” continued to appear among the American Israelite advertisements, the editorial content during the 1930s still reflected Jewish concerns—especially persecution abroad. Unlike earlier, however, many articles called for the community to come together to fight slurs on Jews both at home and overseas. The cover page of the April 27, 1935, B’nai B’rith Messenger announced “the New Policy to Expel All Jews from Naziland,” while American Jewish leaders declared their support of the American boycott of German merchandise and organized the United Welfare Fund. Despite the mounting apprehensions of American Jews during the 1930s, advertising in the B’nai B’rith Messenger continued to tout a more universalistic orientation, at times even sending mixed messages from a Jewish perspective. For example, Dolly Madison cakes and Helms Olympic bread advertisements appeared alongside the numerous Passover greetings from local businesses to Southern California Jewry—this at a time when the consumption of bread was forbidden. The spirit of conservation and unity likewise touched the southern Jews in the 1930s. The Texas Jewish Herald became the first Jewish subscription weekly newspaper.35 It was founded in 1908 by Edgar Goldberg as an “AngloJewish paper, which would chronicle the news affecting the Jews of Texas.” The rise of major industrial, commercial, and shipping enterprises, along with the discovery of oil after World War I, attracted many Jews to the areas of Beaumont, Houston, Dallas, and such non-Jewish sounding towns as Corpus Christi. It therefore followed that various oil corporations, including Gulf and Texaco Motor Oil, expressed New Year’s greetings to the readership of the Texas Jewish Herald in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah in September 1936. With subtitles proclaiming, it’s “Kept in Step with the Calendar, All of It Goes to Work—None of It Goes to Waste,” and “Still Only 25 Cents a Quart,” both companies acknowledged the difficult economic times. The fact that Miller’s Inn advertised two large iced crabs—what those who observed the laws of kashrut (adherence to dietary restrictions in accordance with Jewish law) would consider tref (forbidden foods)—for only twenty-five cents expressed the common Depression-era concern with price and reflected the assimilating tendencies of second-generation American Jews. Other advertisements carefully acknowledged the Jewish agenda of assimilation within

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broader society. The Foley Bros. Department store promoted its “New Fashions for the New Season,” an insider’s euphemism for the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Referencing southern hospitality and charm, Metzger’s Milk took out about a quarter-page ad with the headline, “You Don’t Have to Dress Formally to Be a Gentleman: The Snow-White Milkmen Always Smile and Are Always Gentlemen.” Although many of the advertisements signaled Jewish interest in the broader Texan culture, the editorial content remained dedicated to the particular concerns of Jews, in line with other journals around the country. Articles especially encouraged the importance of Jewish unity for the purposes of security against Hitler and American anti-Semites like Father Charles Coughlin. Only in the Orthodox Union was there a direct correspondence between the editorial content and the advertisements. This English-language monthly publication was started in 1933 by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America in New York City. Committed to the goals of unifying, representing, and strengthening traditional Jewry, the Orthodox Union aimed to preserve a more insular Jewish lifestyle, since many Orthodox rabbis discouraged Americanization. The bulk of the advertising in the 1930s was for kosher food products. Macy’s department store capitalized upon this trend with its “Macy’s for Passover Foods” full-page ad. It invited readers to the store to visit their Seder table and informed them of the availability of approved and imported foods for Passover, “chosen in strict accord with Hebraic tradition and dietary laws.” The ad pictured fine china, silver-plated flatware, and a cut-crystal decanter—all intended to beautify the Seder table. No euphemisms or references to Easter here; in the Orthodox Union journal the ads were specifically designed to cater to the unassimilated. Compared to the indirect references in the American Israelite’s and the Texas Jewish Herald’s ads, which alluded to the compatibility of American and Jewish life to appease assimilating Jews in the Midwest and South, the Orthodox Union reflected a portrait of Jewish affiliation that was not frayed by a vision of American adaptation. Aside from the Orthodox, for whom ritual and the observance of hundreds of mitzvot (commandments) rigidly structured life irrespective of their geographical position, participation in Jewish causes and organizations—Jewish group life—became the compelling force for the majority of American Jews by the middle of the twentieth century. As Jonathan Woocher expresses in Sacred Survival, “American Jews began to create an American Jewish polity, a matrix of voluntary associations and organizations which

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carry out functions of communitywide concern. . . . The development of a Jewish civil sphere, institutionally distinct from (though not in opposition to) the domain of religious activities conducted by the synagogues and rabbinic leadership, constituted a critical point of departure for the development of something else: an American Jewish civil religion.”36 The practice of civil religion enabled Jews to at once maintain their ties to Jewish group life and charity organizations, while accommodating total immersion in American society. Civil religion also exchanged the practice of Jewish rituals with the “pursuit of social justice.”37 Regardless of the different orientations and social concerns of Chicago’s Reform Jews versus the Reform Jews of Texas, Jewish group life became more important than ever during the 1940s, first to rage against Hitler and his objective to exterminate their co-religionists abroad, and then to look toward a Jewish future in Palestine. “Devoted to Unity in Jewish Life” read the subtitle of the Sentinel in April 1945. While the usual small text ads for everything from jewelry to pastry shops still dotted its pages, the weekly paper contained multiple one-quarter to nearly full-page ads encouraging its readers to buy war bonds to ensure peace in the future. The relationship between ancient persecution and the feast of Passover and freedom and peace in the modern world reminded Jews of the importance of supporting the president and the American government during the final days of the war. American Jewish civil religion not only offered a model of Jewish practice that synthesized both ethnicity and religion, but also positioned these “firmly within the embrace of American pluralism.”38 More importantly, American Jewish civil religion enabled Americans to connect to the “totality” of the Jewish people, providing American Jews with a raison d’être by “holding out to them a vision of Jewish destiny and mission in which they have a central role to fill.”39 Each week, the Sentinel covers in April 1945, featuring everything from a portrait of Franklin Roosevelt to a silhouette bust of the Statue of Liberty surrounded by smaller illustration busts of men and women in the armed forces, reflected the parity between Jewish group life and Jewish involvement in American society. The Texas Jewish Herald, now renamed the Jewish Herald Voice, received numerous congratulatory notices and Passover greetings from its advertisers. In addition to the Manischewitz matzo ads that one would expect to see, ads supporting the armed forces, the Red Cross, and war bonds also appeared.40 The cover illustration of the 39th Anniversary–Passover Edition pictured a little boy alongside his mother, wrapped in a shawl with arms extended in

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appeal to American Jews (see figure 8). The extension of the mother’s arms curiously creates the configuration of a cross, analogizing this mother-son image to that of the Madonna and Child. Enveloped in her shawl, the female figure is easily likened to a biblical subject; it would be hard for the viewer to miss the parallel drawn between the Passover story from the biblical past and the tragedy to European Jews unfolding in the present. An article from this issue titled, “Passover—A Festival of the Past and Future,” reinforced the connection. Confronting viewers with penetrating expressions of concern, this crude illustration swept them into the predicament of dire need faced by Holocaust survivors. Thin, but not emaciated, the illustrated figures ultimately offered a sense of hope, so long as these emblematic figures were the recipients of American dollars. The Southwest Council of Federations and Welfare Funds of Fort Worth reminded the Jews of Texas in a full-page ad: “In this Year of 1945 . . . We, in the United States, Must Be Our Brothers’ Keeper. It is for us to bring rescue, relief, rehabilitation, and resettlement to the Jews of Europe. It is for us to make local, regional, and national calls for assistance and maintenance of existing institutions and organizations.” An ad also encouraged readers to join a Zionist organization with the featured headline, “On the Passover Is Propounded Four Questions: As Americans you can answer these four double questions.” The final question was posed as a challenge to American Jews: “Shall we, as Americans, believers in democracy and democratic action, true Jews, aid these brethren of ours to receive the blessings which a true homeland can give them?” The ad answered itself boldly exclaiming in upper-case letters, “WE CANNOT SEND THEM BACK TO THE HORRIBLE SCENES OF DESOLATION, OF MURDER, OF RAPE, OF DYING HOPES. GIVE THEM A CHANCE FOR LIFE, FOR HOPE—A CHANCE TO HOLD THEIR HEADS HIGH—A FREE PEOPLE IN A LAND OF THEIR OWN!” The United Nations voted in 1948 to establish Israel as a Jewish state and the rescue, relief, and rehabilitation of Jews outside of North America continued to occupy the energy of American Jews throughout the 1950s. Accordingly, publications from Jewish Life (formerly Orthodox Union) to Reform journals like the American Israelite and the B’nai B’rith Messenger included both articles and ads promoting support of Jewish refugees to Israel. Multiple covers of Orthodox Jewish Life in the 1950s featured photographs of exotic Jewish welfare recipients who were able to find a safe haven in Israel thanks to the support of American Jews. Alongside ads and articles encouraging participation in the United Jewish Appeal’s efforts to provide relief and rehabilitation to Jewish refugees in Israel, numerous ads promoted travel to Israel by steamer or by El Al airlines.

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Figure 8. Cover of the Jewish Herald-Voice, Houston, April 11, 1945  •  The extension of the mother’s arms in this cover illustration creates the configuration of a cross, analogizing this mother-son image to the Madonna and Child. The parallel drawn between the Passover story and the tragedy to European Jews unfolding in the present swept viewers into the predicament of dire need faced by Holocaust survivors.

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Advertisements with headlines like, “This Passover You Have a Choice of 5 Great Carmel Wines from Israel,” began to announce and encourage the consumption of Israeli products by the American Jewish public. By 1955, all of the publications had grown more illustrative, as with print media in general. Advertising continued to shape contemporary attitudes toward gender in ads ranging from General Electric to hygiene products. A full-page ad for the General Electric plant in Evendale from the March 3, 1955, issue of the American Israelite juxtaposes an illustration of a stylish young woman with the headline, “But I’m not on G.E.’s payroll” (see figure 9) The woman is working behind a counter top, which displays a hand-held mirror, various hand and body creams, and nail adhesives. The fine print of the ad informs that even though this attractive woman is not on G.E.’s payroll, the annual payroll at G.E. in Evendale is “the major source of jobs for thousands of Greater Cincinnatians

Figure 9. General Electric advertisement, Cincinnati, the American Israelite, March 3, 1955  •  “But I’m not on G.E.’s payroll” announces the headline of this General Electric advertisement to demonstrate the influence of G.E. as it powers numerous local businesses. The ad reinforces stereotypical gender associations, featuring the attractive saleswoman with an assortment of beauty products.

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in dozens of local businesses,” including jobs in retailing and personal services in department stores. The ad’s premise depends upon using the most unlikely subject one might associate with an electric company—in this case a young, fashionable, and modern woman—in order to demonstrate the far-reaching influence of the G.E. company. Advertisements like this reinforced contemporary values and attitudes, and in so doing, also reinforced the equivalence between Jews and the broader society. Playing upon the Jewish presence in the Los Angeles entertainment industry, Colgate-Palmolive took out a single page ad in the August 12, 1955, issue of the B’nai B’rith Messenger encouraging women to “Be a Star Housewife.” More specifically, she should be a Jewish star housewife, seeing as how the copy appeared in the outline of a Jewish star—by using Colgate-Palmolive’s kosher and parve cleaning products. Likewise, a half-page Wish-Bone Italian salad dressing ad in the September-October 1955, issue of Jewish Life, portrayed a charming animated illustration of a mother serving a tossed salad to her husband and young boy. Both eagerly extend their hands and plates in their excitement to eat. However, even as the pages of the journals became filled with advertisements using more illustrations and some photography, women did not frequently appear. When they did, or even when they were referenced (as in the B’nai B’rith Messenger “Jewish” star example), the attention paid to them highlighted their responsibilities as housewives, or in the case of the General Electric ad, tied them to the realm of beauty and as a foil for General Electric’s more serious statement, “Progress Is Our Most Important Product.” Advertising proved itself an effective instrument of American Jewish civil religion during the 1950s in the pages of Reform Jewish journals from the East to the Southwest. Situating Jewish difference within the spectrum of American pluralism, advertising alluded to how American Jews could simultaneously remain steadfast members of an ancient people and tradition while fully participating in America’s open society.41 Whether advertising Buster Brown shoes for the Easter Parade, an event popularized in song by the Jewish Irving Berlin, back-to-school ads during the fall in the American Israelite, or Baird’s bread in the Passover issue of the Jewish Herald Voice, advertising established the compatibility between American and Jewish priorities. In earlier decades, the separation of advertisements and feature articles paralleled the split between Jewish inward and outward goals. Now the integration of advertising with the placement of editorial articles was symbolic of a more seamless construction of Jewish self-understanding encouraged by the practice of an American Jewish civil religion.

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In the early twentieth century through the 1930s, the editorial content of articles focused primarily on Jewish concerns such as the retention of tradition or on Jewish persecution in Europe. By the 1960s, however, many articles referenced more general apprehensions, in deference to American Jewish civil religion—the practice of Judaism through commitment to an agenda of social action and welfare. From Orthodox to Reform, universal causes such as civil rights, world peace, and engagement in Vietnam captured the American Jewish agenda during the 1950s and into the 1960s.42 Exodus, the 1960 film adaptation of Leon Uris’s bestselling novel, reverberated throughout the organized American Jewish community in campaigns to continue the accommodation of the more than one million immigrants who entered Israel since the end of the 1940s. In the 1965 fifty-sixth anniversary Passover issue of the Jewish Herald Voice, the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) encouraged Houston Jews to view Let My People Go, a television presentation of the story of Jewish emigration to Israel. Houston Jews were prompted to join the Zionist Organization of America in order to support the state of Israel, while “identifying themselves with the Jewish community of America.” With the establishment of the state of Israel still foremost on the minds of American Jews, Passover presented an opportune moment to highlight the prescient connection between the ancient and modern-day exodus. Also present on the minds of Jews across denominations was America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. In September 1965, the Jewish Herald Voice published a series of articles examining the complexities of the war. It likened the then current controversy to other pivotal conflicts, including the war fought by the Maccabees against the Greeks over the preservation of Judaic religious tradition. The tone of the series was pro-American military policy in Vietnam: “Some of our citizens have been openly critical of our action in Vietnam. This is their privilege. We all have that right to criticize but when some of them term the men in uniform as “killers” and label them as monsters they are maligning as fine a group of men as has represented the American ideal in this or any other century. They are doing their duty and perhaps liking it no more than some of their critics—but they are in the front lines fighting for what they know to be a just cause.”43 The 1965 Rosh Hashanah edition of the Jewish Herald Voice included an article titled, “How The U.S. Military Encourages Jewish Learning.” It explained how Jewish chaplains in the armed forces were able to successfully develop “Torah Convocations” devoted to specific Jewish themes and emphasize positive Jewish values. Concerns about civil rights and Soviet Jewry were also voiced in the Orthodox publication Jewish Life, in articles such

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as “Breathing Freedom in Mississippi” and a symposium on “The Plight of Soviet Jewry: How Shall We Respond?” According to Jonathan Sarna, “The plight of Soviet Jews came to be seen as a Jewish civil rights struggle, parallel to the black struggle for freedom in the United States.”44 Indeed, the theme of civil rights, social justice, and responsibility ran throughout all of the publications, as evidenced by the same March 1965 UJA ad featured in both the American Israelite and B’nai B’rith Messenger papers. Titled “Saving lives— still our Goal,” the ad encouraged American Jews to “Underwrite Jewish Survival All Over the World” by donating money that would “make it possible to bring more immigrants to Israel” (see figure 10). This ad truly visualized a modern-day exodus made possible by the American-Jewish philanthropic lifeline. It framed the side of the airplane and the staircase descended by the

Figure 10. “Saving lives—still our Goal,” Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 26, 1965  •  The Passover season presented an opportune moment to visualize the modernday redemption of immigrants in Israel. Establishment of the Jewish state underscored the importance of Jewish peoplehood, and for American Jews, secured their importance as the funders of a philanthropic lifeline.

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emigrants as they took their first steps into the Jewish homeland. Nearly one hundred years later, these UJA ads confirmed Isaac Mayer Wise’s conviction that philanthropic activity could strengthen American Jewish solidarity, yet not interfere with their quest for integration in America. The Jewish Reawakening and Continuity: 1967–1995 In the immediate post–World War II years, some Jews promoted an agenda of group social action as a response to latent anti-Semitism and discrimination within America. Over the next few decades, however, many from the outposts to the center of the organized Jewish community would be struck by a renewal to Jewish life. Although this revitalization of religion was not unique to Jews, coupled with “the general mood of social activism, and the reawakened ethnic consciousness of many groups,” it did play a role in sustaining “a Jewish resurgence in the late sixties.”45 But, especially following Israel’s Six Day War in 1967 against its Arab neighbors, including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, Jews in America became more self-confident and strident in their Jewishness. For many, Israel’s victory intensified the American Jewish communal focus on Israel, and rekindled a sense of Jewish attachment.46 It further offered American Jews the opportunity to express their solidarity with Jews worldwide, assuaging the guilt many felt in the aftermath of the Holocaust. To the extent that there was a mechanism of repression in the aftermath of the Holocaust that prevented Jews from confronting what had actually occurred in Europe, by 1967, “Jews were prepared to express their sense of collective trauma, and the war in the Middle East triggered a delayed reaction.”47 Through association of the Holocaust with the state of Israel, many American Jews came to see Israel as a second chance to defend what they failed to save during the Holocaust.48 Moreover, a growing concern with heritage, race, ethnicity, and gender was developing at a time when the “politics of consensus was giving way to the politics of identity,” especially in light of the Vietnam War, Black militancy, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.49 While it is easy to ascribe to the Six Day War the surge in Jewish identity seen at this time, domestic developments likewise activated a potent sense of Jewish social responsibility.50 By the end of the twentieth century, many American Jews shifted their religious orientation from universalism to particularism.51 The changing tide of American society nudged Jews in America to explore their differences with dominant Christian culture in new and meaningful ways. Emigration of American Jews to Israel rose by more than 500 percent

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in the aftermath of the Six Day War; for many, “Israel became the religion of American Jews.”52 Although the shift in Jewish politics from the peripheries of Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Israel and America following World War II had long since incurred a political interdependence between these new Jewish centers, the danger of Israeli annihilation in 1967 prompted a stronger identification of American Jews with the Jewish state.53 From New York’s Orthodox Jewish Life publication to the Los Angeles– based, Reform B’nai B’rith Messenger, Israeli travel advertisements appeared frequently during the Passover season in the post-1967 period, reinforcing the centrality of the nation to Jewish religious life both in biblical times and in the present. An ad in spring 1976 promoting travel to Israel in Jewish Life used the iconic menorah and informed readers that the travel package included three kosher meals daily, connecting travel to the country to religious continuity. In comparison, the “Sight and Sounds of Israel” appeared as the headline of an ad featured in the March 14, 1975, B’nai B’rith Messenger. Here a Yemenite dance couple representing the Inbal Dancers was featured as “just one of the many nationalities that give Israel her great cultural heritage,” staging Israel as a Jewish melting pot and locus of a vibrant Jewish culture. Besides serving as the religious center for Jews worldwide, Israel was now being fashioned as a cultural center as well. The fine print also highlighted the Israel Philharmonic, the Festival of Music and Drama at Caesarea, and the Batsheva Dancers. A full-page El Al airlines ad from a fall 1975 issue of the B’nai B’rith Messenger read “Israel: This land is your land. Enjoy. Happy New Year.” Though in English, this text-only ad used a typeface reminiscent of Hebrew characters. The ad cleverly played upon Woody Guthrie’s familiar American folk song, “This Land Is Your Land”—popularized by many other singers in the 1960s and 1970s, including Peter, Paul, and Mary and Bob Dylan—in its solicitation of American Jews to travel to Israel. In addition to a resurgence of Jewish affiliation that occurred in America after the Six Day War, the vibrancy of Jewish culture, both at home in America and in Israel, became another catalyst for Jewish connection. The 1975 United Jewish Appeal’s “The Fifth Cup” Passover campaign, appearing in papers across the country, represented an attempt to unite Jews across America regardless of their regional or denominational differences. The campaign reminded all American Jews that because “We Are One,” it was incumbent upon us to “renew our dedication to the vision of a life of freedom and dignity for all our people—in lands of oppression, and in Israel. . . . This Passover let us fill The Fifth Cup—the Cup of Elijah—as a symbol of Jewish hope and strength. At the same time, give it meaning with your contribution

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to the Jewish Welfare Fund.” Since the establishment of the United Jewish Appeal in 1939, their “We Are One” slogan had declared a message of solidarity, a singularity of purpose, a sense of mutual responsibility, and a commonality uniting Jewish people worldwide. Following the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and the fraught social and political milieu of the 1970s, “We Are One” additionally stood as a pillar around which to mobilize Jewish identities fragmented by the onslaught of modernity and secularization. The idea of a great “American Jewish community” that decade also alluded to a reality of American Jewish life as threatened by fissures. Still, within the context of splintered, bifurcated, and ambivalent Jewish identities, Jewish philanthropy on behalf of Israel and Jews in need of relief and rehabilitation worldwide provided a viable source of restoration for wandering American Jewish identities.54 Renewal and Jewish reawakening assumed many forms in the late sixties and seventies. Young, countercultural, dissenting Jews gravitated toward the intimacy of the havurah (a non-denominational, informal Jewish fellowship) movement, which emphasized small, informal, interactive prayer gatherings as an alternative to established religion. From cultural Judaism to social action, to new forms of religious expression, the regeneration of Judaism revealed vital ways for all varieties of American Jews to connect to an ancient tradition. Advertising was there to solidify this bond and assure the compatibility of Jewish values and American values. By 1975 Maxwell House coffee distinguished itself “as traditional as the four questions,” and as the “traditional Passover coffee.” Hellman’s/Best Foods mayonnaise took out a two-thirds page ad that invited the readers of the B’nai B’rith Messenger to “Celebrate the New Year with a look into the past.” The fine print in the ad informed readers that “the High Holidays are full of beautiful customs. Wearing the color white is one of them. Eating traditional food is another.” Likening its own whiteness to the sanctity of the high holidays, the mayonnaise leader shifted its identity away from a product associated with the goyim (non-Jews) and provided recipes for three “traditional” foods, including Waldorf Dessert, Borscht Salad, and Gefilte Fish Patties. Tradition, often evoked through the use of nostalgia in both advertising campaigns and editorials, served as an effective strategy in reawakening a sense of Jewish consciousness, especially at a time when many were searching for more meaningful identities.55 Advertisers drew upon history to develop an analogy between Jewish and American freedom, and more specifically, the Jewish Exodus out of Egypt and American independence. This nostalgia assumed enhanced meaning in 1975, as America celebrated the bicentennial of

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the Revolutionary War. Across the nation, newspaper readers were met with Maxwell House coffee’s “Famous Jewish American Patriots” campaign. On March 14, 1975, the cover of the Passover issue of the B’nai B’rith Messenger featured a reproduction of a woodcut illustration depicting “General George Washington Lunching at the Home of Orthodox Corporal Michael Hart in Easton, Pennsylvania, on December 21, 1778” (see figure 11). The illustration represents the future first president of the United States sharing a meal with the colonial Jewish family on the sixth day of Hanukkah—as noted by the prominent menorah displayed in the windowsill—and the accompanying article informs the reader that the Revolutionary War began in the spring of 1775, during the Jewish Passover festival of freedom. General Washington wears a yarmulke as do the other men and boys gathered around the table. However, except for the menorah and yarmulkes, all other Jewish signifiers

Figure 11. “General George Washington Lunching at the Home of Orthodox Corporal Michael Hart in Easton, Pennsylvania, on December 21, 1778,” Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 14, 1975  •  Celebrating the two-hundredyear anniversary of the American Revolution, the cover of the B’nai B’rith Messenger reproduces a woodcut illustration from 1778 when General George Washington joined the family of Corporal Michael Hart for lunch during Hanukkah. The males, including Washington, wear yarmulkes atop their heads, and their easy repartee symbolizes the comfortable integration of colonial Jews in American society.

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have been omitted, as was often the case in colonial portraiture. Two hundred years later, the story of George Washington “breaking bread”—rather than a matzo—with a Jewish family functioned as a nostalgic throwback and as a reminder of Jewish participation in the achievement of American independence from Great Britain. Between 1967 and 1977, Maxwell House coffee sales rose 10 percent among Jews in the larger New York metropolitan area, suggesting that campaigns such as “Famous American Jewish Patriots” struck a strong chord of Jewish pride. From philanthropy to alternative forms of Jewish affiliation, including culture, advertisements could connect the present to the past leading Jews back to their roots. The sociologist Mervin Verbit chaired a Task Force on Jewish Identity in 1971. In a speech at the General Assembly, the governing body of the Jewish Federations of North America (formerly the Council of Jewish Federations), which meets annually, Verbit suggested that Jewish identity could not be a goal, but rather a byproduct: “If we strive only for Jewish identity and offer no cogent reason for it and no compelling motive for it, then we must fail, for identity alone is no longer considered a worthy goal. Identity grows out of a commitment to something truly important.”56 Among the various possibilities that might lead one to reclaim his or her Jewishness, Verbit suggested commissioning appropriate educational materials, organizing family-centered activities, and translating Jewish historical experience into perspectives that held contemporary relevance. Jewish journals as an arm of the organized Jewish community had mastered the art of drawing analogies between the past and the present by the late twentieth century, particularly during the Passover season. Verbit’s proposition to appeal to emotion as a compelling means of awakening a latent Jewishness became the new standard approach during the 1980s. In 1984, the United Jewish Appeal participated in a covert campaign called Operation Moses involving the evacuation and airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel between November 1984 and January 1985. As the hero of Jewish redemption out of Egypt, Moses’s name was now appropriated for the modern exodus of Ethiopian Jews. The American Israelite capitalized upon this parallel in its 1985 Passover issues where much of the advertising endeavored to secure financial support from Cincinnati’s Jews to help the Ethiopians rebuild their lives in Israel. Beginning at the end of March through Passover in April 1985, every Thursday the American Israelite—the oldest Jewish weekly—included Jewish Federation of Cincinnati ads for the Operation Moses campaign. On March 21, 1985, a dramatic full-page ad announced “The Month of Redemption for Ethiopian Jews Is Here” (see figure 12). Below the headline was a snapshot of a crying Ethiopian child. The text

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Figure 12. “The Month of Redemption for Ethiopian Jews Is Here,” Cincinnati, the American Israelite, March 21, 1985  •  During the Passover season, the United Jewish Appeal heightened the connection between its 1984 Operation Moses campaign, which evacuated thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel between November 1984 and January 1985, and the biblical Jewish delivery out of Egypt by Moses.

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reads, “O’ Child of Israel . . . dry your tears, this is your home, we will comfort you.” Week after week during these two months, spectacular full-page ads told of the “Ethiopian Aliyah . . . A Saga of Tragedy . . . And Hope.” Using a dramatic black background and white text, the fine print urged readers to support Operation Moses in addition to their regular Jewish Welfare Commitment. In the April 4 issue of the paper, readers encountered another equally dramatic full-page ad (see figure 13). Here, the headline, “Why is this

Figure 13. “Why is this Passover different?” Cincinnati, the American Israelite, April 4, 1985  •  The striking image of disembodied black hands breaking a piece of matzo supplies an easy answer to the question “Why is this Passover different?” raised by the headline of this Operation Moses advertisement.

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Passover different?” was printed in black, as was the response to the question: “Because on all other Passovers, we’ve remembered the Exodus. This year, we celebrate with Jews who’ve lived it.” Between the headline and byline is a striking photograph featuring a set of black hands breaking a piece of matzo. “Next Year in Jerusalem is Here for Ethiopian Jews” proclaimed a full-page ad one week later. Aside from the Jewish Federation’s commitment to Operation Moses, ads for other social services also appeared in the publication. From daycare facilities, to Jewish hospitals, to homes for the elderly, the ads accentuated lifecycle events to capture the emotions of the viewer, highlighting the importance of commitment and continuity. On the West Coast as well as the Midwest, a concern with Jewish continuity and tradition became evident in the pages of the B’nai B’rith Messenger in the mid-eighties. Like the American Israelite, the B’nai B’rith Messenger provided extensive coverage of the rescue and absorption of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Only the campaign was covered more in written articles rather than weekly advertisements. Half-page ads for kosher products including Maxwell House coffee and imported Monfort wine from Israel with the headline “The Chosen One” were integrated throughout the pages of the paper. The kosher sausage company, Hebrew National, ran its “Now we can afford to be choosy” campaign with testimonials to the superiority of Hebrew National’s kosher poultry. By the 1980s, advertising in both the American Israelite and the B’nai B’rith Messenger took a decisive turn away from the mainstream and toward distinctly Jewish preoccupations. These concerns formed a bridge between the advertisements and articles. Feature articles such as, “The Russians Have Arrived!”—playing off of the movie title, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966)— reported on the Jewish renaissance experienced by Russian immigrants in Los Angeles. The changing demographics of Israel due to the influx of hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews and black Ethiopian Jews reignited the “Who is a Jew” controversy in the late 1980s. When the Israeli Knesset passed David Ben Gurion’s Law of Return in 1950, which asserted that anyone labeled a Jew by the Nazis was entitled to the rights of citizenship in Israel, it seemed unlikely that anyone other than Jews would claim this identity.57 Yet, in the late 1980s, there was concern that the Orthodox rabbinate would override amendments in 1970 that opened the country to anyone who could demonstrate that they were one-quarter Jewish. American Jews mobilized to confront political leaders in Israel for fear that the religious establishment would attempt to delegitimize non-Orthodox forms of Judaism more prevalent outside of Israel. The April 12, 1985, Passover cover of the B’nai B’rith Messenger linked tradition and continuity, with an illustration of a deeply-lined elderly woman’s

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face and Julia Stein’s accompanying poem, “Malke.” The poem tells of a granddaughter’s love for her grandmother, whose name, Malke, means “Passover queen.” The poem asked readers to reflect upon the life of this woman— Malke in the shtetl, Molly in America—whose numerous sacrifices and life experiences remain hidden in her deep wrinkles. It also invited them, more generally, to value the chain of continuity between the past and the present by wrapping a familiar Passover parable in a new guise. Despite the perception of a Jewish reawakening in the 1980s, the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) conducted by the Council of Jewish Federations to study the social, demographic, and religious structure of the American Jewish community suggested otherwise. It showed that despite the dedication of substantial Jewish energy to Israel, Jewish culture, and Jewish philanthropy, Jewish affiliation in America had actually plummeted—at least since the previous NJPS in 1970—pointing to a pattern of assimilation, conversion, and secularization.58 A random sampling of 2,500 families, in which at least one person identified as currently or formerly Jewish, was used to represent approximately 3.2 million households nationally. The study revealed that an estimated 16 percent of the total American Jewish population regarded itself as secular and another 50 percent who were born Jewish chose to marry outside their faith. Since 1985 twice as many interfaith couples had been formed compared to Jewish couples. Even more alarming, only 50 percent of the children surveyed were being raised Jewish. The study indicated a trend away from traditional Judaism: whereas 13.5 percent identified as Reform in 1970, twenty years later, 42 percent identified as Reform, and only 7 percent identified as Orthodox, compared to nearly 9 percent in 1970. In an open pluralistic society, being Jewish was no longer an identity imposed on someone from a hostile world outside, but rather, something that the individual was free to choose. As the population study disclosed, many chose to leave the traditional Jewish fold by following Reform Judaism or through intermarriage. These various results sent shock waves throughout the organized Jewish community, and concluded that each successive generation of American Jews had become increasingly distanced from traditional Judaism. In the aftermath of the surprising statistics presented by the 1990 Population Survey, which outlined a portrait of American Jews less committed and involved than the previous two decades, the North American Commission on Jewish Identity and Continuity was established in 1992. Now the sacred mission of tikkun olam (repair of the world) was redirected to the broken American Jewish community, and advertising was assigned a vital role to

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play in rededicating Jews to religion and peoplehood. The commission assumed the challenge of weaving the fabric of Jewish life back together again by engaging individual Jews to become part of a vital community. In 1995, the commission published its report To Renew and Sanctify.59 It outlined recommendations for achieving a more vibrant and secure future, reiterated the imperative of Jewish education in order to achieve Jewish growth, and underscored the central role of the family in shaping Jewish identification. The report also emphasized the importance of combining formative experiences (i.e., regular opportunities for continued Jewish expression through ongoing study in synagogues, schools, camps, etc.) with transformative experiences (i.e., uniquely charged moments of Jewish inspiration, such as a trip to Israel) to assure the revival and continuity of Jewish identity in America. More than ever before, continuity rose to the forefront of organized Jewish life. Advertising drew connections between Passover as the holiday of freedom and the steady influx of Jewish immigrants making their way to America and Israel from Russia, Sarajevo, and Ethiopia in the American Israelite in April 1995. One full-page Jewish Federation of Cincinnati ad included the following: “Passover is our holiday of freedom. As we celebrate with joy with family and friends, we remember that Sophie, Zachary and immigrant families are our responsibility, and they are OUR PEOPLE. Your support assures Jewish survival, sustains Jewish continuity and bequeaths to our children the beautiful legacy of our people. Help celebrate Passover with fulfillment for every Jew . . . everywhere.”60 Above this message was a strip of three photographs: the profile of an elderly immigrant on the left, a close-up of a smiling child in the center, and a father-daughter image to the right. These images intended to make the immigrants’ plight palpable, and reinforce the shared relationship and destiny between them and the American Israelite readers. Indeed, these readers had an instrumental role to play in Jewish continuity. The year 1995 additionally marked the end of Operation Exodus, a six-year campaign involving the rescue and resettlement of one million Russian Jews to Israel and America. Russian and Ethiopian immigrants to Israel shared accounts of Passover in their former countries in the article, “Immigrants Have New Answers for ‘MaNishtana,’” addressing why this Passover was indeed different from all other Passovers. Additionally, a full-page photograph depicted a Yemenite Jew “who reached Israel” on the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish Agency’s “secret Magic Carpet II rescue operation.” The caption informed readers that this man joined the 50,000 others previously rescued during the original Operation Magic Carpet campaign between 1949 and 1950. Judging by his pronounced beard, black robes,

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and the fact that he celebrated the Passover feast seated on the floor, it appeared that time had stood still for this Yemenite Jew. When the Joint Distribution Committee launched the original massive airlift of Yemenite and Adenite Jews from the British protectorate of Aden in the late forties, the “Operation Magic Carpet” description reinforced orientalist prejudices of the colonial world. It conjured the magic, intrigue, and enchantment of Rupert Holland’s The Arabian Nights.61 However, the reattribution of an overtly orientalizing label in the context of the 1990s and the collapse of colonialism was curious. Using written captions to distinguish the privileged donors from the distressed welfare recipients, it seems that philanthropy provided a sense of purpose to many American Jews and served a double agenda at this time, underwriting continuity both abroad and at home, at a time when American Jewish identity was ostensibly under siege from within. The surge of such campaigns between the mid-eighties and the mid­ nineties, including Operation Moses (1984), Operation Exodus (1989–1995), and Operation Solomon (the 1991 weekend airlift of 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel), also reflected the diverse and international character of Jewish life, now regarded with high importance in a postcolonial, postmodern world. Although the emphasis of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action (formerly Jewish Life) publication, both in advertising and content, remained steadily focused upon traditional Judaism, it too demonstrated more interest in the international flavors of Judaism. Gold’s horseradish now offered the olé flavor of old Mexico in a “Hot ’n’ Chunky Salsa,” while Israeli Osem products advertised that they were “Bringing you a lot more from the land of milk and honey.” As society at large recognized the importance of cultural diversity and multiculturalism in a postcolonial, globalized world, Jewish advertisements responded in kind. From the plight of the persecuted to the palate, advertising revealed a more particularist concern with Jewish continuity by the end of the twentieth century. As advertising connected Jews to heritage and the multiculturalism within Jewish life, Americans felt comfortable to divulge themselves as Jews on the streets. Since the American Israelite opened its doors in 1854 as the first Jewish journal in America, multiple publications have recorded the American Jewish experience through text, images, and advertisements. Currently, the American Israelite, the Jewish Herald Voice of Houston, and the Jewish daily Forward live on in electronic form along with the Jewish journals of numerous other cities. Still prominent as ever, advertising has become interactive and has devised new ways to reach consumers. As readers decide which advertisements to explore through the click of a computer button, they pro-

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vide instant feedback to market researchers who then deploy this information toward new advertising campaigns based upon the reader’s preferences. Whereas one hundred years ago, new immigrants turned to the ads in publications like the Forward for guidance in becoming proper Americans, contemporary Jews are actively shaping their own experiences, and by extension, drawing their own American Jewish self-portraits. Through the persuasive power of suggestion, advertising attenuated the anxieties of immigrants early in the twentieth century, assisted American Jews in establishing the compatibility between Jewish priorities of peoplehood and civil religion mid-century, and encouraged Jewish renewal and continuity at the end of the century. Extending beyond the apparent comportment and personal adornment of painted portrait sitters to trace the metamorphosis of becoming and evolving as American Jews, advertising has never faltered in its documentary role. Then, as now, advertising provides a gripping prism through which to view the portrait of American Jewish life.

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2

The Spaces and Places of Jewish Advertising Joseph Jacobs and Market Segmentation

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hy have more Jewish headaches been cured by Bayer aspirin? Why do dogs owned by Jews prefer Gaines Burger?1 It is because Joseph Jacobs has told us so. Since 1919, the Joseph Jacobs Organization has played matchmaker, pairing mainstream companies with the Jewish market. For ninety-five years this agency has steadily guided ordinary household products into Jewish homes. Its list of achievements include: the implementation of market segmentation to the Jewish community; being the first Jewish advertising agency to contract with major U.S. manufacturers; creation of the “K” symbol to designate kosher certification; creation of the “OU” symbol to designate certification by the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America; and creation and publication of the ubiquitous Maxwell House coffee haggadah (a ceremonial book used during the Passover Seder, where participants reenact the delivery of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Israel). Yet, other than sporadic articles in the Jewish media, trade journals, and the occasional mention in the general press, the story of this agency is largely unknown. Despite its substantial achievements and outreach, originally as a media rep to Jewish newspapers and magazines and eventually as a full service advertising agency, the Joseph Jacobs Organization remains one of the best kept secrets in Jewish advertising. But even before the cultural revolution of the sixties proclaimed for all that difference was “where it’s at,” the Joseph Jacobs Organization reassured Americans that their Jewishness was acceptable and desirable. Since the 1920s, Jews have been courted by the biggest corporations because of their interest in the marketplace, their extraordinary collective purchasing power, and because of the innovation \\ 55 //

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of New York advertiser Joseph Jacobs. This is the story of that salesman extraordinaire and the reach of his marketing kingdom. It is common knowledge that marketing is critical to the healthy functioning of capitalism; however, we often overlook other important outcomes, like identity formation and community cultivation. Susan Chevlowe’s remarks concerning photography and the construction and imagination of an ethnic identity also apply to advertising: An ethnic group shares a common culture, whether or not there is a strict definition of what constitutes that culture. In this sense, ethnicity is imagined, and photography plays a crucial role in reinforcing awareness of how the [ethnic] group imagines itself to be bound together through what its members have in common: the kinds of foods they eat, their physical characteristics, the way they practice their religion, their history, their shared language, and belief in a common culture. Photography is not simply a mirror held up to reality. It shows us what we want to see, framing and shaping the world and the values and history of a particular community.2 While advertising is most often associated with the consumption of products, it also occupies other roles. It can be deployed for the purposes of public service announcements, informing and raising awareness regarding critical social, political, and environmental causes. Yet, even in its usual role persuading the public to consume, advertising, like photography, reflects and refracts the society and culture it inhabits. It develops and reinforces social and cultural conventions, and has the power to redirect the public toward other options or opinions. Advertising in all its permutations—from the earliest announcements to appear in Jewish journals to marketing wares and strategies—must be considered to fully understand how American Jews have come to assume their identities up to the present, and walk the tightrope of American and Jewish coalescence. American viewing audiences came to know Jews starting in 1949 through the television hit The Goldbergs. The show followed the lives of Molly Goldberg, her husband, Edgar, her brother, “Uncle David,” and the Goldbergs’ teenage children, Sammy and Rosalie. Many episodes addressed everyday issues. Others, however, framed the dilemmas of first- and second-generation Jewish immigrant families, especially as they were trying to accommodate to American standards of beauty and decorum. For example, one show focused on Rosie’s decision whether or not to fix her nose. Another addressed the challenges of

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the Goldbergs’ move to the suburbs and trying to fit into a non-Jewish environment. Even though Molly was a modern woman by traditional Jewish standards and sensitive to American customs, both her and Uncle David’s distinctive Yiddish accents always reminded viewers of their immigrant backgrounds. Those who attended the theater in 1964 learned about life in the Eastern European shtetl in the Broadway musical play Fiddler on the Roof. Despite the popularity and influence of The Goldbergs and Fiddler on the Roof, each show played a different role in exposing the larger American population to Jewish immigrants. As Stephen Whitfield suggests in his article “Fiddling with Sholem Aleichem: A History of Fiddler on the Roof,” the musical paid tribute to religious and ethnic diversity while stimulating an appreciation of cultural pluralism.3 The musical also coincided with the civil rights movement, signaling to non-Anglos that difference was becoming tolerable. Like The Goldbergs, Fiddler on the Roof framed the tension between the worldviews of the past and present. According to Whitfield, “What Stein and Robbins did was to organize their musical around ‘Tradition’ and the sting of modernization that Tevye so painfully feels.”4 Likewise, the figure of Molly Goldberg synthesized the old and the new by insisting on traditional family values while integrating new methods of childrearing and family relations, even as she appeared the embodiment of provincialism.5 Though disguised in traditional garb and Yiddish accents, both Tevye and Molly Goldberg demonstrated an ability to change with the times. This flexibility suggested resilience—key to the Jewish experience in the Diaspora—that converted these characters from anachronistic to timely. They demonstrated a fundamental compatibility between Jews and America. The marketing and advertising campaigns of Joseph Jacobs framed this same tension, but with one important distinction. Rather than presenting the Jewish experience to the American public and asking for acceptance, Jacobs brought America to the Jews without any expectation of adaptation. He engaged Jews in their own media. Remixing familiar jingles, headlines, and taglines within a Jewish context for companies like Kraft and General Foods, this small but mighty New York agency had the vision to “think big.” Indeed, the clever copy of Jacobs’s ads and its creation of an ethnic market accomplished multiple purposes. First, it was a good business, as demonstrated by over ninety years of longevity. Second, and more importantly, the use of Yiddishisms and Jewish characterizations participated in the cultivation of American Jewish identities. Ethnic marketing encouraged American Jews to retain their Jewish distinctness, effectively putting the brakes on the total assimilation of American Jews.

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Analyzing an array of Jacobs’s marketing materials, advertisements, and interviews reveals how Jews entered the melting pot of American life, and what the American Jewish acculturation process looked like.6 From the Lower East Side to the Upper West Side, the Joseph Jacobs Organization has always positioned itself in the center of the American Jewish experience. Taking advantage of a robust New York Jewish population and armed with its Pulse market survey, Jacobs knocked on the doors of Jewish households, entered Jewish kitchens, and tapped into the American Jewish lifestyle. The agency’s collection of data informed its marketing efforts. American Jews were enticed to consume and encouraged to believe that they were buying Jewish—even if they weren’t. The Lower East Side Joseph Jacobs entered advertising around 1918 by selling advertising space for the Jewish Daily Forward. His strategy was simple: make manufacturers aware of the size and potential of the Jewish market so they would place ads targeting them.7 Boasting an overwhelming readership of immigrants, publications like the Jewish Daily Forward provided this population the comfort of reading the news in Yiddish while offering useful suggestions for adapting to American life. These tips were often presented through “how to” ads. Ethnic marketing introduced the Jewish segment to American products, and helped this transitioning population feel as though they were worthy of the attention. Jacobs understood the importance of the media to the acculturation process of the Jewish community at a time when millions of Eastern European immigrants were settling into a new country. A career in advertising was not Joseph Jacobs’s original plan. After a failed attempt at becoming a school assistant principal in his early twenties, he needed a job.8 He consulted his brother-in-law, Arthur Cohen, an established salesman who had already developed a successful advertising campaign for the Third Avenue trolley. While accompanying Cohen to his accounts one day, Jacobs met B. Charney Vladeck, then president of the Jewish Daily Forward.9 The Forward hired him to sell advertising space, and it wasn’t long before the paper’s advertising clients realized that their products were more effectively promoted there than in other Yiddish papers. Jacobs quickly became their advertising manager. His work for the Forward instilled a keen sense of the potential of the Jewish media. This sagacity, coupled with a sharp wit, creativity, and entrepreneurial sensibility enabled him to envision new opportunities for advertising, particularly within the Jewish context. His

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reputation gained the recognition of the two other prominent Yiddish dailies—The Day, just three storefronts down from the Forward at 175–177 East Broadway, and the Jewish Morning Journal, located on 77 Bowery.10 In 1919, Jacobs went into business for himself, serving as the media rep to these same three dailies. Jacobs operated with an understanding of advertising and the general market, and a heightened awareness of his own Jewish community on the Lower East Side. He realized the benefits of ethnic marketing before such segmented approaches became more commonplace after World War II. His primary legacy to the field of advertising was the ability to work two sides at the same time—to convert mainstream products into Jewish products. Moreover, Jacobs’s familiarity with both the Jewish and non-Jewish sides of advertising allowed him to capitalize upon matchmaking opportunities. Jacobs knew that Jews transitioning from the old into the new world were eager to use American products but also wanted to maintain elements of their religious observance. In response, he established the “K” and “OU” symbols. With these he introduced the concept of the “designer label”—effectively leaving a Jewish stamp on American packaged goods and assigning them a kosher status. These symbols reassured buyers that the products in question were in compliance with Jewish dietary laws. This in turn assured them of their quality.11 For example, Jacobs made it his business to inform American Jews that not only was Maxwell House coffee “good to the last drop,” but it was also kosher for Passover. He realized that many Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, and Shevuoth presented opportunities for extra Jewish buying and merchandising events in the grocery trade.12 Those who needed assurance of the product’s kosher designation found it, while those who didn’t easily overlooked these inconspicuous marks of Jewish acceptability.13 Jacobs convinced companies like General Foods and Proctor and Gamble that some of their products were ideal for Jews.14 For example, in order for Crisco, a vegetable-based shortening, to succeed in the Jewish marketplace, Proctor and Gamble had to encourage housewives to discard the lard that they had cooked with for generations. Home economists traveled around the country giving cooking demonstrations using Crisco.15 In 1933, Jacobs persuaded Crisco to create a kosher cookbook in Yiddish and English, and to promote it through coupons in the Yiddish press.16 The Jewish and non-Jewish worlds intersected in a variety of ads and marketing campaigns, which celebrated the arrival of Crisco—a product 4,000 years in the making! Jacobs exploited the inevitable gap between the general and

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Jewish media, using advertising to speak to the immigrant population in their own language in their own media. Through the publication of various booklets and brochures (see figure 14), the Joseph Jacobs Organization educated non-Jewish manufacturers about the Jewish market. They covered everything from dietary laws, to rabbinical certification, to an analysis of Yiddish and Anglo-Jewish publications. These extraordinary maneuvers introduced new possibilities for ethnic marketing, and created positive outcomes by increasing the profitability of large companies, while reinforcing the Jewish sense of worth in the marketplace and as a people. Jacobs’s use of segmented marketing became even more vital considering the lack of positive representations of ethnic and racial minorities in advertisements of the 1920s and 1930s. Although derogatory depictions of fictional characters like Aunt Jemima and the Cream of Wheat chef, Rastus, were plentiful, historians of black memorabilia and American stereotyping have observed that the appeal of such characters was not actually intended for the black community. In fact, advertisers cared little about the negative insinuations or backlash from this community because it was not regarded as a legitimate consuming audience. Rather, the happy and servile figures of Aunt Jemima and Rastus were intended to gain the approval and reinforce the superiority of the white purchaser.17 During a time of American nativism and isolationism, ethnic and racial minorities did not qualify as Figure 14. The Jewish Market booklet, 1940  •  Booklets like modern.18 Aunt Jemima and Rastus this were used by the Joseph Jacobs’s Organization to familiarwere throwbacks to the antebellum ize non-Jewish organizations with the Jewish market. Here, South, where the mammy and sermanufacturers were introduced to the requirements and vant were intended to ease the dorestrictions of the kosher diet.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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mestic burden of their masters. Perpetually happy and willing to please, these simple characters lacked their own history, as indicated by the fact that they never had surnames, and are still known to us by their familiar aunt or uncle titles. Such derogatory representations of African Americans in advertising and illustrations reinforced the dichotomy between black and white, entertaining white consumers at the expense of reinforcing African American stereotypes.19 African Americans were not immune to these representations and often saw them as a denial of their past.20 The same holds true for other ethnic groups, especially during the 1920s, when the message of advertising clearly suggested that the only way to gain a place in the idyllic American society was through total immersion into the melting pot.21 That the general media was not targeting ethnic and racial minorities was perfectly clear. Jacobs, however, understood that an ethnic slant would be effective given the diverse readership of the Jewish media, and he consequently solicited large American brands to buy advertising space. Many decades later, his son, Richard Jacobs, claimed that assigning a Jewish identification to products helped personalize them, and the more personalized the product, the better the chance of selling it. His 1975 article titled, “What Madison Avenue Knows About the Jews,” informed the media that “You don’t have to be Jewish to love the Jewish market!”22 Joseph Jacobs’s own background probably modeled for him the kinds of creative combinations that eventually found their way into his successful advertising career. Jacobs’s father was an Eastern European Orthodox Jew, and his mother, a German Reform Jew. Kosher products and Yiddish copy appealed to the religiously observant, who often continued practices from the Old World, while humor and Yiddishisms—in the form of the “Yiddishe Mama” (a doting and at times overprotective Jewish mother) or “balabusta” (an exemplary homemaker, like Molly Goldberg)—satisfied the Reform Jew’s nostalgia for tradition.23 Fondness for Jewish traditions plus insistence on quality resonated positively with all segments of the Jewish population. Most often, this “call for the best,” was associated with brand-name products.24 In 1924, the Joseph Jacobs Organization published a charming illustrated promotional booklet for JELL-O titled At Grandmother’s (see plate 1). The company’s early publication of the booklet long before the gelatin brand became an American “syndrome,” or before Jack Benny popularized it by addressing his listening radio audience each week with the greeting, “Jello,” underscores Jacobs’s marketing prowess.25 Written in Yiddish, the booklet targeted the Americanizing Jewish housewife. Although the product was

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originally created in 1897 in LeRoy, New York, its associations with wholesomeness and domesticity tied it more to the Midwest—the heartland of America. Grandfather bounces the fair-haired toddler, who reaches toward the wiggly substance presented by Grandmother. The interior decoration of the apartment, including the bird cage, together with the Puritan attire of the Grandmother, reinscribe the idea of wholesomeness and allow firstgeneration Jewish Americans to absorb this constructed myth. By the thirties, JELL-O was recognized as all-American, and arguably became the single commercial food to cross all regional and ethnic lines.26 For the housewife, use of the product would “make her somehow a better wife and mother,” and as illustrated by the array of different flavor molds, “allow her to exercise kitchen creativity” (see plate 2).27 Its colorful and bouncy form assured that JELL-O would captivate the fascination of children; indeed, this is evidenced by several illustrations that show young children playing with packages of the product. One little boy appears to be lifting a heavy crate of JELL-O, wrapped in a sumptuous cream-colored ribbon, which he places atop a wooden table. The ribbon matches the color of his suit (see plate 3). Through the use of color, the illustration draws a clear connection between the child and the gift box of JELL-O as one of the preferred treats of his generation. The child has evidently removed various objects from the piece of furniture in order to accommodate the gift-wrapped box. As the boy struggles to lift it, he nearly topples a green urn. This illustration insinuates JELL-O as a household fixture, literally replacing other adult objects, like a clock and vases, which have been relegated to the floor. As JELL-O entered American Jewish households in the 1920s, the At Grandmother’s booklet demonstrated the symbolic value of this manufactured good as a great American equalizer, especially for families with goals of upwardly mobility. Of particular interest in the promotional booklet are the Anglicized representations of both the children and the grandparents. There are no Jewish signifiers anywhere to be found. Moreover, the fair skin and cropped blond hair of both the young boys, together with the modified sailor suit (popularized for young boys in the early twentieth century), spell out a path of Americanization consistent with the associations of JELL-O. While the sailor suit could be bought as a way to make over Jewish children, blond hair and fair skin were not as easily purchased. And, while the view through the window in one of the illustrations reveals that the children inhabit an urban apartment, the middle-class status of this family is evident throughout—from their attire to their decorative objects. Furthermore, the innocence of the children bears a resemblance to nineteenth-century European genre paintings. The

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likeness in dress to bourgeois European subjects is astounding—sending a not-so-subtle message to Americanizing Jews about how to fit in. This booklet, though written in Yiddish, assumed an equivalence between JELL-O and more modern, Anglo-American lifestyles. Assimilating American Jews were encouraged to model themselves in the wholesome Anglo manner of the figures depicted in these illustrations. This early example of Joseph Jacobs’s segmented marketing demonstrates how mainstream food products made inroads into the Jewish market. More specifically, this is how JELL-O became a household Jewish product, adorning the holiday tables of many Ashkenazic families, just as it came to represent family gatherings and celebrations for countless Americans.28 In 1933, the JELL-O Company, then a division of General Foods Corporation, published a more substantial booklet for the Jewish market in consultation with Joseph Jacobs Organization. It was called Tales and Legends of Israel (see figure 15) It included twenty-four short stories taken from various

Figure 15. Tales and Legends of Israel, front page, The JELL-O Company, Inc., 1933  •  Rather than translating American middle-class ideals into Yiddish as the At Grandmother’s 1924 JELL-O booklet did, Tales and Legends of Israel, written in English, valorizes traditional Jewish sources like the Talmud.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Figure 16. Double-page spread with JELL-O ad and introduction to the Tales and Legends of Israel booklet, The JELL-O Company, Inc., 1933  •  This double-page spread from the Tales and Legends of Israel now reads from left to right. JELL-O retains its legitimacy as a Jewish product through its alignment with Jewish tales.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

sources of Hebrew literature like the Talmud. The purpose of the tales, which were rewritten from the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts, was to “bring out moral lessons which even the youngest reader will perceive without undue mental exertion” (see figure 16).29 The coupling of these biblical stories with a general market food product offers another clear example of segmented marketing. However, significant changes emerged in the nine years between the two JELL-O booklets. The later text was written in English. Yet the booklet preserved the balance between tradition and modernity through biblical stories, along with the inclusion of black-and-white, woodcut drawings of biblical figures. Unlike the earlier At Grandmother’s booklet, the visual images do not transpose the values of middle America onto modernizing Jews; rather, JELL-O retains its legitimacy as a Jewish product through its alignment with Jewish tales. In a similar fashion, the General Baking Company published a pictorial story of the Bible called The Biblical Picture Gallery in consultation with Jacobs in 1937. It was comparable in format to Tales and Legends of Israel. Both include introductions, which provide general information about the Jewish

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Figure 17. Double-page spread with Bond Bread advertisement and introduction to The Biblical Picture Gallery, 1937  •  Bond Bread appeals to the Jewish market by quoting Psalm CIV to convey, “Bread Sustaineth the Heart of Man.”  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

Bible, and both acknowledge Joseph Jacobs, managing director of the Jewish Market, and David Hausdorff, who prepared the written text for each. In each booklet, the page facing the introduction features a direct advertisement for the product in question (see figure 17) The General Baking Company reinforces the religious connection by quoting Psalm CIV: “Bread sustaineth the heart of man.” It continues with the claim that “Bond Bread—the bread that men prefer,” which exemplifies Bond Bread as a form of physical and spiritual sustenance. As a biblical picture gallery, this booklet pays equal attention to the written and visual texts. The black-and-white, classically rendered engravings illustrating well-known episodes from the Bible reinforce the traditional emphasis of the booklet, and suggest the bread manufacturer’s authenticity for a Jewish market (see figure 18). The serious character of both the JELL-O and Bond Bread ads demonstrates the high regard with which each company held the Jewish consumer. They also indicate the social and economic worth of American Jews to the general market. Although English replaced Yiddish in the last two examples, Jacobs’s marketing and advertising strategies during the pre–World War II years always

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Figure 18. “Moses Appoints Joshua As His Successor” and “Moses on Mount Neboh,” penand-ink drawings and accompanying captions in The Biblical Picture Gallery, 1937  •  The pen-and-ink drawings of Moses and accompanying annotations demonstrate how Joseph Jacobs’s marketing and advertising strategies always appealed to some aspect of tradition to authenticate new products for the Jewish consumer before World War II.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

appealed to some aspect of tradition to authenticate new products being introduced to the Jewish consumer. While this substitution may appear minor on the surface, it indicates the more substantial shifts occurring within American Jewish life. Jews were entering the middle class, enticed by what life in America seemed to promise. The emphases on tradition were vestiges of earlier times, and, for some second-generation American Jews, all that remained of their ties to the past. Even the geography of American Jewry was changing fast. As the children of Yiddish-speaking immigrants reached adulthood, they initiated their own migration, leaving the Lower East Side behind and branching out to new communities in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Nassau County, and Westchester County.30 Midtown: From Forty-sixth Street to Madison Avenue The gradual move uptown of the Joseph Jacobs Organization offers a parallel to the accommodation process of Jews to American life. The company’s

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evolution—from the Lower East Side initially, to midtown in the 1930s, and eventually to Madison Avenue in the 1950s—was in part due to quotas and restrictions placed upon Jews.31 With the overtly anti-Semitic radio programming of Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s, and the enforcement of quotas within businesses and institutions of higher learning, Jews had legitimate cause for caution. However, following World War II, Jews began to enter the American power structure in considerable numbers. As this previously urban working class “acquired enough wealth and education to change its occupations to commerce and the professions, and its address to the suburbs,”32 various social and cultural shifts appeared in the promotional and advertising materials produced by the Joseph Jacobs Organization, which moved with the market. The majority of New York’s Jews had moved up and out of the Lower East Side by the mid-1930s. Likewise, the Joseph Jacobs Organization relocated to 6 East Forty-sixth Street and shared an address with the Yiddish radio station WEVD, established in 1927. While Yiddish radio was never imagined as competitive with mainstream radio, it boasted many more listeners than any other foreign language in American radio. It also drew upon a high concentration of advertising both in and around New York City.33 Although WEVD was created with funding honoring the martyred socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs, its programming was more dedicated to entertainment than the socialist cause.34 WEVD featured programming that ran all day, and popularized personalities from the Yiddish theater, comedians from the Borscht Belt, as well as musical variety shows.35 When the Joseph Jacobs Organization changed its address to Forty-sixth Street, a corollary activity of the company became selling time on WEVD. First Joseph Jacobs convinced Maxwell House coffee to sponsor Molly Picon—one of the foremost performers in the Yiddish theater—in The Molly Picon Show. Radio programming on WEVD during the thirties catered to an audience who enjoyed Yiddish theater and adored Jewish comedy. Jacobs was also responsible for moving the comedian Menasche Skulnick from the Yiddish theater into a thirty-minute radio show before a live audience. The appeal of such programs was their continuation of Yiddish culture, even as the second generation of American Jews had increasingly outgrown the Yiddish papers and were abandoning the language. Other popular radio shows promoted by Jacobs included the Joey Adams Show, featuring vaudeville comedians, and the Ruth Jacobs Jewish Home show. Adams’s acerbic humor often delivered through one-liners exposed his Borscht Belt beginnings. Akin to a Betty Crocker homemaker, Ruth Jacobs was the

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creation of Joseph Jacobs. The character was played by Joseph’s daughter-inlaw, Patricia Jacobs, a commercial actress. She made her first appearance on television in the 1950s on The Jewish Home Show. When PBS bought the channel, the program was moved to the airwaves where it continued until the early 1990s. It featured a wide variety of political guests, including Senator Jacob Javits, Mayor Ed Koch, Teddy Kollek, the mayor of Jerusalem, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, as well as Rabbi Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. During the holidays the show included different Jewish entertainers. Unlike Molly Picon or Menasche Skulnick, the Joey Adams and Ruth Jacobs shows did not rely upon the Yiddish flavor of the earlier shows, but rather engaged entertainers of interest to second-generation American Jewish listeners.36 The Joey Adams Show included among its sponsors Winston cigarettes, Chun King frozen Chinese food, Eastern Airlines, and Libby’s low calorie fruits. Sponsors of the Jewish Home Show included such companies as Del Monte, Post cereals, and Sanka coffee. That such well established companies supported Jewish radio spoke to the value of this market. Jacobs’s organization capitalized upon the popularity of the Joey Adams and Ruth Jacobs shows, frequently using these characters to promote various products in print advertisements too (see figures 19 and 20). At a time when Jewish dailies were dying out, WEVD acted as an old-school version of today’s Internet for an English-language audience. By tuning in, people were able to stay connected to the Jewish community throughout the week.37 The association with established Jewish radio figures was enough to transform ordinary household items, such as Chun King Chinese food or Pertussin cough syrup, into Jewish products. Like other radio personalities, such as Jack Benny or George Burns, the familiarity of the listening audience with Adams and Jacobs made their advertising pitches friendly and trustworthy. The early advertising of Jacobs’s agency aimed to inform and educate a new population of immigrants, speaking to them in their own language and in their own media. However, its marketing by the 1940s was less pointedly Jewish. More specifically, it was less pointedly religious, reflecting the second generation’s idea of themselves as more fully American. For over twenty years, Jacobs had observed how this demographic trusted particular brands—thanks, in no small part, to advertising. With rising income and educational levels in the post-World War II era, combined with distinctive customs, holidays, and their overwhelming subscription to the mass Jewish media, Jacobs was certain that he could bring more companies into the Jewish media and introduce them to this readymade market.38

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Figure 19. Ad for Chun King Frozen Dinners & Entrees and the Joey Adams Show on WEVD, 1960s  •  This Chun King ad, featuring a popular Jewish radio figure, Joey Adams, underscores the Jewish fondness for Chinese food. The copy reinforces this predilection through use of the Yiddish word, geshmakste—tasty.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

Figure 20. Ad for Pertussin cough syrup and the Ruth Jacobs Show on WEVD, 1960s  •  Pertussin cough syrup relies upon the popularity and trustworthiness of Ruth Jacobs, Jewish homemaker and radio personality, to promote its product.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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In his efforts to seize these customers and attract more clients, Jacobs developed a creative department in the 1940s. Around this time, he made the acquaintance of a copywriter from the Erwin Wasey Agency, John H. Winters. Winters was intrigued by specialized marketing. His addition to the agency was pivotal, both because he brought along valuable experience acquired from his previous employment at Erwin Wasey, a leading New York advertising firm, and because Winters was not Jewish. Initially, he had to be schooled in the vocabulary and strategies of Jewish advertising and copywriting, and instructed that the inclusion of “mazel tov” did not immediately make an ad Jewish. Rather, it was the feeling and thought that accomplished this. However, his presence in the agency introduced a more expansive perspective. This was beneficial because the success of the business depended upon understanding Jewish buyers and non-Jewish advertising clients. The addition of a Christian copywriter helped the organization balance their Jewish perspective with a more American point of view.39 In 1946, Winters introduced prospective manufacturing clients to the Jewish market in the introduction to a Joseph Jacobs’s publication called The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market (see plate 4). Highlighting Jewish continuity through such celebrations and rituals as the Brit Millah and Bar Mitzvah, in his essay, “The Most Unique Sales Opportunity in the World,” Winters writes: “But if you would really understand the Jew, you will go with us on the following pages into his home, look at his customs and religion and then draw your own conclusions as to why campaigns designed especially for the Jewish Market may succeed where the standard approach may fail. . . . As the old saying goes, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. By the same token, you can take the Jew out of his home, but you can’t take “his home” out of the Jew.”40 References to home, family, holidays, and life-cycle celebrations anchored ads and marketing as Jewish. More than a simple “shalom” or “mazel tov,” these references introduced a Jewish feeling, and Winters proved himself a precocious student. Winter’s fluency in the Jewish market, such that he could write the introduction to this important promotional booklet, represents the crystallization of Joseph Jacobs’s sales strategy. In his foreword to this same booklet, Paul Willis, then president of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, claimed that the document distilled Judaism and Jewish life so as to “serve it on an easy-to-read-and-digest platter” for those who don’t wish to wade through the Talmud and the Code of Laws.41 The reader was introduced to everything from the “why” and “how” of the Jewish way of life, to the Jewish housewife, and the Yiddish theater and radio (see figures 21 and 22).

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Figure 21. Double-page spread, “The Most Unique Sales Opportunity in the World,” The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946  •  Having been indoctrinated in the ways of Jewish buyers at the Joseph Jacobs Organization in the forties, non-Jewish copywriter John H. Winters flaunts his familiarity with, and enthusiasm for, the New York Jewish market of 2,500,000 in the pages of this booklet.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

Figure 22. Photograph of the Jewish housewife and accompanying caption, The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946  •  This photograph and accompanying caption celebrate the “art” of Jewish housekeeping and the homemaker’s cultivation of family. The text underscores the homemaker’s appreciation of quality merchandise, and by extension, the importance of targeted advertising.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Jacobs’s marketing magic depended in large part upon Jewish matchmaking skills, and his business grew exponentially during this mid-century, midtown interlude, when he introduced a copywriter from outside the tribe into the family fold. Jacobs’s son, Richard, a second-generation American Jew, likewise introduced important changes when he joined his father’s business after his military service in March 1946. He was educated at Wharton School of Business, and he was at ease in both the Jewish, Yiddish-speaking world of his father, and the secular English-speaking world of his generation. After just six months, Joseph encouraged his son to seek additional experience.42 Richard found a job at the Washington Times Herald (later bought by the Washington Post). In his new position, he was in charge of grocery advertising. But one year later, when Joseph suffered a heart attack, Richard returned to New York to take over the business. He remained there for nearly sixty years until his 2003 retirement. Under Richard Jacobs’s leadership, the business made substantial inroads into the expanding English-language Jewish media. Since the early 1950s, Jewish publications printed in English had more than doubled in their circulation.43 Whereas his father was used to placing ads in the Yiddish dailies, Richard moved the business into monthly publications, and eventually ads began appearing in Hadassah magazine, the B’nai B’rith Jewish Monthly, and Reform Judaism. Richard understood the importance of Jewish lifestyle magazines, especially in the postwar context when various mass circulating journals—particularly women’s journals—failed to reflect the specificities of the Jewish lifestyle in their editorial copy.44 The business of the agency grew exponentially under his tutelage. It began to serve many of the nation’s leading liquor, drug, tobacco, grocery, and transportation companies. Richard came to know the Jewish market through annual reports supplied by The Pulse of New York, Inc. Each year since Joseph Jacobs first commissioned the firm in 1944, the Pulse Study of the American Jewish community underscored that the Jewish consumer market in the larger New York metropolitan area, consisting of three million, was the number-one Jewish geographical market, and a significant target for any product. The Pulse Study sampled approximately 2,000 families in order to determine the use of products and brands in Jewish versus non-Jewish homes. Using its “Pantry Study”—an at-home inventory that inquired as to the use of various products and brands—the organization made its case to advertising clients about how best to reach the Jewish market. The Pulse Study disclosed both the favorite items of that market and their preferred media.45 For example, in

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1965, when the magazine media was declining in the general community as it came to be replaced by television, the Pulse Study showed that television viewing was substantially lower in Jewish homes.46 This suggested that Jews preferred reading to viewing television. Therefore, the Joseph Jacobs Organization could comfortably advise their clients to continue placing ads in magazines. In a 1969 article in Media-Scope, Richard Jacobs claimed the most recent Pulse Study showed that 75 percent of Jewish families in the New York area were reached by the Jewish media. He further claimed that this media provided news of particular importance to Jewish families, which was unavailable elsewhere.47 Even as advertising was entering a creative revolution that would forever alter its language, and as diversity was becoming mainstream, Jacobs underscored the effectiveness of capturing the particular interests of the Jewish consumer. Jacobs touted the efficacy of the Jewish media to his marketing peers, resting his argument on the staggering numbers of subscribers and the results of the Pulse Study. The organization continued supplying booklets and pamphlets to grocers and manufacturers during the 1950s, especially concerning kosher guidelines. Its 1952 publication, “What Every Manufacturer Should Know About Kosher,” lists a series of questions and answers to introduce manufacturers to the diet, including the meanings of fleishig’e (of meat), milchig’e (of milk), and parv’e (neutral), in order to help sell goods to America’s five million Jews. It tells prospective manufacturers how to obtain rabbinical certification and includes the various seals that indicate kosher certification (see figure 23). The back of the pamphlet details the twelve major American

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Figure 23. Kosher seals and emblems in “What Every Manufacturer Should Know About Kosher” pamphlet, 1955  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Jewish markets and the dominant Jewish media in each location. Responding to the question: “What is the best way to sell more goods to Americans of the Jewish faith?” the Joseph Jacobs Organization answers: “There is competition in the Jewish field among manufacturers just as there is in the market generally. In meeting and perhaps ‘besting’ such competition, there is no substitute for consulting and working with a specialist in Jewish marketing, merchandising, promotion, and advertising.” A similar publication from 1957, “What You Should Know About Kosher,” likewise advises those in sales, advertising, public relations, and promotion as to the efficacy of the kosher symbol because it concerns the product image for the advertising and point-of-sale confirmation: “You make no more sales to Jewish people than you did before, simply because label information and a little publicity can never substitute for consumer promotion. Therefore, your success in making extra sales to Jewish people will be equal only to the skill and extent of your kosher promotion through Jewish consumer media.” The pamphlet includes the findings of the 1956 Pulse Study concerning New York Jewish housewives’ knowledge of kosher symbols, and concludes with the same statement previously quoted about the importance of working with a specialist in Jewish marketing. The content of these brochures remained very much the same over time. However, by the late 1950s when Joseph Jacobs released the second brochure, it was able to address the public from its newfound position of authority on Madison Avenue—the epicenter of American advertising. Yet even as the company moved to Madison Avenue during the height of American postwar prosperity and conformity, it insisted upon the value of ethnicity and tradition as a sales device.48 Jews were quickly assimilating into the American melting pot, but 75 percent still preferred to eat traditional foods, take part in Jewish activities, and celebrate certain Jewish holidays.49 The agency’s 1956 publication of the Customs and Traditions of Israel for Dugan Brothers bakery features the traditional aspects of Jewish life. As in the earlier 1933 and 1937 booklets for JELL-O and Bond Bread, this booklet—meant to foster “understanding and goodwill among all men”—introduces the major holidays and significant ceremonies, concluding with a consideration of the Jewish religion in practice today. The book is replete with black-and-white reproductions by a renowned artist, Arthur Szyk, including representations of holidays like Passover and Purim. As long as mainstream brands and companies continued to display their knowledge of Jewish existence—speaking to this vibrant population using the familiar written and visual expressions of Jewish life—American Jews continued to listen and consume.

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With their relocation to the suburbs in the late 1940s and 1950s, Jews, like other Americans, had the opportunity to leave behind ethnic ties and patterns associated with urban life, and redefine themselves according to the then popular American melting pot theory.50 And many did. But as long as this younger generation continued to subscribe to the Jewish media, which the majority did, they encountered their Jewish identity in that reflective mirror of advertising—and held on. Movin’ On Up: From Madison Avenue to West Eighty-seventh Street The Joseph Jacobs Organization’s relocation to Madison Avenue in the mid1950s paralleled the larger acceptance of Jews within American society and served as a demonstration of their achievement. They had transitioned from impoverished hard-working immigrants to successful professionals who resided in the major metropolitan and suburban areas across the country. At East Forty-second and Madison Avenue, where the Joseph Jacobs Organization remained for thirty-five years, the office was approximately 5,000 square feet and featured modern design. The agency employed upwards of thirty people, including copywriters, account executives, secretaries, bookkeepers, and stock room workers, all of whom worked in the office. Merchandising men who went out and installed point-of-sale display advertising were also employed by the firm, but did not occupy regular office space. In addition to five private offices, there was a large open area for collaboration and a separate work station for the art department. From its Madison Avenue office, Joseph Jacobs Organization serviced prestigious clients like Colgate-Palmolive Co., Maxwell House, and the Quaker Oats Company. American Jews had largely shed linguistic traces of their ethnicity by midcentury, but above-average income and education, together with a willingness to spend more money for high-quality products, continued to set them apart.51 In 1976, Richard Jacobs noted that the push for Jewish assimilation into the American melting pot waned considerably, due in large part to their increasing identification with Israel in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. While he observed that they were more conscious than ever before of being Jewish,52 the 1970 National Jewish Population Study sponsored by the Council of Jewish Federations documented a declining rate of Jewish affiliation. Its study of mixed marriages, for example, indicated that the intermarriage rate had nearly doubled in the five-year interim between 1965 and 1970, rising from 17.4 percent to 31.7 percent.53 Taking the rising intermarriage rate as

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a yardstick of Jewish acceptance within America, it was now permissible for Jews to come out as Jews. Add to this the cultural revolution celebrating difference and diversity that swept the nation in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and American Jews remained as viable a market as ever. The Joseph Jacobs Organization’s 1968 and 1971 publications, respectively titled, The Importance of Today’s Jewish Market and Facts and Foibles of the Jewish Market, each spoke to the importance of the Jewish market segment in the face of these changing times. “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s,” read a New York Times article in August 1969, “but if you are, there’s a good chance you’ll react positively to advertisements in Jewish-oriented publications, even for ads that have been seen or heard on the general media many times.”54 Even though the Joseph Jacobs Organization’s publications from the late sixties and seventies were less pointedly Jewish, ethnicity conferred a badge of difference, and became in itself a strategic marketing device.55 No longer was the organization educating manufacturers and advertisers about the rules of kashrut or significant Jewish holidays and ceremonies. The emphasis instead grew more sociological, tracing the evolution of the Jewish family in America and focusing on the American Jewish experience. When David Koch, past president of the Joseph Jacobs Organization, joined in 1962, he stepped into a full-fledged service organization. For those who decided to spend money in the Jewish market, the company could advise on a total Jewish advertising effort, including directing creative approaches and suggesting and implementing promotional and merchandising ideas.56 Their client list read like a who’s who of Madison Avenue: General Foods, CocaCola, Kraft Foods, American Home Products, and the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.57 In the late 1980s, Richard Jacobs became CEO of the company and Koch was named president. Koch’s keen sensibility and understanding of the market enabled him to entertain consumers with some of the cleverest Jewish copywriting of the last fifty years. His adroitness in capturing the Jewish experience and aligning it to mainstream American society by pairing together, for example, Kraft’s Philadelphia cream cheese with a Lender’s bagel or Hellman’s mayonnaise with challah, reinforced more than food parity, it solidified a social parity as well. Nowhere is this parity more evident than in the Maxwell House–sponsored booklet, Honoring 1776 and Famous Jews in American History, published by the Joseph Jacobs Organization on America’s bicentennial celebration (see plate 5). The cover features four illustrations sandwiched between red and blue color blocks, depicting the involvement of colonial American Jews in the Revolutionary War. Red and blue stars frame the images. In a typical strategy, Joseph Jacobs convinced Maxwell House—by

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now an American Jewish staple—to capitalize upon this momentous occasion. It contained twenty-five biographies of important American Jews, from Jacob Barsimson (the first known Jewish settler) to Ernestine L. Rose (one of the most active and progressive women of the nineteenth century). The booklet served as a reminder of American Jewish patriotism, and of the contributions of Jews to the United States. Even when advertising something as banal as a product’s kosher certification, Koch used a secular/religious synergy to enhance the product’s relevance for the religious and nonreligious minded. For example, the headline of a 1985 General Mills ad for Total cereal in Hadassah Magazine reads, “Our high standards make it kosher. Our high nutrition makes it total.” Another headline to a 1994 Hadassah Magazine ad for Whitney’s Yogurt questions, “Rich, Healthy . . . And Kosher?” The ad responds: “It’s either the son-in-law you’ve always dreamed of, or Whitney’s Yogurt!” (see figure 24). Koch’s entertaining bylines, headlines, and taglines capitalized upon inside Jewish jokes, causing readers to crack a smile when looking at themselves in the mirror of advertising.

Figure 24. Whitney’s Yogurt ad, Hadassah Magazine, 1994  •  This Whitney’s ad uses Jewish humor by likening its yogurt to the ideal marriage prospect imagined by many Jewish parents— “Rich, Healthy . . . And Kosher?” The ad responds: “It’s either the son-in-law you’ve always dreamed of, or Whitney’s Yogurt!”  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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America had become preoccupied with fitness and health by the end of the century. Always looking for partnerships, here was an ideal opportunity for the agency to work its magic by promoting the healthy benefits of kosher food products. The headline of a 1987 article in Jewish World proclaimed, “Many businesses enjoying renaissance of kosher food.” The piece opened with the fact that, “More Jews are keeping kosher in America than are observing any other Jewish ritual, and their number is continuing to increase.”58 The article revealed that the increasing number of families observing the dietary laws were not just Orthodox. According to the Pulse Study, approximately 51 percent maintained two sets of dishes and approximately 49 percent lit candles on Friday night. Both of these practices would be indicative of Orthodox households. However, 71 percent bought kosher meat, even though they did not observe traditional practices.59 Bruce Baff, then vice president of marketing services at Joseph Jacobs, noted that, “The increase may be rooted in religious ritual or be part of a Jewish renaissance that is taking people back to their roots. . . . Part of it has to do with a tendency by young Jewish families to make a statement to their family, to the outside world, and to themselves. Or it may have to do with reinforcing their origins by living more Jewishly.”60 From a Jewish perspective, Baff ’s comments signaled a congealing of the melting pot. This renewal of Jewish affiliation,61 combined with the natural health benefits of a kosher diet, also presented an opportune marketing moment for the kosher cause. Now, not only could the advertising of kosher products target Jews, but these products could also be promoted as an ethnic variety to non-Jews. Few understood the potential of the Jewish market better than Elie Rosenfeld, a young advertising executive who joined the agency in 1996. Although still located at the prestigious address on Madison Avenue when Rosenfeld joined the company, the business was changing.62 For fifty years, the company was at the forefront of the Jewish market as a full-service agency, both brokering advertising space for clients in the Jewish print, radio, and television media, and also creating ads for many clients. However, new media eluded the agency with the onslaught of the digital revolution in the nineties. By now, the generation gap between Richard, in his seventies, and young account executives like Elie had grown more pronounced. Although secretaries had computers on their desks in the late nineties, no one else did. The executives still dictated their letters. Even though the agency had customized software designed in the early eighties, rapidly changing computer technology got ahead of them. As desktop publishing and programs like In-Design began replacing professional typesetters and engravers, the agency was still at

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the mercy of a studio to print their work. This inability to adapt to new technology slowed down the process and meant higher fees for the clients. Times and technology were changing, but the Joseph Jacobs Organization was not keeping pace. This decline could even be detected in the agency’s interior design, which now appeared dated.63 Richard Jacobs’s top-down sales style, which involved courting top executives of his own generation at companies like Kraft, precluded his cultivation of relationships with the day-to-day brand team. As these executives retired, those working under them did not necessarily feel loyal to the work. Additionally, the loss of one of their largest accounts, R. J. Reynolds, in the early nineties, due to the disappearance of advertisements for smoking, curtailed the scope of the Joseph Jacobs Organization’s business. The unexpected death of the office manager in November 2000, coupled with a power surge that destroyed the computer system containing their records just two months later, in January 2001, nearly pushed the company to the brink.64 In 2003, the same year that the young Rosenfeld was named CEO, the agency moved to its current Upper West Side address at 349 West Eightyseventh Street. No longer requiring the space of their midtown offices on Madison Avenue, the one-time thirty- to thirty-five-person operation has been scaled down to six. In an era of multinational mergers, mom-and-pop operations have had to reassess their businesses. Joseph and Richard Jacobs built theirs by soliciting as many accounts as possible. David Koch and Elie Rosenfeld adjusted the business in order to work more closely with fewer accounts. Still “thinking big,” despite its downsizing, the agency continues its influential work, and how the company communicates with the public speaks volumes about the place of Jews in American society. In the summer of 2006, Manischewitz introduced a “Cook-Off ” contest whose grand prize winner would receive new GE appliances (see plate 6).65 The cursive letters and graphic illustration of the female figure—white apron and all—intentionally invokes the homemaker of the fifties. Both script and drawing call to mind common associations of women with the decorative and the domestic, playfully connecting these stereotypes to cooking and the fact that the campaign was launched in the magazine Cooking Light. Although the Joseph Jacobs agency also ran the campaign in approximately thirty major Jewish media publications throughout the country, the introduction of a major Manische­ witz campaign in the non-Jewish media was unprecedented and should not be underestimated. Even though Manischewitz long ago recognized the value of penetrating the non-Jewish market of 300 million versus the Jewish

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market of 6 million, this was not likely to happen with matzos and gefilte fish, but possibly with noodles, soups, and TamTam crackers.66 Still, the acceptance of this identifiably Jewish brand is another sign of Jewish integration in contemporary American society. One hundred years since the massive swell of Eastern European immigrants to America, and the ensuing birth of segmented marketing, Jewish brands have now taken to the non-Jewish marketplace. At the same time, Rosenfeld, himself an Orthodox Jew, understands the necessity of acknowledging diversity within the Jewish segment, and the market value of addressing Jews in their diverse media. We have come full circle. For more than ninety years, the Joseph Jacobs Organization has recorded and affected the American Jewish experience through the use of clever copy across Jewish media. Its deft understanding of this population produced ads that both entertained and educated. By convincing mainstream manufacturers and advertisers to believe in the Jewish market, the company helped American Jews to accommodate to America and to believe in themselves. Unlike the familiar faces of Molly Goldberg or Tevye the milkman, who introduced Jews to the wider American viewing public, Joseph Jacobs’s advertisements assumed a compatibility—even a parity—between Jews and America from the beginning. Even as these ads and promotions have brought smiles to the faces of countless consumers, they have always taken the high road, or in Joseph Jacobs’s Jewish parlance, the chai (lucky) road, never belittling or poking fun at this segment. The secret of this little-known organization was to pick an audience whose size and loyalty could create an effect on the whole market. And this effect, which we now know as market segmentation, restrained the assimilation of American Jews, as the little inside jokes and Jewish expressions kept them chuckling all the way to the market.

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Plate 1. At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924  •  Written in Yiddish, this illustrated booklet specifically reached out to Americanizing immigrants. JELL-O’s appeal to children ensured that it would become a staple in American Jewish homes.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Plate 2. Double-page spread featuring array of JELL-O molds, At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924  •  Colorful plates, cups, saucers, and platters complement colorful JELL-O molds, and offer explicit examples of appropriate serving decorum. The booklet reads from right to left, synthesizing Yiddish and modern American customs.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

Plate 4. Front cover of The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946  •  This 1946 booklet was written by John H. Winters, a non-Jewish copywriter who joined Joseph Jacobs Organization in the 1940s. Winters’s worldly perspective is echoed in the skyscraper architectural line drawing on the front cover.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Plate 3. Illustration depicting young boy making room for JELL-O wrapped box on furniture, At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924  •  This illustration insinuates JELL-O as a household fixture, literally replacing other adult objects, which have been relegated to the floor. The relationship between the cream-colored ribbon around the JELL-O crate and the young boy’s attire, reinforce the appeal of the product for children.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

Plate 5. Honoring 1776 and Famous Jews in American History, 1975  •  Honoring 1776 and Famous Jews in American History anticipates the bicentennial celebration of the United States and pays tribute to the “historical fact that people of all races and creeds participated in building America.” The cover reproduces a monumental statue in Chicago, which in addition to George Washington— featured in the center—also represents Robert Morris and Haym Salomon, a financial broker who assisted the Continental Army.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Plate 6. Manischewitz Cook-Off advertisement, Cooking Light, 2006  •  Ascribing a traditional gender role to women, the graphic illustration of the domestic figure featured in this vibrant ad—including her white apron, flipped hair, and polka-dot headband—invokes the homemaker of the fifties. Manischewitz took a big step when it launched this campaign in Cooking Light rather than in the Jewish media.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Plate 7. Adam Rolston, Manischewitz American Matzos, 1993, painting  •  Rolston’s faithful reproduction of the familiar, yet mundane Manischewitz matzo box likens it to the iconic Pop Art of Andy Warhol. The painting’s enormous scale symbolizes the impact of the Manischewitz brand and pronounces it as “allAmerican.”  •  Courtesy of Adam Rolston.

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Plate 8. Manischewitz wine, “There’s a Seder in Every Bottle,” 1999  •  Even as Manischewitz wine used advertising to broaden its appeal beyond the Jewish market, campaigns like this reminded Jews of the endurance and prominence of the brand in America, announcing that there is a Seder or a Shabbat in every bottle. With its subtitle, “Let the tradition flow,” this campaign conspicuously connected Manischewitz and Jewish tradition, albeit American style.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

Plate 9. Manischewitz wine, “To all a good light,” 1998  •  This 1998 advertisement associates Manischewitz with Hanukkah by substituting an array of wine bottles with flames for Hanukkah candles. The headline, however, appropriates the infamous last line of Clement Clark Moore’s “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” to reinforce the compatibility of Jewish and Christian celebrations.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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Plate 10. Choirboy, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967  •  The photograph of a choirboy to promote “real Jewish” rye bread demonstrates how the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency became notorious for doing things differently and challenging the establishment. The boy’s closed eyes and smile of satisfaction register his total rapture, almost as if he has been transported to heaven.  •  Levy’s is a registered trademark of Arnold Products, Inc. Used with permission.

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Plate 11. “End Bad Breath,” 1967  •  By coloring Uncle Sam’s face green and depicting planes dropping bombs in his open mouth, Chwast’s poster subverts the iconic image of Uncle Sam to capture the anti-Vietnam protest movement in 1967. The expressive and explosive content also recall the psychedelic poster movement from the same period.  •  Courtesy of Seymour Chwast.

Plate 12. Stephanie and Avi JDate billboard, Times Square, New York, 2006  •  This JDate advertisement features a couple who met through the online Jewish dating service. Equally remarkable to the fact the billboard was featured in Times Square is that in lieu of paid actors, it portrays an actual JDate couple.  •  Photo by Kerri Steinberg.

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Manischewitz and Maxwell House The M&M of Jewish Advertising

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hen Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities opened at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1996, an assortment of artworks exemplifying Jewish life were put on display. Deborah Kass’s Four Barbras (also known as the Jewish Jackie Series depicting Andy Warhol–style silkscreened representations of singing diva Barbra Streisand) and Rhonda Lieberman’s Barbara Bush (featuring a white flocked “Hanukkah Bush” adorned with Barbara Bush ornaments) cleverly highlighted the coalescence of Jewish and American culture, and the fusion of Jewish references with non-Jewish icons. However, it was Adam Rolston’s larger-than-life, sixby-six-foot canvas of a Manischewitz matzo box aptly titled Manischewitz American Matzos that provided the most direct and unapologetic symbol of American Jewish life (see plate 7). Rolston’s rendition of the household label faithfully replicated the actual matzo box, save one significant substitution: in lieu of the product name “Matzos”—which always appeared in the center of the box—Rolston inserted “American.” This clever word play, though seemingly innocuous, entertained various possibilities: Manische­ witz is American; American Judaism is inextricably bound to consumption; American Judaism can be distilled into a single brand. While the unaware passerby could have easily overlooked Rolston’s alteration, being that the matzo box was so authentic looking in every other respect, the more astute onlooker would have understood that Manischewitz, the proverbial “American” brand, offered a synecdoche of the twentieth-century American Jewish experience. The Manischewitz name has spanned the gamut of American Jewish affiliation since its founding in 1888. The brand and products have become \\ 81 //

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synonymous with Passover in America. Temporally bridging the social, political, cultural, and religious distances between American Jews, Manischewitz stands as a great American Jewish equalizer. Another name that has become synonymous with the Passover celebration in many American Jewish households is Maxwell House coffee. Countless families have experienced their Seders with a copy of the Maxwell House coffee haggadah in hand, along with Manischewitz matzo and wine on the Seder table. Beginning in 1932, its “good to the last drop” slogan was announced year after year on the Maxwell House coffee Passover haggadah. Even today, the mere mention of Maxwell House brings a warm smile and fond memories to millions of American Jews. As a result of an aggressive marketing strategy that recast coffee beans as kosher for Passover, the Maxwell House coffee haggadah has assumed a pivotal position within these households, despite the fact that coffee—unlike matzo and wine—has no inherent meaning within the Passover ritual. Yet in its pages and pictures exist insights about the role of mass production, advertising, and marketing in the design of American Jewish identities. More specifically, the marketing and advertising of both Manischewitz and Maxwell House not only parallels, but are inextricably bound, to the common twentieth-century American Jewish trajectory from assimilation to a proud affirmation of Jewish identity. From kosher products to the celebration of Jewish holidays and from the decoration of Jewish homes to the ornamentation of self, advertising and marketing have steadily guided American Jews in their consumerism since the arrival of Jewish immigrants to America in the mid-nineteenth century. The kosher heksher (stamp of kosher certification) indicated to observant Jews the acceptability of various products in the early twentieth century. As the century unfolded, they were increasingly seduced by packaging design and marketing strategies in print, radio, and eventually television. These strategies accomplished more than just effective marketing: they helped to establish the compatibility between Jewish customs and American life in the first half of the 1900s, eventually facilitating a spiritual and nostalgic connection to Judaism and Jewish peoplehood later in the century. Both Manischewitz and Maxwell House utilized developing advertising and marketing practices to establish themselves as pillars of American Jewish culture. Joining these predominant brands together, as they have been paired on the ritual dining tables of Jewish households for the past eighty years, affords a unique glance at these practices by Jews for Jews, and by Jews for non-Jews. Additionally, situating each company’s strategies within the context of tradition, innovation, secularism, gender, and sociological trends

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widens and deepens understanding of the Jewish experience in America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Manischewitz and Maxwell House pushed forward unique American-Jewish brands with their fusion of tradition, modernity, and the sacred with the quotidian. In a reciprocal and paradoxical fashion, just as modernity tugged at Jewish tradition, relaxing many of its standards, innovative marketing practices and technology promoted the retention of Jewish customs. Inventing Tradition, American Style: 1888–1939 The establishment of the Manischewitz and Maxwell House brands in the first decades of the twentieth century coincided with the massive immigration of Eastern European Jews. For many, settling into a foreign, modern country required inventive and elastic interpretations of time-honored practices. As scholars of American Jewish history have demonstrated, that which was non-negotiable in Eastern Europe—especially when it came to adherence of the most important mitzvot (commandments), like observing the laws of kashrut (adherence to dietary restrictions in accordance with Jewish law)—was reappraised in this new land. The collision of these two worlds and their competing values resulted in various modifications of traditional customs. Where the power of Jewish ritual and the kehillah (community) asserted itself throughout Jewish life in the Old World, such that individual desires were suppressed in accordance with the requirements of mitzvot and tznius (humility), in America the communal emphasis was challenged by a national ethos that honored the potential of the individual and the cultivation of uniqueness. According to Jenna Weissman-Joselit in her 1994 study, The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture (1880–1950), even as American Jews became “selectively kosher,” and modeled their domestic practices after those of the broader society, products branded with a kosher stamp helped establish a compatibility between Jewish tradition and modern America.1 As first-generation American Jews transitioned between the old and new worlds, the kosher stamp (a “brand” label) operated between a symbolic and superficial mark of approval. Depending upon the religious and acculturation needs and goals of the consumer, the heksher could alternatively indicate that a product was infused with Jewish tradition, or that it was traditional in name only. Regardless, the absorption of American cultural practices by Jewish immigrants—especially women—through material consumption advanced their acculturation process. “Holy moments

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in America,” Weissman-Joselit writes, “once consecrated to God or Jewish history, were transformed into occasions of domestic expression and consumerism,” leading American Jews in the early twentieth century to do to “the Jewish calendar what they had done to the dietary laws, infusing the sacred with the vernacular and the transcendent with the quotidian.”2 In their attempts to fit in and emulate the patterns and rhythms of life in America, secularizing Jews made concessions to sacred rituals by synthesizing their established practices with those of the general public. This meant aligning the Jewish calendar to the Gregorian calendar, even if it required heightening the value of lesser Jewish holidays like Hanukkah. At a time when shopping had become an expression of Americanization,3 understanding the role of advertising is crucial. After all, it lured consumers into the shops and grocery markets, where the intersection of the “transcendent with the quotidian” was being enacted. Both Manischewitz and Maxwell House have their roots in the entrepreneurial American spirit of the late nineteenth century. Both began as family businesses, which was more the rule than the exception during that period. The story of Maxwell House coffee begins in 1873, when traveling salesman Joel Owsley Cheek started working for a wholesale grocery store in Nashville, Tennessee.4 A decade later, Cheek partnered with a coffee roaster to establish a unique three-country blend. Ever the innovative and shrewd businessman, Cheek offered his blend of Colombian, Mexican, and Brazilian beans on a free trial basis to a food buyer for a renowned Nashville hotel known as the Maxwell House Hotel. With nothing to lose, the hotel served this unusual blend to its guests, but when the supply was exhausted, the hotel went back to its former brand. After numerous complaints about the switch, the food buyer for Maxwell House Hotel returned to Cheek’s product. Eventually, he even honored Cheek’s request to name the coffee blend after the famous hotel.5 Over the next decade, Cheek went into partnership with a former employee, John Neal, to establish the Nashville-based Cheek-Neal Coffee Company, featuring Maxwell House coffee. From 1905 through 1916, the company opened plants in Texas, Florida, and Virginia. Six of Cheek’s eight sons joined the operation as the business expanded.6 The influence of the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company’s aggressive marketing techniques should not be underestimated. Like Joseph Jacobs, Joel Cheek was a promotional mastermind. Cheek’s efforts to associate the consumption of his coffee with social status became especially popular in 1920s and 1930s advertisements, especially after Maxwell House expanded to New York in 1921 and established a large roasting plant in Brooklyn. At

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that time the ads in both the mainstream and Jewish presses began featuring attractive modern subjects sipping from dainty cups. For example, a series of illustrated advertisements appearing in the popular Yiddish daily, the Forward, in March 1922, depicts a clean-shaven man with a stylish coiffure in a fashionable shirt and tie ensemble and a trendy flapper with bobbed hair and a sleeveless dress (see figures 25 and 26). The wide smiles of both the male and female subjects in the Maxwell House coffee ads register their satisfaction with the product, as they establish direct contact with the onlooker. Mass media depended upon advertising to personalize its content by forging a bond with the public.7 The ad in the Forward was no different from the mass media’s approach. There is also no mistaking the brand name, for it appears stamped on the coffee tin depicted in the top left corner of each ad and again in bold Hebrew script used in the Yiddish translation at the bottom of each example.

Figure 25. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, the Forward, March 9, 1922  •  This early ad depicts a clean-shaven (beardless) modern man with a stylish coiffure in a fashionable shirt and tie ensemble enjoying his cup of Maxwell House Coffee. There is no mistaking the brand name, for it appears stamped on the coffee tin depicted in the top left corner, and also in bold Hebrew script used in the Yiddish translation at the bottom.

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Figure 26. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, the Forward, March 16, 1922  •  Like her male counterpart, the wide smile of this trendy flapper with bobbed hair and sleeveless dress registers her satisfaction with Maxwell House Coffee of the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company. Both male and female figures establish direct contact with the viewer in an effort to personalize the product.

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Compared to the Maxwell House subjects, a Gold Medal flour ad (see figure 27) run the same month contrasts the cultivation of modern subjects with the traditional “balabusta” (exemplary homemaker).8 Despite the fact that this advertisement appears in the Forward, the matron and her granddaughter are rolling gingerbread men cookies, the quintessential Christmas treat. This activity is confirmed by the title of the ad, “Gold Medal Flour for Making Gingerbread Shapes.” The Yiddish text in the ad reads: There is often a grandmother, who has a bit of extra time for making gingerbread men. Long experience has taught her what little boys and girls like and what is good for them.

Figure 27. Gold Medal Flour illustrated ad, the Forward, March 5, 1922  •  Unlike the stylish male and female figures depicted in the Maxwell House Coffee advertisements, this Gold Medal Flour ad features a more traditional balabusta (Jewish homemaker) and young girl. Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that both woman and child are using the flour to bake gingerbread men— quintessential Christmas cookies.

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Perhaps your little children haven’t yet tasted some of those crispy and spicy gingerbread men like those that Grandma used to make. Therefore, we give you here her endorsement so you can try it out. She chooses Gold Medal Flour for her gingerbread because of its refined nature, strength and cost. She knows that this strong wheat flour makes as healthy a gingerbread as it is tasty. In the end, you will also use this healthy flour. Try using it today to make gingerbread men. Use it tomorrow and the day after and all the time to make your cakes and pastries as well as bread. If Gold Medal Flour is not yet on your grocery list, add it today. Write and tell us how your little girl or your little boy like the gingerbread men.9 Even though the Forward was not religiously oriented, this ad clearly synthesizes traditional Jewish family values with modern American life. More specifically though, it was a well-known fact at this time that Jews, including the large immigrant population residing on the Lower East Side, participated in Christmas festivities. This was not limited to baking gingerbread men, but also included the decoration of Christmas trees.10 The words “boys,” “gingerbread men,” “cakes,” “pastry,” and “grocery list” all appear in English, but are spelled in Hebrew characters. How might this be explained? Andrew Heinze’s research on Jewish immigrants, mass consumption, and the search for American identity proposes that “Yinglish”—the integration of English words into Yiddish speech—coincided with the development of Yiddish advertising.11 By transliterating English words into Yiddish, advertising increased the vocabulary of immigrants, assisting them in their acculturation exercises. Just as the Maxwell House coffee flapper subjects appear prototypically American, so too, the activity of baking gingerbread cookies causes the viewer to see the grandmother and granddaughter as Americanized subjects. Literary theorist Roland Barthes refers to this as the “rhetoric of the image,” suggesting that the public understands how to interpret the signs that comprise a visual image based upon the circumstances in which they appear.12 The same image in the context of the Saturday Evening Post, featuring cover artwork illustrated by Norman Rockwell each week, would likely inherit associations with middle America. Alternatively, in the context of the Forward and the numerous surrounding advertisements in Yiddish, the Gold Medal flour ad reads as Jewish; the symbolic associations of gingerbread cookies recede in favor of the Jewish connotations of the balabusta. In contrast to

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the traditional Jewish homemaker, Maxwell House—guided by the Joseph Jacobs Organization—opted for classy, up-to-date subjects, in an effort to associate its product with the present. The use and reuse of advertisements in distinct contexts (in this case, both Jewish and non-Jewish) show the efficacy and efficiency of American advertising in the 1920s, especially as it began to correlate lifestyles and ads. Additionally, these early Maxwell House coffee and Gold Medal flour advertisements offer a window into the process of secularization, and how advertising not only reflected a shift of the locus of Jewish interest from the ritualistic to the mundane, but at times, even initiated this shift. Advertising familiarized acculturating Jews with brand-named merchandise.13 More importantly, it encouraged the regular consumption of products and luxuries, which, in the Old World, were associated with key Jewish holidays like Passover. Indeed, the acquisition of such luxuries is part of what set the holidays apart from other days, such that when an individual wrapped him or herself in the cloak of luxury, it was a demonstration of their “veneration of the Lord to which the Jewish holidays were devoted.”14 But with American mass production and the ready availability of these luxuries, “the acquisition of fine products ceased to uphold the dignity of the Jew as a Jew. Instead it dignified the Jew as a consumer.”15 Advertising encouraged a synthesis between Jewish traditions and American consumption. Compared to the ads in the Forward, a Maxwell House coffee ad that appeared in a 1923 issue of the Saturday Evening Post presents a middle-aged subject akin to the matron observed in the Gold Medal flour ad (see figure 28). Here, however, the subject is less the homemaker, and more the housekeeper, shown pouring, as opposed to making, the coffee. Similar to the Maxwell House coffee ads from the Forward, this one likewise reveals an interest in social status. The Saturday Evening Post’s portrayal of a Maxwell House housekeeper alongside the Forward’s very different depiction of modern, sophisticated subjects reveals how advertising was deployed by the company toward diverse audiences. However, whether targeting modernizing Jewish consumers or established southern ladies, the emphasis on status remained the same. In promoting desirable lifestyles, companies began tying the products being advertised to the acquisition of such lifestyles, encouraging consumers to vote “in the marketplace every day for style, beauty, and extravagance.”16 This is borne out by the sophisticated subjects enjoying their cups of Maxwell House coffee in the pages of the Forward and other Jewish publications. An emphasis on style and status was part and parcel in the invention of a con-

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Figure 28. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, Saturday Evening Post, April 28, 1923  •  Similar to Maxwell House Coffee ads from the Forward, this one likewise shows an interest in social status. The Saturday Evening Post’s portrayal of a Maxwell House C offee matron, however, reveals the company’s sensitivity toward diverse audiences.

sumption ethic, which rested upon the allure of everything modern—particularly fashion and technology. This ethic prized the new, while older yet functional models of products were regarded as obsolete, and consequently devalued. The 1920s advertising and consumption practices shifted the emphasis from the functional to the fashionable. The advertising historian Roland Marchand reveals that women were particularly susceptible to this evolving mode of consumption. Advertisements were customized for women, because, according to statistics, they did the majority of the nation’s buying.17 “Since women were ‘certainly emotional,’ advertisements must be emotional. Since women were characterized by ‘inarticulate longings,’ advertisements should portray idealized visions rather than prosaic realities. . . .‘Most American women lead rather monotonous and humdrum lives. . . . Such women need romance. They crave glamour and color.’ The advertising pages should become ‘the magical carpets on which they may ride out to love.’ They

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should cast such magical spells that housewives and women workers see themselves as femmes fatales, as Cleopatra or Helen of Troy.”18 The consumption ethic and its shift from the utilitarian to the extravagant depended upon inculcating in consumers—that is, the women—a vision of life, not as it was, but as it could be. Even though some advertising professionals felt remorse about the fallacious associations promoted by this new approach, they could nonetheless rationalize that this was what the masses desired. But, of course, it was the professionals themselves who had created this desire. Additionally, “in the protection of their self-esteem and as a psychological weapon against cultural engulfment by the tastes of the consumer masses, advertisers could always emphasize the stereotyped gender distinction between advertisers as men and consumers as women.”19 Aware of the discrepancies between truth and fiction in which they were implicated, some advertising men assuaged their guilt with the rationalization that the blossoming consumption ethic both stimulated the economy and promoted the work ethic.20 Whether promoted as the preferred coffee brand of urbanite flappers in the pages of Jewish papers, or as the refined beverage of the Old South in mainstream publications, Maxwell House coffee ads deployed the new consumption ethic through text/image combinations that consistently equated the brand with style and status. When Maxwell House replaced Yuban as Manhattan’s leading coffee brand in 1923, it attracted the attention of the renowned J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. By this time, Maxwell House had opened a new roasting facility in Los Angeles, and the advertising agency also had a California office.21 Additionally, the psychologist John B. Watson, known for his research on the relationship between human emotions and behavior, joined the J. Walter Thompson agency in 1921. Watson believed people were most responsive to stimuli that evoked fear, rage, or love. The proverbial Maxwell House coffee slogan, “Good to the last drop,” became synonymous with deep affection for the product, offering exactly the kind of positive emotional trigger demonstrated by Watson’s research. Curiously, this slogan, attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 as he sipped on a cup of Maxwell House coffee on a visit to Andrew Jackson’s estate, The Hermitage, near Nashville, did not appear in the advertising of the product until 1917. The ten-year gap has led to some speculation that Roosevelt never actually made this remark. Still, whether fact or fiction, the repeated association of the jingle with such a distinguished figure served as an effective way to connect the status of the president to that of the product.22 In 1924, James Webb Young, the J. Walter Thompson account manager for Maxwell House coffee, sent copywriter Ewing Webb to Nashville to absorb

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the essence of the Maxwell House Hotel in order to produce text that equated the brand with the flavor of southern hospitality. The resulting advertising series, “A Carnival of Southern Hospitality,” appeared the following year in various women’s magazines from Good Housekeeping to the Ladies’ Home Journal. The series connected the hotel to the social pageantry of Dixie, “where the notables of ole Dixie came to dine,” and “where the distinguished men and women of Dixie gathered” in “rich and beautiful costumes.”23 And, once again, there was a perception that it was women who most frequently succumbed to the emphasis on social status: “Coffee may be advertised just as coffee—a drink which pleases the palate,” wrote Young in a J. Walter Thompson company memo. “But we know that beauty, romance, and social prestige mean more than almost anything to a woman.”24 Mark Pendergrast’s research in Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, indicates that the campaign was a huge success with sales jumping over 100 percent for some months between 1924, when the campaign was launched, and 1925. In the late 1920s, the Maxwell House coffee account shifted from the J. Walter Thompson agency to Erwin, Wassey, and Company, and, like other emerging conglomerates, the company was no longer family-owned. In 1928, Edward Hutton, CEO of the Postum Cereal Company, purchased the CheekNeal Company for forty-two million dollars. Eventually Hutton would reincorporate his company as the General Foods Corporation. Facing a serious decline in sales of Maxwell House coffee during the stock market crash, General Foods transferred the advertising account to Bill Benton, Chet Bowles, and former Erwin Wassey account manager Atherton Hobler in 1932.25 The young creatives knew that a fresh advertising approach was paramount.26 Luckily, the new technology of radio availed itself to the challenge. Compared to the mass media forms of movies and tabloids, which were considered plebian due to their tremendous reach, radio—another mass medium—overcame its own status by heading directly into the privacy of the home.27 Moreover, the initial listening audience in the 1920s was elite because of the cost of radio sets, consistent with the Maxwell House coffee brand’s emphasis on status. In fact, radio, carried the potential for “cultural redemption,” and there was concern early on to protect the new medium against the evils of advertising.28 By the late 1920s, however, it had succumbed to the financial allure of advertising, and various companies began to sponsor programs of musical entertainment.29 Account manager Atherton Hobler proposed that the entire advertising budget for Maxwell House be applied to radio. This is how the Maxwell House

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Show Boat, inspired by the 1927 Jerome Kern musical, was born in October 1932. Some of the characters in the one-hour musical show were even played by the same Broadway actors.30 As the Maxwell House Show Boat secured top ratings in 1933, so too did Maxwell House coffee sales—increasing 85 percent that same year. The show was actually the first to integrate the pleasure provided by a brand into a script, replete with “the sounds of pouring, rattling coffee cups, and satisfied lip-smacking.”31 Print advertising tie-ins, featuring the popular radio actors, further enhanced the status of the coffee. Seizing upon the fanfare of the Maxwell House Show Boat and the product’s name recognition, Joseph Jacobs, Jewish marketer extraordinaire, created the Maxwell House coffee Passover haggadah in 1932 to allow the brand to further penetrate the Jewish market. A decade earlier, Jacobs had approached Joel Cheek to inform him of the tremendous possibilities of the Jewish Passover clientele. There was only one problem: Eastern European Jews believed that coffee beans, like other legumes, could not be consumed during Passover. Jews therefore opted to drink tea during the Passover holiday. Consulting an obscure rabbi from the Lower East Side, who decreed that technically coffee beans were like berries, Joseph Jacobs secured the Jewish stamp of approval for Maxwell House coffee in 1923.32 The marketing maneuver now pointed Jews toward the Maxwell House coffee brand during Passover. In 1932, the haggadah publicized the compatibility of Maxwell House coffee with the Passover diet. Over the next several decades, it would become a metonym for Passover, American style. During the Depression, A&P grocery markets sold their own brand of coffee at thirty-one cents per pound and sold other national brands at thirtynine cents per pound. That eight-cent differential was meaningful to consumers during those hard years, yet A&P—a food industry giant—refused to drop the price of the more recognized brands. Maxwell House coffee, then part of General Foods, turned to Joseph Jacobs in their efforts to reduce the sales price of their brand to make it more competitive with A&P’s. While the president of General Foods traveled the country on a prolonged sales trip, Jacobs devised a strategy that would, in due course, achieve the pricing objective. Jacobs offered a wholesaler, Mr. Krasne, newly published Maxwell House haggadahs two weeks before the competitors, provided that he purchase two railcars of Maxwell House coffee. Mr. Krasne customarily purchased 200 cases of coffee. Now Jacobs persuaded him to buy 2,000 cases! With 2,000 cases of coffee to unload, the wholesaler dropped his price, thereby allowing other stores to drop theirs, and ultimately, the A&P food giant had to drop coffee prices as well.33 Although the Maxwell House coffee

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Figure 29. Original Maxwell House Coffee Passover haggadah, 1934  •  Originally created as a marketing tool to make Maxwell House Coffee competitive with the A&P brand during the Depression, the haggadah remains a staple of the Passover celebration in America. Over sixty million copies have been printed.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

haggadah was originally conceived as a sales ploy to flatten the price of coffee, through its free distribution to Jews during challenging economic times, the brand earned the loyalty of this vibrant market segment. The successful sales of Maxwell House coffee during Passover thanks to the promotional haggadah resulted in their annual publication. The original 1932 Maxwell House coffee haggadah used balanced combinations of text (both Hebrew and English) and image to establish its legitimacy as a valid Jewish source (see figure 29). Relying upon a classical configuration of centered text, the front cover followed a precise page hierarchy from top to bottom.34 It began with bold Hebrew letters at the top of the page, smaller upper-case English letters translating the Hebrew appeared in the center of the page, and still smaller upper-case English letters on the bottom of the page read “Maxwell House Coffee,” with the “Good to the Last Drop” tagline and “Kosher for Passover” underneath. On the interior, a selection of neoclassical illustrations featuring the anointment of David along with other biblical stories continued the focus on tradition established by the classically configured text of the cover. Both the sturdiness of the male

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patriarchs along with the anatomical display of the younger males recalled classical painting and sculpture from Roman antiquity, the Renaissance, and the Neoclassical period of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Text pages adjacent to the illustrations in both Hebrew and English preserved the balanced, classical emphasis. Following written Hebrew, the pages of the haggadah turned from right to left. This further solidified the legitimacy of the publication. Like the pictures of David and religious imagery since the Renaissance, the images depicting the Ten Plagues relied upon classically rendered illustrations. With its bilingual division, Jacobean English, and classical drawings, Maxwell House intentionally positioned itself as an authentic source for the modern American Jew who also wished to preserve tradition. The front and back covers of the Maxwell House haggadah stayed the same for the remainder of the 1930s and into the 1940s, as did the written narrative. A full-page advertisement facing the final page of the haggadah, promoting “vita-fresh” vacuum-packed Maxwell House Coffee in either regular or drip grinds, became a staple of the layout. Starting in 1936, an illustration of freshly percolated hot coffee enticed the viewer to conclude the Passover Seder with a cup of Maxwell House “joe.” Through its production of the haggadah, Maxwell House coffee inserted itself into the Passover ritual. Coffee ads appeared both at the beginning and end of the booklet, and encouraged American Jews to abide by Passover practices as a way of affirming and celebrating tradition.35 Beyond Passover, Seder participants were encouraged to drink Maxwell House coffee “all year round” throughout the thirties. A decade later, the Pulse Study—a pantry inventory of New York metropolitan residents—confirmed that Jewish consumers were taking heed. While Maxwell House coffee immigrated to the Jewish market in the 1920s, Manischewitz matzo has remained a Jewish product through and through since its establishment in 1888. Rabbi Dov Behr, founder of the company, acquired the Manischewitz name upon his arrival to America on December 17, 1885.36 Shortly after their arrival, he and his wife Nesha, and their three young children—Mayme, Meyer, and Jacob—headed by train to Cincinnati where a job as a shochet (ritual slaughterer) awaited Behr. A pious yet enterprising man, Behr decided in 1888 to begin baking matzo for his family and also sold it to the immediate Jewish community. Although he was not the first Jewish immigrant to adapt a bakery for the production of unleavened bread, Behr Manischewitz’s ambition and success was unparalleled, mainly due to his refinement of machinery that could yield thousands of pounds of matzo daily.37 Thanks to Isaac Singer, the renowned inventor

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of the Singer sewing machine, Manischewitz was able to take advantage of a lesser-known Singer creation: a matzo dough-rolling machine invented in 1838. Even though the matzo-rolling machine facilitated the production of matzo, making it available to the masses for less money than handmade matzo, the introduction of technology to an age-old ritual created much halachic controversy, especially among traditionalists. Some rabbis argued that machine-made matzo was equivalent to chametz (food products containing flour that are forbidden during the Passover holiday), because of the impossibility of cleaning the small parts of the machinery. However, those who defended the machine claimed that it was actually easier to clean than equipment used in the process of making matzo by hand. As Shmuel Singer claims in his article “The Machine Matzah Controversy,” many who expressed resistance to the new matzo-rolling technology were really more anxious about change giving way to more changes in Jewish life that would compromise the observance of mitzvot (commandments) necessary for the continuity of traditional Judaism.38 Due to these concerns, matzo preparation made using the latest technology was better suited for a man, according to Laura Manischewitz Alpern, great-granddaughter of Behr Manischewitz. This idea may have initially run counter to the traditional ascription of women with food preparation; however, control of the baking process was paramount, particularly in a context where the preparation of hand-rolled matzos was yielding to machine-made ones. Matzos had to be made following specific religious prescriptions and the baking process required precise timing. Women’s responsibilities for childcare and other household chores raised concern about their ability to devote the necessary attention to the preparation of this sacred consumable.39 Establishing the legitimacy of machine-made matzos became vital for Manischewitz, especially considering that many Jews within Cincinnati’s observant community had their doubts. Accordingly, Manische­ witz decided to reach beyond Cincinnati to promote his product, visiting neighboring towns and cities, where he ingratiated himself with local rabbis, prayed with community members, and introduced himself to grocers.40 Behr’s piety and sincerity quickly won over Jewish religious leaders who understood that ready-made matzos would relieve them of labor-intensive matzo preparation.41 Manischewitz’s voracious entrepreneurial appetite eventually led him to capitalize upon the distinct personalities, interests, and strengths of his five sons to construct what ultimately became a matzo empire. The religious affiliations of the Manischewitz sons ranged from secular to observant, and, to

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a certain extent, the religious spectrum of the Manischewitz male offspring was by Dov Behr Manischewitz’s design. Perpetually conflicted about the collision of the religious and the secular in America, Behr decided to send his sons Jacob and Max to Jerusalem in 1900 to immerse them in religious studies. Jacob, then fifteen, opposed his father’s decision and disappeared the night the emissaries from Jerusalem were scheduled to leave with the boys. In a last-minute switch, Behr replaced him with younger brother Hirsch. By sending ten-year-old Max and eight-year-old Hirsch to Jerusalem, “Behr had ensured the religious future of the family,” and could consequently stop worrying about the impiety of his remaining sons.42 Ardently nonreligious by traditional standards, Jacob would nonetheless go on to become his father’s right hand, eventually superseding him as president of the company upon his father’s death in 1914. The religious penchants of the Manischewitz boys reflected the diversity of the market. With his own filial religious spectrum, Behr was well positioned to make an authentic appeal to various segments of American Jews. Some German American Jews, for instance, who had grown distant from tradition by decades of assimilation, felt uncomfortable buying matzos from Orthodox rabbis. The modern machinery and assimilated practices of some of the Manischewitz offspring especially resonated with them, just as Orthodox Jews could trust the Manischewitz name to adhere to the strictest dietary requirements. As an indigenously Jewish company, the success of Manischewitz was in its balanced fusion of tradition and innovation. By 1905, three machines accomplished the work of dough-kneading, rolling, and cutting, significantly expediting the production of matzo.43 The mass production of matzos facilitated the celebration of the Passover holiday, and it symbolically kneaded together both traditional and modern dimensions of American Judaism. In 1907, orders from around the country and abroad required that Behr enlarge the bakery. Now with a modern five-story facility of over 37,000 square feet, and a double set of machinery, which Behr proudly patented, he was able to increase his matzo production to over 20,000 pounds daily.44 The innovation of square matzos further increased efficiency, for there was no need to trim excess dough. Additionally, the square matzo sheets proved more conducive for packaging and shipping.45 Following Behr’s death in 1914, the company changed its name to the B. Manischewitz Company, according to Behr’s stipulation in his will that the company become incorporated and name Jacob Manischewitz as president of the new corporation. Jacob’s four brothers assumed positions as vice presidents, treasurer, and secretary. The oldest Manischewitz brother, Mey-

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er, moved to New York in 1914 to oversee sales and distribution there. It was then that an early text-only advertisement appeared in the Yiddish daily, the Forward. As a seasonal product, early Manischewitz matzo advertisements were restricted to the weeks before Passover and appeared in American Jewish publications from the Northeast to the Southwest. Due to the proximity of Passover and Easter, it was not uncommon to observe Passover advertisements alongside Easter ones, especially in the pages of Reform publications such as the American Israelite and the Chicago Sentinel. This trend heralded the accommodating strategies pursued by American Jews—particularly German Reform Jews—as they navigated between Jewish tradition and mainstream America. Even as the observance of the most momentous Jewish holidays, including Passover, continued, it did not preclude assimilating Jews from partaking in the seasonal shopping associated with Christian holidays like Easter as part of their assimilation practices in America.46 The earliest Manischewitz matzo ads to include an image typically represented the packaged matzo box, as seen in an example from the March 31, 1922, issue of the Forward (see figure 30). Here the Star of David is the central icon. Despite the traditional Jewish iconography, the fine print on the 1922 package notified consumers that Manischewitz matzos were made by the best modern methods and were guaranteed to be strictly kosher for Passover. The not-so-fine print advised consumers to beware of imitations. A review of

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Figure 30. Early Manischewitz matzo ad, the Forward, March 31, 1922  •  Despite its traditional Jewish star iconography, the fine print notified consumers that Manischewitz matzos were made by the best modern methods and were guaranteed to be strictly kosher for Passover. The not-so-fine print advised consumers to beware of imitations.

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the Manischewitz logo and matzo packaging from 1888 through the midtwentieth century demonstrates a tendency toward increasing simplicity. By 1925, the packaging had grown more visual; now all of the descriptive text from the earlier packaging was replaced by the Manischewitz label shown on a red ground, superimposed over a sheet of matzo. Underneath the label appeared a seal including a Jewish star; yet on either side of the seal appeared the words, “World Famous.” Taking a lesson from earlier Barnum and Bailey circus ads, often filled to the brim with hyperbole, Manischewitz responded to more universal trends in advertising.47 While the 1922 ad predates the Maxwell House coffee haggadah by one decade, both the Manischewitz and Maxwell House brands depended upon a delicate balance of traditional iconography combined with references to either modern subjects or technology in their appeal to an array of Jewish consumers from the religiously observant to the secular. Diverse in origin—with one product emanating from the world of Jewish rituals and the other from the American South—a consideration of the early marketing and advertising of both brands offers insight into how various constituencies of American Jews deferred to tradition and modernity to piece together their identities. M & M at Mid-Century, Mainstreaming Tradition: 1940–1970 The 1940s and 1950s was a time of tremendous innovation for the B. Manische­ witz Company and substantial growth for Maxwell House coffee within the Jewish market. Both companies expanded their products and marketing efforts. Starting in 1944, the Joseph Jacobs Organization commissioned The Pulse of New York, Inc. to inventory the pantries of metropolitan New York residents. For forty-five years, these annual inventories detailed the market differences between the brands consumed by Jewish families compared to those consumed by non-Jewish households in the larger New York metropolitan area. Year after year, the report demonstrated the preference of Jews for Maxwell House coffee.48 However, whereas in the mid-1940s there was between a 5 to 14 percent discrepancy in the Jewish versus non-Jewish consumption of Maxwell House Coffee, by 1950, twice as many Jewish households compared to non-Jewish households stocked the coffee. Presumably, the association of Maxwell House coffee with the haggadah kept the brand relevant for Jews all year long. In 1940, the B. Manischewitz Company introduced the Tam Tam cracker as its first non-Passover product. With it, the company had also discovered how to remain pertinent throughout the entire calendar year.

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The mass production and consumption of kosher items extended the reach of these foods and preserved the American Jewish palate. In March 1956, the B. Manischewitz Company participated in Hunter College’s “Jewish Life as Reflected in Jewish Foods” symposium. Catering to an audience of food editors and home economists, the symposium had two goals: first, to underscore the importance of the field of home economics; and second, to examine the social history of food as a lens onto the various cultures present in New York. In his opening greeting, George N. Shuster, Hunter College president, stated “In order to know people well, one must sit down and eat with them—break their kind of bread and drink their wine.” In the context of the symposium, Edith Stoffer, director of home economics at B. Manischewitz, defined “Jewish cookery” as an international sampling of dishes absorbed through the migration of Jews from the Mediterranean to the Baltics. Bernard Manische­ witz, then president of the B. Manischewitz Company, delivered a presentation titled “America’s Influence on Jewish Cooking.” He remarked on the relationship between the secular and the religious, or, more specifically, the connection between the earthly and the heavenly in the world of Jewish food: “It has been said that getting to know a people’s food is the first step towards understanding the people themselves—for food is a basic and fundamental expression of a people’s culture. . . . I feel that the gently luscious tang of gefilte fish, the tempting plumpness of feathery matzo balls swimming in golden chicken soup . . . the many friendly blandishments of other Jewish dishes have served to give our fellow Americans a revealing glimpse into the more earth[l]y manifestations of the Jewish soul.”49 Just as Manischewitz home economist, Edith Stoffer, identified cross-pollination as the impetus of “Jewish cookery,” Bernard Manischewitz also highlighted the importance of the absorption of American patterns of living, technological advances, and processing and packaging in achieving a distinctly American flavor. Humorous as Manischewitz’s description of luscious gefilte fish or feathery matzo balls swimming in golden chicken soup as an “earthly manifestation of the Jewish soul” may sound, his characterization of these savories was serious. In this ascription, Bernard Manischewitz located an ideal convergence of tradition and modernity. This fit perfectly within the company’s secular tradition, and within the secular world of Jewish culture. Within the context of the midtwentieth century, the marketing and advertising of Jewish food products served to reinforce religious rituals. Even if advertising and marketing were firmly anchored within the secular realm of the here and now, they nonetheless drew a connection between the preparation and consumption of these products with the absorption and retention of established Jewish ideals.

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As tradition and modernity coexist and often draw upon each other, the same may be said of traditional and secular Judaism. In Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought, the historian David Biale argues that secular Judaism need not be seen as a rupture with traditional Judaism; rather, it came out of the very tradition it sought to replace. Secular thought since the Enlightenment has formed a tradition that runs parallel to the religious tradition. It is “part of a continuum that presupposes the holy, not its negation.”50 However, in contrast to traditional religious Judaism, which subscribes to a direct relationship between God and the acceptance of the mitzvot by Moses on behalf of the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, secular Judaism recognizes authentic expressions of Jewish life here on earth. It is therefore in the context of the secular that Jewish culture and its manifold expressions belong. As expressions of the earthly, advertising, marketing, packaging, and consumption—of both food and products—undoubtedly challenged and redefined Jewish tradition by luring Jews outside the regimented world of adherence to mitzvot. Traditionalists would argue that since the Jewish Enlightenment, these encounters have initiated the gradual dying process of Judaism. However, when Jewish tradition is broadened to include cultural expressions, then these same encounters could be seen as encoding and, therefore, sustaining Jewish life. When Bernard Manischewitz delivered his keynote address in 1956, he did not attribute the endurance of the Jewish family and home to ritualistic texts or to practices, but rather, to the potential of packaged Jewish foods: “The development of packaged Jewish foods has had a marked sociological effect on the pattern of family life in the American Jewish home—a very measureable effect on the balance of family relationships.”51 Of course, Manischewitz was in the business of selling packaged products, and therefore the bias of his statement must be acknowledged. Yet, the value of prepared Jewish foodstuffs in a suburban culture that was turning increasingly to the convenience of Tupperware and frozen foods should not be underestimated. Why, as the Pulse Study underscored, wouldn’t the Jewish homemaker select the packaged and frozen Jewish food options from the non-Jewish alternatives? Kosher packaged foods offered the same ease of non-kosher prepared foods, while conveniently reinforcing the practices associated with Jewish observance. Their purchase carried with it a potential for the consumption of holiness not available in mainstream products. Moreover, the purchase and ingesting of kosher food products implicitly acknowledged the importance of choices in this world to Jewish continuity. According to Manischewitz,

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packaged and frozen foods were simply the latest additions to over one hundred kosher foods available for Passover and year-round: Rapid strides have been made in the development of prepared, readyto-serve packaged Jewish foods—and progress is following fast in the frozen foods field. Modern methods of processing have led to increasing standardization in quality and, equally important . . . the need to please vast consumer markets of different geographical origins has led to a standardization in the taste of packaged Jewish foods that is acceptable to all. . . . Standards of quality are maintained that could not possibly be maintained in home cooking; special ingredients are developed to heighten the taste and supplement the nutritional value of traditional Jewish dishes. . . . Thus we find more and more that as fine prepared Jewish foods come into the market . . . they become the standards by which the Jewish homemaker judges the quality of her own culinary efforts—and with increasing frequency, [they] award the verdict to the packaged product.52 Bernard Manischewitz noted how even in the most Orthodox Jewish homes dependable kosher packaged foods relieved the homemaker of the extensive hours required for food preparation, enabling her to pursue outside interests that “enrich the entire fabric of family life.” Manischewitz’s remarks intended to stress the compatibility between Jewish tradition and modern American ways in order to sell his products to audiences drawn to either orientation. His far-reaching objectives became apparent when he stated, “More and more, with the characteristic American predilection for absorbing the best in many cultures, a growing number of non-Jews are adopting many of the traditional Jewish dishes in their homes, just as they have taken to the foods of many other peoples and lands.”53 Although the Pulse Study did not actually confirm his sweeping claims about the increasing popularity of Jewish foods, such as matzo, kosher meats, or rye bread, Manischewitz was right in his claim that people worldwide were introduced to new cultures through exposure to their food. The introduction to new countries and cultures through food was hardly unique to the Jewish experience in America. Echoing the B. Manischewitz’s home economist Edith Stoffer’s definition of “Jewish cookery” in Hungering for America, the historian Hasia Diner notes how the Jews, as a worldwide

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people, “adopted local foodstuffs and adapted them to their laws. They created cuisines blending Jewish law and practice with the produce and styles of the lands of their dispersion.” The mid-century penchant for packaged food must be regarded within this historically established tendency, for alongside the preparation of food, its “consumption informed Judaism and Jewish ritual practice.”54 Foodways maintained a direct link to a particular heritage, while functioning as an important artery of transmigration. In Diner’s words, “food gave meaning to life.”55 Even in their packaged form, the ingestion of prepared kosher food ascribed sanctity to the mundane act of eating. More than incidental, the food products that were promoted by marketing and advertising acquired some of the status of the rituals to which they were tied. Although these products were distant from the sacred, they nonetheless served as a vehicle of connection between the religious and the earthly. Throughout the fifties and sixties, Maxwell House coffee remained the strong leader in Jewish households. Even though its use nearly doubled in non-Jewish households between 1964 and 1966 from 16 to nearly 30 percent, it still lagged some 20 percent behind Jewish consumption. In addition to the continued rise of brewed Maxwell House coffee among Jewish consumers, Maxwell House instant coffee also gained popularity among Jewish consumers at this time. The cover of the 1955 Maxwell House coffee haggadah replaced the “Good to the last drop” slogan with its announcement of Maxwell House instant coffee. Inside, the coffee tin was substituted with a jar of instant coffee. Consistent with the arms race and the space-age technology of the mid-fifties—interpreted by Maxwell House in the form of freeze-dried coffee crystals—a five-point star (meant to evoke space) appeared atop the lid of the instant coffee jar. To the right of the jar, the five-point star became transfigured as a floating six-point Jewish star to reveal Maxwell House coffee as “the original Passover instant.” Indeed, Maxwell House coffee had secured a unique position within Jewish households as the flavor of both Jewish tradition and the Jewish future. In the late fifties, the Joseph Jacobs Organization issued a new edition of the Maxwell House coffee haggadah. Although the format had been reduced to practically pocket size, for the first time, the front cover included a visual reproduction of a woman blessing the holiday candles. Like its predecessors, this small-format haggadah retained the pen-and-ink drawings of the past, including the Israelites at labor, the plague of the locusts, the death of the firstborn, and pharaoh and his host drowned in the Red Sea. Even though the artist of the drawings still remained anonymous, of note is how these drawings continued to recall traditional academic history painting. For example,

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the powerful figure of “Moses coming down from Mount Sinai” appears Michelangelo-esque in its strength and dimensionality. A lightning bolt in the upper right-hand corner and two rays of light emanating from Moses’s head reinforce the drama of the event and invoke the presence of the divine. Moses’s billowing robes are echoed by his flying hair and prominent beard. Indeed, he appears as both the direct descendant of Michelangelo’s portrayal of God on the Sistine Ceiling in the Vatican and the pen-and-ink version of Charlton Heston in the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments. Intentional or not, the references to both Western high art and popular culture are present, connecting the dots between the sacred and the secular in perfect Maxwell House coffee Jewish advertising fashion. By the early 1960s, the haggadah returned to a larger five-by-seven-inch format, providing ample space for decorative embellishment in the form of vine tendrils on the front cover.56 Nestled between the vines at the top center of the cover appeared a crown. The three points of the crown echoed the top three points of the Jewish star displayed on the bottom right, which announced the “deluxe edition” of the haggadah. Despite the medieval, hand­ crafted connotations of the vine tendrils, for the first time in its nearly thirtyyear print run, the haggadah sported a more modern interior. The classical illustrations of the past were now replaced with flattened-out, reductive lines, creating a more graphic appearance. Additionally, while the haggadah was heavily illustrated, the number of biblical illustrations had been reduced. Instead, sketches of a modern male figure, presumably the head of the household who leads the Seder, along with disembodied hands actually pointing to or performing essential activities like dividing the matzo in preparation for the hiding of the afikomen (a piece of broken matzo that is hidden before the Seder and then discovered by the children—often for a reward—after the meal), were depicted. These sketches served as visual reminders to the leader of how to conduct the Seder. Even though the written text remained largely the same, the addition of English transliterations of blessings and prayers hinted at a loss of Hebrew reading skills. As the Maxwell House haggadah was adopted by households to become an American Jewish custom, its later iterations began to chart a distancing from traditional Jewish knowledge and education. The noticeable visual changes incorporated in the 1965 haggadah offered further evidence of how Maxwell House, like the B. Manischewitz Company, followed the times. In the 1960s world of art and design, minimal, reductive forms raged against the classicism of the past. Synonymous with the new, modern, and avant-garde, these forms touched fashion, graphic design, and

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advertising. The makeover initiated in the early sixties was now complete. In its pre-1960 versions, the haggadah relied upon classically rendered anatomical forms in pen and ink to establish its seriousness and veracity as a Jewish text, underscoring its traditional value. Having achieved the status of a Passover tradition among American Jews, the 1965 haggadah made a definitive break with the past in favor of flat and simplified illustrations. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the illustration of the Ten Plagues (see figure 31). Gone are the classical architecture, human figures, and detailed scenery from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s; all extraneous details have been stripped away. The new interpretation of the tale showed only the symbols of the plagues themselves. The tradition of illustrated haggadot extends as far back as the Middle Ages when they served as a means to keep children engaged during the long Passover Seder. However, in the mid-1960s, the Maxwell House haggadah’s illustrative style changed dramatically. The change from intricate classical history paintings with grand narratives that were modeled in onepoint perspective just five years earlier to generic icons likened the drawings in the new version to those included in children’s books.

Figure 31. Maxwell House Coffee Passover haggadah, Ten Plagues illustration, 1965  •  When minimalist, reductive forms in the world of art and design challenged the classicism of the past, noticeable visual changes in the 1965 haggadah demonstrated how Maxwell House Coffee, like the B. Manischewitz company, followed the times. The Ten Plagues are symbolized using simple graphic illustrations.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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This representational shift coincided with the suburbanization of Jewish life in the 1950s and 1960s. In the suburbs, children became the primary focus of doting parents. Additionally, gender roles were made visible and perpetuated in such popular television shows like Father Knows Best, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and “Leave It to Beaver.57 Gender was also reinforced in numerous television commercials and ads that frequently depicted women as housewives using cleaning products or catering to their men. The male voice of authority in one Maxwell House coffee spot encouraged his woman to “be a good little Maxwell House wife, and I think I’ll keep you around.” An ad appearing in English-Jewish publications across the nation around 1960 essentially captured the spirit of the commercial in print. Here a happy hostess pours a cup of freshly percolated Maxwell House for a man who bears a striking resemblance to the fictional character of Don Draper on AMC’s series Mad Men (see figure 32). Good-looking and self-assured, the male casts his gaze upon the hostess; she averts her eyes downward toward the cup of coffee. The multiple cups, saucers, and spoons indicate that a celebration is under way; however, we cannot know whether the hostess is serving her husband or a male guest. The Hanukkah menorah, conspicuously centered on the table, transforms the wholesome looking pair into a Jewish couple, and the gathering is established as a Jewish occasion. The tagline, “First light, every night…Hanukkah cheer in every cup!” heightens the Jewish connotations of

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Figure 32. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, 1960  •  Hostess pouring cup of freshly percolated Maxwell House Coffee with accompanying text informing that Maxwell House Coffee offers Hanukkah cheer in every cup, not just for the first light, but for every night.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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the ad and reminds viewers of the longstanding affiliation between Maxwell House coffee and Jewish holidays. From traditional to modern, Reform to Orthodox, and from Hanukkah to Shevuoth, Maxwell House coffee’s foolproof “good to the last drop” formula availed itself across a spectrum of Jewish holidays and persuasions. Another legendary product among American Jewish families in addition to Maxwell House coffee and Manischewitz matzo, is Manischewitz wine. Like the unleavened bread, the wine has a sacramental function; however, the matzo is generally consumed for one week only during Passover, while wine and Kiddush (blessing over the wine) have a regular engagement during the weekly Shabbat celebration. Leo Star and his Monarch Wine Company in New York initially produced wine just following the end of Prohibition in 1933. In the mid-1940s, Star contracted with the Manischewitz firm to license its name. By then Manischewitz had already achieved deep inroads within Jewish America. Star’s earliest marketing efforts on radio—including the now famous 1945 “Man, oh Manischewitz . . . What a Wine!” commercial—attempted to achieve name recognition in the larger public. Similar to Manischewitz matzo packaging from the 1920s to 1940s, the wine bottle label featured traditional Jewish iconography, like the Star of David and a bearded religious figure wrapped in a prayer shawl, to reinforce the sanctity of the product. In comparison to the ordinariness of the matzo box packaging, the Manischewitz wine label relied upon the use of gold and purple—the colors of royalty—to designate its status, while still emphasizing its sacramental value. The elongated square shape of the Manischewitz bottle distinguished it from the squatty proportions of Mogen David wine bottles, the other leading Jewish brand of the day. Starting in the 1950s, Mogen David sponsored the television game show Dollar a Second. During the commercial breaks, vaudeville comedian and host Jan Murray touted Mogen David as “the home sweet home wine,” and as a wine that “costs so little and tastes so good.”58 Whereas Manischewitz wine from the beginning associated itself with class and status, Mogen David used television to promote itself as “the wine that has won the heart of America.” Despite their roles as competitors—each trying to increase their popularity in the general marketplace— their screw-caps and sweet, syrupy flavor separated both Manischewitz and Mogen David from wines enjoyed by more serious connoisseurs. In contrast to Mogen David’s approach as the all-American family wine, starting in 1960 Manischewitz television commercials consistently positioned the wine as a classy product. From cocktail parties to candlelit din-

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ners, Manischewitz was the wine of choice. Young, upwardly mobile couples danced the Twist and were “thinking light and living right,” as they enjoyed Manischewitz on the rocks, along with Manischewitz light wine. Businessmen also enjoyed “Man, oh Manischewitz” wine breaks. The company rolled out new flavors from cherry to blackberry to loganberry later in the decade, and it enlisted the help of popular characters like Sherlock Holmes and actors like Cyril Richard. In a commercial for Manischewitz Sangria, actor Peter Lawford remarked, “the name may not be Spanish, but the taste is olé!” The singer Sammy Davis Jr. opened a refrigerator packed with Manischewitz wine and informed the audience that he “digs” it before or after dinner, and that the wine only tastes expensive. Aligning the beverage with foreign words and contemporary hip language indicated an effort to broaden its reach beyond the Jewish market and generalize the product. In its efforts to reach a more universal audience, the sacramental was downplayed through dialogue that advised Manischewitz was available in new “holiday” gift packages. Viewers determined for themselves exactly which holiday—Christmas or Hanukkah? However, even as the wine attempted to distance itself from its religious associations with Judaism, its taste remained “heavenly:” “Time for wine; it’s got a taste of pleasure you will find divine . . . it’s that happy, happy time again.” The commercial campaigns aimed to emphasize the sophistication and cosmopolitanism of the wine and were more concerned with helping Manischewitz overcome its “too sweet” stigma rather than its religious associations. Only around 1970 was there any reference to the sacramental in a commercial with an intergenerational bent that waxed nostalgic: “Mom, what does Manischewitz mean to you?” The elderly woman responds, “My family, Friday night.” Around the same time, Manischewitz wine attempted to reinforce its internationality in a commercial promoting Cream White Concord. In this commercial, a handsome Anglo man standing in front of an English Tudor home intentionally complicates his explanation of how he was introduced to the wine in order to highlight its international appeal. He reveals that a Canadian client who discovered the wine through an American history professor, who encountered it at the home of a Chinese delegate to the United Nations, who first sampled it at a Passover Seder, introduced him to Cream White Concord. Through these commercials, Manischewitz wine emphasized its versatility and attempted to attract a diverse public. Moreover, as the commercials deemphasized the wine’s ritual associations, they often aligned Manischewitz with the latest trends and technology in order to

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steer the product in the direction of a broader and more modern consuming public. The strategy evidently worked. American Jews continued to associate Manischewitz with tradition and quality, and other consumers, including African Americans, began gravitating toward the wines. A 1973 advertisement in Ebony—a magazine that since its inception in 1945 has focused exclusively on the African American market—portrayed an attractive African American woman sandwiched between copy that read, “Manischewitz Cream White Concord—Doubly Smooth.” The ad, striking in its elegance, used double vision to represent the woman and reinforce the doubly smooth message in the tagline. Its reversal of positive and negative compositional strategies to depict white text on a black background, played with the contrast between the Cream White Concord variety and the African American subject. The embrace of Manischewitz by African Americans demonstrates how advertising promoted the product’s plasticity and extended its popularity beyond the sacramental. Both Manischewitz and Maxwell House engaged modern technology as a means to fortify Jewish culinary habits, and by extension, ties to traditional Judaism. Now, packaged and frozen products could extend the life of Jewish foods from borscht to gefilte fish, while enhancing the appeal of kosher cuisine by likening it to the latest advancements in non-kosher provisions. In keeping with the times, Maxwell House coffee introduced its new “electraperk” technology in the 1960s. Sending boiling water upward through a tube to the top of a perforated basket, the water fell over the coffee grounds, and the process repeated until the brew had achieved the right color and strength. The visible and spirited bubbling inside the glass top of non-automatic percolators was interpreted in new “perking pot” television commercials, which were expressed in a catchy, rhythmic, “bouncing” melody. In every commercial and print ad, Maxwell House coffee remained “good to the last drop.” As Maxwell House mastered the recipe for applying modern coffee technology to achieve the Jewish “taste of tradition,” Manischewitz matzo and wine continued pursuing a more universal consumer in the late sixties and seventies. “Take your family on a taste trip around the world,” read the copy of one ad, superimposing new canned products over the globe to promote “five new Manischewitz international favorites, each with just the right dash of Jewish flavor.” The company’s dogged pursuit of diverse consumers coincided with a logo change in the 1980s. Its name was shortened from the B. Manischewitz Company to Manischewitz. This simplification was echoed in a new logo depicting an upright title in a white, almond-shaped design

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against a field of green and orange. The modernization of the logo corresponded with the company’s efforts to reach a more universal audience. As the company set its sights on capturing new clients, its earlier red, white, and blue color scheme was no longer necessary, for, as Rolston memorialized in his painting, Manischewitz had already captured America to become the premiere American matzo. Tradition and Modernity Synthesized: 1970–2009 Shopping habits, brand selections, and the study of Jewish consuming practices, more generally, open a window into Jewish acculturation and integration in America. But by the 1970s, it had become well established that Jews had left their imprint on the American cultural landscape as well. American cultural life was contoured by Jews, writes the historian Stephen Whitfield, just as the “nation changed Judaism and its adherents.”59 This merging of two different cultures became clear in the 1970 National Jewish Population Survey conducted by the Council of Jewish Federations. With the rate of intermarriage on the rise from around 6 percent in 1961 to 31.7 percent by 1970, the organized Jewish community feared the decline of Jewish affiliation. As some sociologists and historians of American Jewish life argued, however, the loosening of religious ties and the increase in intermarriages also signaled a growing acceptance of Jews by the larger American population. Always tuned in to the times, advertising recorded the important exchange between American Jews and the rest of society between the 1970s and 2009. The 1970s were indeed a time of experimentation and cross-pollination. Historians like James Twitchell, Stephen Fox, and Thomas Frank have suggested that advertising responded to the cultural revolution early on with ads depicting people of color that mocked ingrained stereotypes. Also, for the first time, women were shown in male­-dominated professions like racecar driving and business. By the mid-eighties, it was not uncommon to see reversals in gender roles in advertising. In a print ad for Brim decaffeinated coffee, another General Foods Corporation coffee product, it is the woman who is positioned as the business executive. Her authority is reinforced by an engraved name placard, and by the copy, which reads, “You Always Knew Success Would Taste This Good.” In the 1970s, Manischewitz wine and matzos continued its solicitation of diverse consumers through a more universal approach to advertising. Its advertising efforts to achieve a symbiosis between tradition and modernity and

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Jewish particularity and universality crossed a new threshold in 1973. When Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan began his moonwalk, and his exuberance resounded in the statement, “Man, oh, Manischewitz,” the whole world was listening. Meanwhile, Maxwell House coffee—now a fifty-year-old Passover tradition within American homes—relied upon nostalgic advertising in the Jewish media to preserve its esteemed position within households. “On the night that is different, enjoy the coffee that is always the same,” advised a 1969 Passover ad. Actually, from 1966, when the Pulse Study first recorded that slightly over half of Jewish households stocked Maxwell House regular coffee, to the late 1990s, the brand never dipped below 50 percent.60 In the deft marketing hands of the Joseph Jacobs Organization, both companies deepened their reputations as the “taste of tradition.” In fact, when it came to the Maxwell House coffee Passover haggadah, between 1965 and 1992, very little changed. The pagination and graphics remained exactly the same. The only noticeable revisions were to the front and back covers; whereas in 1965, the Passover haggadah title was featured within a circular shape reminiscent of a Seder plate, superimposed over a variegated ground, by 1982 the Passover haggadah title appeared between two ruled lines against a saturated blue background. In other words, the simplification to the covers now matched the reductive graphics found inside. In 2000, the ceremonial guide finally received a visual makeover. By purchasing Maxwell House coffee and receiving a free Passover haggadah (customary since the publication of the first haggadah in 1932), American Jews were now encouraged to “Keep the Tradition”…“Cherish the Moment”…“Share the Holiday…” and to “Celebrate Passover with the rich taste of Maxwell House Coffee” (see figure 33). The ad promoting the free haggadah used some of the same photographic images featured on the cover of the booklet. Now the stark covers and reductive graphics popular since the mid-sixties were replaced with photographic images depicting family participants at an actual Passover Seder. Just as the intergenerational tenderness of the family members stood as a metaphor for tradition, the return to figurative imagery likewise recalled the influence of traditional representation, conjuring the classical past, as in the earliest Maxwell House coffee haggadot from the 1930s. What prompted Maxwell House coffee advertising to wax nostalgic at the turn of the millennium? By this time, the impact of postmodernism and its recuperation of the past through appropriation, parody, and pastiche had become well established across the humanities, including the field of visual culture. Could the Joseph Jacobs Organization instead have been responding

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Figure 33. Maxwell House Coffee haggadah advertisement, 2000  •  In 2000, the stark covers and reductive graphics popular since the mid-1960s were replaced with photographic images depicting family participants at an actual Passover Seder. The intergenerational connection between the family members and return to figurative imagery invokes the traditional at a time when many had grown distant from Judaism.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

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to stirrings from the organized American Jewish community following the astounding results of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey?61 Consistent with the Jewish community’s emphasis on continuity, the Maxwell House coffee haggadah followed suit, and pointed American Jews toward tradition in the new millennium. Meanwhile, Manischewitz matzo continued the trend of appealing to a more ecumenical audience by branching out into an array of flavors and boasting the health benefits of the product. With the health and fitness craze taking America by storm beginning in the late seventies, it was only logical for Manischewitz to highlight the health benefits of kosher products, especially as part of its endeavor to solicit consumers beyond the Jewish market. In the 1990s, Manischewitz expanded its matzo product line by creating a host of new flavors from onion and poppy to apple cinnamon. “Look what we’ve done to Matzos!” reads the headline for a 1997 ad, with the subtitle, “We made so many new flavors, we went crackers!” Even though the product could boast a different flavor for every day of the week, the bottom of the ad read, “Fresh baked with love,” and was signed, “Your Manischewitz family.” The ad concealed the fact that during this period, the company was no longer family owned, for in 1990 Bernard Manischewitz, Behr Manische­ witz’s grandson, sold the company to Kohlberg & Co.62 At this time a Jewish corporate conglomerate guided the rudder of the former family brand. As Manischewitz went the way of corporate America, this former family-owned company, now for the first time, saw fit to assert its family roots. By the late nineties, Manischewitz wine had made deep inroads in African American communities by balancing tradition and innovation to maximize its marketing. Whereas the company promoted the wine for Jews using the tagline, “Moments, memories, and Manischewitz,” for African Americans, the tagline appeared more generic: “Your flavor for the holidays.”63 At the turn of the twenty-first century, advertising for Manischewitz wine urged, “We’ve Been at Your Holiday Table for Years . . . Take Us Out More Often” (see figure 34). Just like the television commercials from the 1960s, viewers were encouraged to see beyond the wine’s religious associations. The gendered bottles—one with a bow-tie around its neck and the other adorned with pearls—implied that the enjoyment of Manischewitz wine exceeds the ritualistic; rather, consumers were encouraged to consider the wines as “classy” options for social occasions. Leaning toward each other, the bottles echo the fraternization occurring between the couples pictured behind. Still, other ads at the turn of the twenty-first century were intended only for Jews, advising them of the Seder and Shabbat within every bottle, with the subtitle,

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Figure 34. Manischewitz Wine ad, “We’ve Been at Your Holiday Table for Years . . . Take Us Out More Often,” 2001  •  This ad appealed to consumers to see beyond Manischewitz wine’s ritualistic associations. The gendered bottles—one with a bow-tie, and the other adorned with pearls—encouraged prospective buyers to consider Manischewitz wines as “classy” options for social occasions.  •  Joseph Jacobs Advertising.

“Let the tradition flow” (see plate 8). Indeed, part of Manischewitz’s success pivoted upon knowing how to court multiple consumers simultaneously, from the Jewish to the non-Jewish and from the observant to the secular. In the summer of 2006, Manischewitz introduced its campaign, “Start Your Ovens!” in the distinctly non-Jewish publication, Cooking Light. Stuart Elliott, writing for the Media section of the New York Times, analyzed the effort: “Manischewitz Wants to Move to a Mainstream Aisle.” Although the R.A.B. Food Group recognized that kosher foods comprised the company’s heritage, R.A.B.’s president and chief executive claimed that this campaign was about combining Manischewitz’s core kosher credentials with the potential for broader growth.64 The New York Times article revealed that the rising popularity of kosher foods was tied to an interest in nutrition, quality of food ingredients, and a more general interest in ethnic foods. Manischewitz was now following the lead of Maxwell House all those years earlier in its efforts to marry the Jewish and non-Jewish. Yet the fact that Manischewitz—an

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intrinsically Jewish brand—was courting a non-Jewish clientele, instead of the other way around, demonstrated the comfort and confidence achieved by Jews in America in the seventy-five-year interim between these marketing efforts. Nearly fifty years after the earliest Manischewitz wine commercials attempted to strip the brand of Jewish ritualistic connotations, so established and Americanized had the Manischewitz name become that its advertising was no longer tied to only the Jewish media. Just as Manischewitz crossed a new universal threshold when the “Start Your Ovens!” campaign was launched in a non-Jewish publication, the Maxwell House coffee haggadah achieved worldwide notoriety in 2009 when newly inaugurated President Barack Obama conducted his first White House Seder using the haggadah. Its delicate balance of Jewish and American tradition and its strong association with family have made Maxwell House coffee’s haggadah President Obama’s haggadah of choice (see figure 35). By that

Figure 35. Photograph of President Obama conducting Seder using Maxwell House Coffee haggadah, April 2009  •  As the de facto “American” haggadah, Maxwell House Coffee’s Passover ceremonial guide is President Barack Obama’s haggadah of choice.  •  Peter Souza/White House.

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time, all biblical illustrations had been removed. And, in 2011, the haggadah underwent a complete overhaul. The quantity of photographic images representing the actual food products consumed during the Seder was drastically diminished. With the exception of a double-page spread at the beginning of the guide printed on a light blue background faintly portraying a table setting and depicting visual icons associated with washing the hands, dipping the vegetable, and breaking the middle matzo, the haggadah is largely textual. Its new look creates the effect of a more serious ceremonial guide like those used by many Orthodox Jews whose Passover Seders often extend into the early hours of the morning. Yet, even some observant Jews, such as William B. Helmreich, a professor of sociology and Jewish Studies at the City University of New York, have been quoted stating that they prefer the Maxwell House haggadah, because it is “suffused with tradition.”65 But to which tradition is Helmreich referring? Alongside the ritual reenactments rehearsed in the Seder, Helmreich also implies the established preference for the Maxwell House coffee haggadah itself, replete with Manischewitz wine stains and the distinct smell of bitter herbs absorbed within its pages after years of use. Part of the Maxwell House haggadah’s winning formula is knowing when and how to change. To assist with the 2011 makeover, particularly updating its English translation, the Joseph Jacobs Organization hired a retired high school teacher from an observant community in New Jersey who taught Bible as literature. Eliminating such antiquated words like thee and thine enabled the haggadah to become more user-friendly for the non-Orthodox; however, it did not alter the intent of the Hebrew words. Likewise, the elimination of gender-specific language for God aligns the new version of the haggadah with more contemporary feminist expectations, while still retaining its acceptability for the Orthodox. These practices show how, in Jonathan Sarna’s words, “Traditions can be harmonized with contemporary practice without losing their essence.”66 This careful synthesis between tradition and modernity may be the very reason that the Maxwell House coffee guide continues to earn Obama’s presidential seal of approval. Not only did the haggadah once again assume its place at the center of President Obama’s 2012 White House Seder, but on May 31, 2012, the White House featured a display case of Maxwell House coffee haggadahs since 1932 in recognition of American Jewish heritage month and the haggadah’s eightieth birthday. Establishing itself as a White House tradition, the Maxwell House coffee haggadah speaks volumes about its own rise to prominence. Additionally, it recalls the importance of marketing and advertising in pushing forward certain brands and beliefs at the expense of others within a free market economic system.

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In a sea of some 7,000 known versions of haggadahs, it is the Maxwell House coffee haggadah that has surged above all others to become the de facto representative of American Jewish life. When the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer created his haggadah in 2012, poignantly titled New American Haggadah, did he imagine it as a challenge to the established “American” haggadah? His March 31, 2012, New York Times article, “Why a Haggadah?” certainly implied as much.67 Discussing the germination of his haggadah, nearly half of Safran Foer’s four-page article addressed the prominence of the Maxwell House haggadah among American Jewish families. The fact that it originated as a free giveaway during Depression years certainly launched a favorable future for the haggadah. Even if in its capacity as a marketing tool the Maxwell House haggadah was spiritually and intellectually thin, Safran Foer explains that in its earlier years this was of little consequence, for the majority of first- and second-generation American Jews remained textually literate: “But the actors no longer know the script. In a further sort of exodus, American Jews have moved: from poverty to affluence, tradition to modernity, acquaintance with a shared history to loss of collective memory. Our grandparents were immigrants to America, but natives to Judaism We are the opposite: fluent in “American Idol,” but unschooled in Jewish heroes.”68 As Safran Foer suggests, the Maxwell House haggadah has become something of an inside joke—funny, because it now stands as an embodiment of a water-downed version of American Judaism, comparable to Seinfeld. For many, associating oneself with the haggadah becomes an admission of one’s own diluted relationship to Judaism. Herein lies the reality and complexity of the American Jewish experience. Clearly, millions of American Jews have been drawn to the Maxwell House coffee haggadah over others due to its cost and convenience. Accordingly, it must be credited for the preservation of Jewish ritual in many households. On the other hand, what does it say about the status of Judaism in America when millions of Jews depend upon the Kraft Food Corporation, the parent organization of Maxwell House coffee, for their annual dose of Passover tradition? Is tradition and Jewish education best achieved through marketing? Compared to more substantive haggadahs, which aim to draw connections between the experiences gained and lessons learned from the exodus out of Egypt and tribulations in the present—be they social, economic, or political— the Maxwell House haggadah remains loyal to the essential components of the Seder, diminishing the opportunities for creative play and exploration. Imagine the potential impact of this free, ubiquitous haggadah on contem-

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porary Jewish life and culture were it to delve, probe, or explore—even just a bit—inviting its readers to think, question, and analogize. To be certain, through aggressive advertising and marketing, Maxwell House coffee has become accepted within American Jewish households as the “taste of tradition,” conjuring warm family memories. But does the familiar smile that breaks at the mention of the Maxwell House coffee haggadah have something to do with the understanding that tradition tastes better when it can be had for free? Using parody and kitschy adaptations, Jewish hipsters underscore the irony of the prominence of brands like Manischewitz and Maxwell House on websites such as Jewcy.com. As a self-proclaimed “curated platform for ideas that matter to young Jews today,” and “dedicated to preserving a spectrum of voices, content, and discussion,” very little in the way of Jewish life or material culture is off limits on this website. Items available for purchase, such as Manischewitz Passover purses and Manischewitz “Get Lit” candles, now cause the wordplay in Rolston’s Manischewitz American Matzos to appear rather innocuous. Although more flamboyant than Rolston’s 1996 statement, like his painting these objects both salute and jeer the prominence of branding within the contemporary environment. Jewish hipsters, similar to other countercultural movements, use parody as a way to query what lies beneath the label. Brands breed familiarity, loyalty, and affection, but often at the cost of critical introspection. Though arguably flippant and, therefore, disturbing—especially for traditionalists—countercultural critiques like Rolston’s painting and kitschy Manischewitz objects activate our senses and encourage us to delve deeper into the influence these brands exercise, for better or worse, within our lives. After eighty years, the Manischewitz and Maxwell House brands have each earned their place as pillars of the American Jewish cultural landscape. Advertising and market segmentation encouraged scores of Jewish immigrants who arrived from Eastern Europe at the turn of the century to try something new; indeed, for many, the Americanization process rested upon the integration of modern products and brands into their prescribed daily lives. As American Jewish pillars, our M & M products each came to embody the perfect synthesis of modernity and tradition and American and Jewish life. Achieving an ideal amalgamation, each brand signaled to American Jews that they could comfortably inhabit two worlds at once. In 1998, advertising once again captured the spirit of this unique American Jewish blend. A Manischewitz wine ad depicted a prominent gold Hanukkah menorah with

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an array of Manischewitz wines standing in as candles against a midnight blue background dotted with stars (see plate 9). Aligning itself with Clement Clarke Moore’s renowned 1822 poem, “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” the ad appropriated the poem’s famous ending as its headline exclaimed, “To all a good light.”

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4

You Say You Want a Revolution The Mainstreaming of Jewish Identity in American Advertising

I

n 1965, Americans witnessed the assassination of Malcolm X, the Watts Riots in Los Angeles, an escalation in America’s involvement in Vietnam, and the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Like Bob Dylan sang, the times they were a-changin’ and this was reflected in advertising. Advertising was shifting from text to image, from the literal to the conceptual, and from the descriptive to the suggestive, in deference to a creative revolution, social and political uprisings, and an emerging youth culture. As individuality and dissidence quashed conformity and images of difference trumped postwar representations of wholesome allAmericans in advertising, Hebrew National and Levy’s rye bread launched prominent campaigns that brought national attention to the market of Jewish consumables. Levy’s rye bread announced, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s” and Hebrew National claimed, “We answer to a higher authority.” Fifty years later, these slogans have become legendary. Their provocative and multivalent messages continue to attract advertising historians, cultural historians, and scholars of American Jewish history. Drawing upon the civil rights movement and the latest cultural trends, the Doyle Dane Bernbach and Scali, McCabe, Sloves advertising agencies resituated rye bread and kosher hot dogs from the Jewish purview to the mainstream. What did the introduction of Jewish products to the general public reveal about the evolution of American society in the sixties? Alternatively, what did these slogans mean to American Jews? Although Jews were not prominent on Madison Avenue in the first half of the twentieth century, Levy’s rye bread’s and Hebrew National hot dogs’ bold assertions epitomized fifty years of Jewish copywriting \\ 119 //

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skillfulness, beginning with Albert Lasker in the 1920s. In the sixties—an era that stood opposed to the authority of tradition—advertising introduced mainstream America to Jews through their consumables. So comfortable had Jews become with their place in American society by the late sixties that they were able to raise their banner of ethnic difference and pride through clever advertising copy. Albert Lasker and Bill Bernbach: Two Jewish Giants When eighteen-year-old Albert Lasker arrived at the Chicago offices of advertising firm Lord & Thomas in 1898, he entered a young profession still buying space in periodicals for cure-all patent medicines. Advertising relied on hyperbolic claims and spectacle to promote products. However, the enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 with its truth-in-labeling agenda, together with the surge of goods that spilled out of America’s factories, required that advertising work harder to sell the benefits of products and solicit prospective clients. The answer lay in harnessing the potential of copy. In line with this new approach, Lasker, who had previously hoped to work as a journalist, helped to revolutionize the industry with his compelling copy and businesslike “reason-why” approach to marketing.1 Albert, like his father Morris Lasker and uncle Eduard Lasker, was imbued with an indomitable entrepreneurial spirit and compulsion to make a difference. His business savvy and community engagement followed a family trajectory originating in Germany. In 1867, Eduard Lasker was elected to the Reichstag—a remarkable feat, considering the marginalization of Jews at the time. Morris Lasker, who emigrated to America in 1856 and pursued a more entrepreneurial path than his older brother Eduard, was formidable in his own right, particularly in his hometown of Galveston, Texas. A dedicated philanthropist, Morris Lasker’s support extended from orphanages to disaster recovery, especially in the aftermath of the devastating Galveston hurricane of 1900. In 1916, he donated close to $100,000 to the National Farm School outside of Philadelphia, dedicated to training Russian Jewish immigrants as farmers.2 Inheriting the drive for success from his father and uncle, Albert Lasker applied his energy to advertising during his forty-four years at the helm of Lord & Thomas. Ironically, the doubts Albert’s father had about the integrity of newspaper reporters was what pushed his son into advertising. Having become acquainted with Daniel M. Lord through some earlier business dealings, Morris Lasker encouraged his son to accept an opportunity at the Lord & Thomas

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advertising agency in 1898. Seeking his dad’s approval, Albert agreed to a three-month trial at the Chicago firm, even though in his heart he still hoped to pursue journalism.3 In 1903, some five years after Lasker started with the company, Daniel Lord retired and Lasker purchased his shares of the company. Three years later, upon the death of co-founder Ambrose Thomas, Lasker purchased additional shares. In 1912, at thirty-two years old, Albert became sole owner of the firm.4 Although Lasker inhabited a distinctly non-Jewish world in advertising, and was unobservant himself, he was not at all self-conscious about being Jewish. Lasker had a strong sense of social justice and served as an active member of Chicago’s Jewish community. In 1913, when Leo Frank, a Jew from Atlanta, was wrongfully accused and convicted of the murder of one of his employees, Lasker, at the behest of his father, used his persuasive advertising skills to advocate on behalf of Frank.5 After Frank’s sentence was commuted in 1915 by the governor of Georgia, Frank was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. Lasker felt some personal responsibility, fearing that his advocacy on behalf of Frank had stirred deep racial prejudices. Yet, even if this were true, “if the alternative was inaction, Lasker had no alternative.”6 Although Lasker was undeniably connected to the Jewish community, and used his influence to advocate for social justice in the broader society, it was not his mission to transform the resolutely non-Jewish world of advertising. Upon Lasker’s liquidation of his interest in Lord & Thomas in 1942, he turned the agency over to his three top managers: Emerson H. Foote, Fairfax Cone, and Don Belding, all of whom were non-Jews.7 Lasker’s legacy to advertising was not a Jewish legacy; his activism and efforts to reform wrongs to Jews occurring in the outside world did not carry over into the workplace. Lasker’s talent found its expression in simple, unembellished copy. At a time when advertising professionals worked as brokers in media space, Lasker insisted that Lord & Thomas was a copy agency: “Ninety percent of the thought, energy, and cost of running our agency goes into copy.”8 More than just announcing the availability of particular products, Lasker’s fascination with copy helped transform advertising into a field of persuasion. He created the idea of “salesmanship in print” wherein advertising became a stand-in for the boisterous salesman, as evidenced by Palmolive’s “that schoolgirl complexion,” or by touting the sanitary benefits of Kotex and Kleenex.9 More than any other product, it was their work for Lucky Strike cigarettes that distinguished Lord & Thomas in the 1920s. The slogan, “Light a Lucky and you’ll never miss sweets that make you fat” converted

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thousands of Americans—particularly women—into smokers. Lasker recognized the potential to double the market for cigarettes by appealing to women in addition to men.10 In post-World War II America, a design sensibility of efficiency, introduced by European immigrants, brought advertising copy to the point even faster. A generation after Lasker, Bill Bernbach’s pithy phrases such as “Think Small” directed Americans in the 1960s to the Volkswagen beetle—a car that originated as a Nazi utilitarian vehicle. Ads for Avis rental cars boldly announced “We’re Number Two,” implying that Avis must work harder for its customers. In 1970, when a television commercial adopted a self-reflexive approach by actually showing the filming of the ad, “Mama mia! That’s a spicy meatball” became infectious, winning over Americans to Alka-Seltzer. Other companies who entrusted their advertising to Doyle Dane Bernbach under Bill Bernbach included El Al, American Airlines, and Levy’s rye bread. If Albert Lasker created modern advertising in the 1920s, Bill Bernbach revolutionized it in the 1960s by breaking rules that Lasker helped to establish. Bernbach let consumers in on the secrets of his field, which, unlike his contemporaries such as David Ogilvy and Rosser Reeves, he didn’t regard as science, but rather, as an art of persuasion. Bill Bernbach was the youngest of four children born to Jacob and Rebecca Bernbach, European immigrants who came to America at the end of the nineteenth century. Like many first-generation Eastern European immigrants, Jacob worked in New York’s garment district as a coat and suit designer. Although they followed Orthodox traditions and Rebecca maintained a kosher home, the Bernbach children attended public schools and were steeped in American culture. They avidly pursued music and art. Nevertheless, Rebecca despaired when in 1938 Bill married Evelyn Carbone, a Catholic Italian American. Thereafter, Bill was shunned by his traditional Jewish parents, who declared him dead.11 Marrying for love rather than familial acceptance, Bernbach followed his own path. Although a generation apart, both Lasker and Bernbach had complex and contradictory personalities. Each man was ruled by an inflated ego and was fearlessly bold in his copywriting. Both were legends during their own time in the field of advertising. Yet, each was ill at ease in the limelight. In fact, Lasker delivered only six public speeches during his entire career and Bernbach relied on stump speeches that he read.12 Unlike other advertising greats such as Claude Hopkins in the 1920s, or David Ogilvy and Rosser Reeves in the 1960s, neither man published books on his philosophies.13 Lasker’s and Bernbach’s heightened understanding of the human condi-

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tion, which found expression in their memorable slogans, quite possibly developed in response to their outsider status as Jews—both in the largely white melting pot of America and in the resolutely non-Jewish world of advertising. To sufficiently appreciate the careers of Lasker and Bernbach, it is necessary first to understand how anomalous each man was in his profession. During the 1920s and 1930s, at a time when advertising professionals were commonly Ivy League pedigreed, Jews along with other racial and ethnic groups played marginal roles. Lasker’s success at the helm of Lord & Thomas did not result in an immediate swell of Jews into preeminent agencies. In fact, some clients insisted that no Jews work on their accounts.14 Discrimination and exclusion were not only common in the advertising profession, but also socially and culturally embedded through jingoism and xenophobic practices in society.15 In a period when advertising was entrenched in an old-boy network and personal contacts were critical, any overt ethnic traits could prove detrimental to the client/agency relationship.16 Between the eras of Lasker and Bernbach, advertising, like politics, was mostly open only to those Jews who could physically and behaviorally blend in.17 Before a time when hyphenated identities, such as African-American or Jewish-American, became fashionable, Jews who succeeded in advertising did so in spite of this heritage. Just as established German Jewish immigrants used their acquired status to assuage and influence Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the 1920s as to the proper decorum in America, ad men used advertising as an opportunity to impose their blue-blood biases upon the “uninformed” masses. This was a time when social and professional status mattered. Through evocative associations, advertising advanced an emerging ethic of consumption. It drew equivalences between the acquisition of products and social status, and, in so doing, encouraged the assimilation of the masses toward the lifestyle of the upper classes, both in Jewish publications such as the American Israelite and Chicago Sentinel and in widely circulated publications like the Saturday Evening Post. In the twenties and thirties, during Albert Lasker’s peak, copywriting evolved from lengthy narratives to concise headlines, followed by descriptive body text to draw analogies between certain products and lifestyles. It frequently borrowed references like classical columns to suggest timelessness, capitalize upon the elevated status associated with classical motifs, and to draw an analogy with the product being sold. Advertising also relied upon simplicity and geometric forms to suggest timeliness and the tempo of modernity, attributing contemporary relevance

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to products. In the heyday of Albert Lasker, this is how the American dream was packaged and sold. Even though the consumption ethic promoted through advertising in the 1920s and 1930s presupposed a belief in the irrationality of human behavior, in the immediate post-World War II era, this conviction dominated both advertising and psychology. From politics and propaganda to public relations, persuasive advertising was used to “engineer consent” in order to control what psychologists regarded as the dangerous impulsive urges that rested just beneath the surface of conformity-driven American life.18 Far from a spontaneous practice, advertising deployed copy toward a scientific and formulaic rigidity wherein the means justified the desired ends of order and control.19 From the twenties through the fifties, Madison Avenue had become the “preserve of the famous ‘Man in the Gray Flannel Suit;’ it was the archetypal destination of look-alike commuters from Westchester; it was slow-moving, WASPy, and serious. . . . On Madison Avenue, the organization reigned triumphant . . . as elsewhere in the American 1950s, [Madison Avenue] was a place of order, stability, and reason.”20 Advertising professionals such as Rosser Reeves, chairman of the Ted Bates agency, and David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy and Mather, distinguished themselves as strict adherents of a scientific, managerial rationality in advertising. Both Reeves and Ogilvy deferred to “quantifiable” and authoritative methods of science and endeavored to translate them into copywriting. Bates’s ads frequently referenced laboratory studies and relied upon doctors’ endorsements in order to proclaim, for example, that Fab detergent contains “five extra laundratives” or that Wonder Bread “helps build strong bodies twelve ways.”21 For Ogilvy, the science of advertising took the form of ads that followed a certain layout: “a large but simple photograph on the upper two-thirds of the page, a headline beneath, and three columns of sedate (serif) type on white below, absolutely packed with facts.”22 Clean and to the point, such no-nonsense ads adhered to the gridded emphasis of mid-century modern graphic design—another medium that, like advertising, was similarly dedicated to clarity and reason in its communication efforts. The scientific and quantifiable was American advertising par excellence before Bernbach took it by storm. Bernbach’s position as an outsider, both within his family and as a Jewish figure in the resolutely non-Jewish advertising world, shaped his quirky perspective and predisposed him toward doing things differently. Pale with “a wary half-smile, cow’s milk eyes,” and “soft shoulders,” Bernbach was “shorter than he sounded” through his audacious

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copywriting.23 For him, the irrationality and unpredictability of human nature offered unique opportunities to entertain the public through advertising. If Ogilvy’s scientific and quantifiable emphasis in advertising captured the dark side of post–World War II America, especially as the Cold War escalated, Bernbach’s approach captured the possibility and promise of America. A developing youth culture embodied in rugged Americans like James Dean and Marlon Brando pointed toward a new and distinctive brand of individuality. Bernbach sensed a shift in the American psyche, and made his move to alter the “advertising science” practiced by his contemporaries. Over the next two decades, Doyle Dane Bernbach would transform the profession. Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), formed in 1949, evolved primarily out of a firm called Grey, which had many Jewish creatives.24 Many of DDB’s earliest accounts, including Orbach’s Department Store, Levy’s, and El Al airlines, were owned by Jews.25 DDB was established in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and World War II, over which the democratic values of freedom were fought and won, and this was an opportune moment to gradually but steadily introduce a new and quirky perspective in the world of advertising—that of Jewish humor. The atmosphere at DDB partook more of the Art Students League and Greenwich Village. Most important, DDB produced ads that were unabashedly, recognizably Jewish in style and attitude. Ohrbach’s, Levy’s, and El Al, and later Volkswagen and Avis, were all little guys: plucky, struggling newcomers standing up to the bigger, privileged competition, using their wits and humor to avoid being squashed. The funny ads provoked smiles in the characteristically Jewish fashion of selfdeprecation. . . . The “klitchik” at the end, a punning, ironic final line, also derived from traditional Jewish humor.26 Even though advertising had aspired to entertain consumers since Lasker’s transformation of copywriting in the 1920s, Doyle Dane Bernbach’s bold public projection of Jewish humor stood as testimony to something altogether new: the articulation of a minority voice. Yet, as Doyle Dane Bernbach gradually set upon a path of spiking their advertisements with honest, straightforward, and unexpected Jewish humor in the post–World War II era, American Jews largely continued to downplay their ethnicity and instead emulate dominant Anglo-European society. Market research for packaged bread underscores this tendency. For example, in 1948, the Pulse Study (an

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independent inventory of brands of selected food and grocery products in Jewish and non-Jewish homes in New York City) commented, “Although the Jewish group is not thought of as a white bread consumer, the annual inventories have always shown them to be right behind the non-Jewish group in proportion of families using the product.”27 Jewish consumption of mayonnaise also increased in the post–World War II period. In 1946, the Pulse Study speculated that the preference for mayonnaise in non-Jewish homes compared to Jewish homes was possibly attributed to the fact that many non-Jewish homes used the product in salad dressings, compared to Jewish homes, which did not often use salad dressings at the time.28 Yet, by 1960, 75 percent of Jewish homes used the product. With the passage of Civil Rights and Immigration Reform Acts, together with a rising Black Pride movement, by the mid-sixties American Jews recognized that their accommodation into American society did not require a wholesale abandonment of their values. There followed a shift from the goal of assimilation to “acculturation without assimilation.”29 As more Jews came to appreciate the agreement between Jewish and American values, they recognized how this compatibility could actually be traced back to colonial days. For example, in 1640, when Puritan John Winthrop expressed his vision of America as a “shining city on a hill” serving as an “example to the world and a destination for all who would be free,” he analogized America to Jerusalem, likewise perched on a hill, and how God had singled out the Jews as his chosen people to lead by example.30 A new acculturationist strategy enabled Jews to proudly acknowledge the complementary relationship between Jewish and American imperatives without marginalizing their religion. Concomitantly, as the sociologist Samuel Heilman reveals, “being Jewish no longer had the traditional meaning of being chosen for a life dedicated to ritual observance and Torah study, but rather it now largely meant having a social conscience or a liberal political attitude.”31 In this shifting social and cultural atmosphere, Doyle Dane Bernbach’s proclamation, “You don’t have to be Jewish,” paradoxically and innocuously garnered positive attention for Jews. Bill Bernbach, the Creative Revolution, and Levy’s Rye Bread Henry S. Levy & Sons turned to the services of Doyle Dane Bernbach with a small budget in 1949 on the recommendation of Whitey Rubin, a bankappointed receiver of the bankrupt bakery. Established in Brooklyn in 1888,

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Levy & Sons catered to Orthodox Jews, specializing in bagels, challah, and onion rolls. When the company lost money in the 1940s, it decided to expand its product line with the idea of acquiring new customers, offering packaged rye, pumpernickel, and raisin breads, rather than only fresh baked goods. However, Levy’s plan backfired when the company’s appeal to non-Jews offended loyal Orthodox customers. Rubin, a fan of DDB’s work for Orbach’s, engaged the agency with the directive of regaining the bakery’s Jewish customers. When Bernbach tasted the packaged breads, he remarked, “Mr. Rubin, no Jew would eat your bread. If you want more business, we have to advertise to the goyim.” For Jews, rye bread was a product to be acquired directly from the neighborhood bakery, not as a prepackaged consumable. Beginning by running ads in specifically nonJewish publications; namely—the New York World Telegram and the New York Journal American—Bernbach worked with Levy’s to build a new identity for the company.32 To start with, he changed the company’s name from Levy’s Real Rye to Levy’s Real Jewish Rye. Bernbach called it what it was— Jewish rye—and in classic DDB fashion, he created a bold, stripped-down ad only showing a loaf of rye with a few bites out of the side to illustrate how New York was literally eating it up. Although the name change initially concerned Rubin for fear of calling too much attention to Jewish distinctiveness, Bernbach assured him by stating the obvious: “For God’s sake, your name is Levy’s. They are not going to mistake you for a high Episcopalian.”33 Bernbach focused on the essential and embraced that which distinguished the bread as unique—in this case its claim to authenticity as a real Jewish rye. Honesty and simplicity in advertising—both in terms of composition and content—posed a stark contrast to decades of clutter and hyperbole. From the beginning, Doyle Dane Bernbach did things differently. Even the lack of commas in the agency’s name stood out. “Nothing will ever come between us,” claimed Bernbach, “not even punctuation.”34 Bernbach preferred to think of the agency as a jazz ensemble—improvising to the tune of each campaign—rather than a classically ordered organization. Upon its opening in 1949, DDB hired a woman for a senior management position—an unusual choice for a distinctly male-dominated profession. Bernbach recruited Phyllis Robinson, with whom he had worked closely at Grey Advertising, to run their copy department. Even though women had served in copywriting positions prior to Robinson, most often, they worked for campaigns promoting beauty products.35 Robinson distinguished herself by writing copy that was conversational rather than descriptive. In 1949, she challenged prospective Levy’s consumers

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Figure 36. Levy’s illustrated ad, “Are you buying a bread or a bed?” New York Times, January 19, 1953  •  This line drawing and copywriting promoting Levy’s white bread persuaded consumers to abandon the common practice of buying bread by feel, and informed them that soft bread did not necessarily equate with freshness. The simplistic modern drawing and promotion of white bread reveal how Levy’s attempted to overcome its Jewish associations.  •  Phyllis Robinson copywriter, Doyle Dane Bernbach. Levy’s is a registered trademark of Arnold Products, Inc. Used with permission.

with the following question: “Are you buying a bed or a bread?” (see figure 36).36 This early copywriting for Levy’s persuaded consumers to abandon the common practice of buying white bread by feel and informed them that soft bread did not necessarily equate with freshness. Instead, the ad encouraged consumers to consider the other attributes of freshly baked white bread, like its shape and its crust. Several months later, Robinson again captured a likely exchange between a female consumer and a local baker, this time in the headline of an ad for Levy’s rye bread that appeared in the New York Times stating, “All Right Already . . . tomorrow, I’ll have it for you!” (see figure 37). Here an aggressive female customer assaulted the baker for his inability to supply the rye bread on the spot: “This is real rye . . . with a tang and texture Grandma would have been proud to serve.” The body copy continued, “At the

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Figure 37. Levy’s illustrated ad, “All Right Already . . . tomorrow, I’ll have it for you!” New York Times, September 30, 1954  •  An aggressive female customer assaults a baker for his inability to supply Levy’s rye bread on the spot. Compared to figure 36, by 1954 things had changed: Levy’s had become “real Jewish,” and “New Yorkers who know their rye”—a euphemism for Jews— were “making Levy’s the Leader.”  •  Doyle Dane Bernbach. Levy’s is a registered trademark of Arnold Products, Inc. Used with permission.

very first bite you’ll see why New Yorkers who know their rye bread are making Levy’s the Leader.” “New Yorkers who know their rye” was a euphemism for Jews. In typical Ogilvy fashion, a large photograph occupied a bit more than half of the frame, and the headline was placed below. However, the body copy of the ad appeared flush right, and followed the contour of the loaf of rye on the left side to create a partially rounded configuration. Even though this ad showcased a text and image integration that differentiated DDB and would eventually become a hallmark of their work, these early DDB Levy’s ads were aligned with the key ingredients of 1950s’ advertising: headline, visual image, and a column of text to direct the viewer to consume the ad along with the product. “Salesmanship in print” still carried the day and all that the viewer had to do was follow along. From the Jewish perspective, however, DDB’s commitment to straightforward copywriting, captured in authenticsounding conversation in the Levy’s rye bread campaign, planted a seed of Jewish interest that would take root over the next two decades.

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In the field of advertising, Bernbach’s interest in the conceptual was revolutionary. Some have even analogized his influence to that of other cultural icons like Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Klee, and Andy Warhol, even though Bernbach operated within the commercial realm.37 Certainly Bernbach believed that good writing, like good taste and good art, translated into good selling. Beyond selling, Bernbach held that successful advertising could actually improve the product and that the advertising professional should encourage his clients to make better goods.38 Bernbach was opposed to scientific methods and formulaic advertising; instead he applied the mind-bending ideas of artists and writers to the commercial realm. Unlike the conventional methods used in 1950s advertising, Doyle Dane Bernbach focused on grabbing the viewer’s attention in the unproven and unexpected ways. “Rules are prisons,” said Bernbach in a 1982 interview shortly before his death. They are “what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula. . . . We are so caught up in our sophisticated knowledge that we don’t see the simple truths all around us.”39 Beginning with the agency’s work for Orbach’s and continuing with their work on Levy’s, Volkswagen, and Alka Seltzer throughout the 1960s, the consuming public came to expect a sophisticated and often witty integration of text and image in DDB ads. This integration was novel in the world of advertising, for since the introduction of visual images in the early 1900s, the text and image had always been designated different roles. The written text conveyed the main message of the advertisement while the visual image served a secondary function of illustrating the copy. This changed for Bernbach when, at the Weintraub Agency in New York in 1940, he was paired with art director Peretz Rosenbaum—more commonly known as Paul Rand. Working alongside Rand, he developed an appreciation for the transformative potential of the visual. Rand’s artwork achieved maximum meaning through minimal visual means. He was influenced by the early twentieth-century German poster movement, Sachplakat, or Object Poster, which reduced ads to the object, brand name, and nothing more—literally a single visual image and as little written text as possible. Bernbach’s and Rand’s copywriter/art director partnership changed the history of advertising, creating a synergy through the integration of art and copy, each playing off of the other to enhance the meaning of the ad and, ostensibly, the value of the product.40 This new approach superseded “salesmanship in print,” and resulted in ads that were direct and easily consumable, but whose meanings

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were actually more sophisticated and complex than appeared at first glance. Although the ads were intended for the general population, an intelligent viewer would appreciate the complexity of the text and image combinations. DDB ads no longer spoke down to viewers, but rather invited them to participate in a thoughtful exercise activating their minds. For Bernbach, impact in advertising was created through simplicity and an understanding of human foibles: Make your ad big, bold, simple. Only one really important central image or visual to an ad. If the reader has to stop and think what is meant, the ad is not effective. Size and beauty give you impact. Clutter on a page is inelegant and distracts. Taste matters. A page gives off a “feel” the moment the reader turns to it. The page can say “quality” or it can say “schlock.” Remember that the feel rubs off on the product. Everything on the page should say quality: the photography, the type, the paper, the words. . . . The most powerful element in selling is an insight into human nature, knowing the compulsions that drive a person. An ad must touch those emotions. Hit ’em in the heart, in the gut, in the funnybone, but hit ’em somewhere.41 Equating size with importance and elegance did not predictably result in dominating visual images. For Bernbach, every element in the ad was a sales ingredient. Commanding close-ups reinforced an essential component in the ad; small images (such as those used in Volkswagen’s “Think Small” campaign), likewise underscored a valuable insight into the product. Size mattered and it was used in new and pointed ways. In a business where copy carried the ad, Bernbach told copywriters to get to the point: “If an ad doesn’t have enough stopping power without all the little words, no amount of talk is going to make people read it.”42 DDB became famous for its use of the “interrupted idea,” something to arrest viewers, causing them to take a closer look and listen to the ad. By the 1960s, as the white-bread image of America and American advertising gradually began to give way to a more diversified picture, DDB was positioned to lead the way using advertising to advance American social and cultural revolutions. Protest, interruption, and revolution were the watchwords of both the young and the creative in the 1960s. They marked a shift from the blackand-white, predictable ways of the past, to the exercise of the provocative and spectacular, meant to awaken the public from its conformist slumber.

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Alongside the revolutionary taglines of Bernbach and his copywriting team who altered the approach and appearance of advertising, this was the era of “bad boy” designers like Herb Lubalin and George Lois (who joined DDB in 1959). Countercultural magazines like Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde, all edited and published by Ralph Ginzburg and art directed by Herb Lubalin between 1963 and 1968, dared to challenge the public on its conservative views regarding sex and politics. Fact magazine, launched in January/February 1964, was described by Ginzburg as “a hell-raising, muckraking magazine of dissent that would try to improve society by bringing to the fore data that was not generally known.”43 In quintessential countercultural form, the masthead on the first issue of Fact announced, “This magazine is dedicated to the proposition that a great magazine, in its quest for truth, will dare to defy not only Convention, not only Big Business, not only the Church and the State, but also—if necessary—its readers.”44 Fact folded in 1964 when Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater sued the magazine for two million dollars for publishing the responses of members of the American Medical Association who specialized in psychiatry and who claimed that Goldwater was crazy following his suggestion of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.45 Six months later, Avant Garde, another Ginzburg-Lubalin collaboration, was rolled out to examine issues of art and politics, again casting aside the chains of restraint prevalent in the 1950s. These publications gave voice to the spirit of a new era—one which reveled in freedom. Graphic design historian Philip Meggs observes that, “As various movements in the 1960s gained momentum—free speech, women’s liberation, civil rights, Vietnam War protest—Ginzburg’s magazines responded to, and helped define the changes taking place in America, challenging both the government and conventional standards.”46 Bill Bernbach’s impudence in advertising functioned similarly, equally identifying and influencing the changes taking place in America. However, whereas subscription to Ginzburg’s revolutionary publications remained somewhere in the few hundred thousand, the in-your-face attitude of DDB ads was viewed by millions of subway and bus commuters in New York, not to mention readers of the New York Times and other publications, including the World Telegram and the Journal American. Bernbach’s brazen advertising helped to define the zeitgeist of the era, cutting across the spectrum of social and political interests. Honesty in advertising delivered with an unforeseen frankness differentiated DDB ads in the 1960s from the surfeit of forgettable advertising. Distinguished by its sympathy with the counterculture and its rule-breaking strate-

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gies, DDB was responsible for launching a creative revolution in the field. The brilliance of their ads and Bernbach’s copywriting was that they ingeniously harnessed the public’s mistrust of big business and even political rhetoric to appease the public through a style that appeared more as anti-advertising.47 Advertisements and commercials for everyday products like Alka Seltzer’s antacid stomach relief medication not only humored the public with memorable jingles like, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” but also showed the filming of a commercial, including numerous retakes, in which the need to keep eating spicy meatballs lead to the necessity of using Alka Seltzer. Such ads and commercials caught the public off guard. In its 1964 “Daisy Girl” television commercial for Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater, a gripping sixty-second spot frames the innocence of a little girl as she plucks daisy petals, counting from one to ten. When she reaches ten, the mood becomes somber; the camera shifts away from the innocent girl, and the viewer hears the ten to one countdown before a nuclear explosion, followed by a mushroom cloud. The choice was clear: vote Johnson for peace or Goldwater for continued violence. Bernbach’s resistance to the so-called scientific methods of advertising and his disdain for order and reason lined up perfectly with the ideals of the youth counterculture, and helped to advance the liberal agenda. Moreover, Bernbach’s creative revolution echoed the social and sexual revolutions of the decade. Plugged into the youth counterculture—which in the late 1950s distinguished itself from an earlier generation through its taste in music and infatuation with irreverent cultural figures, and in the 1960s mobilized around the Vietnam war, civil rights, and the sexual revolution—DDB ads reinforced that the establishment could not be trusted, and difference, as opposed to conformity, demanded the public’s celebration. So innovative and influential was DDB, that by the mid-1960s, its derisive style was being imitated in agencies large and small, from J. Walter Thompson to Wells, Rich, Greene.48 As DDB championed the public’s anxiety over conformity and manipulation through advertising, it simultaneously allayed their fears by offering the consumption of “countercultural” products as the solution.49 In so doing, DDB ironically helped to align corporate America with the counterculture.50 The now classic Volkswagen beetle campaign, which by many historical accounts of advertising ranks as number one on the list of the top one hundred advertising campaigns, offers a perfect case study of DDB’s “antiadvertising” approach.51 Quite simply, Bernbach’s “Think Small” tagline for Volkswagen ushered in an era of minimalism, self-deprecation, and non-

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conformism in advertising. Styled to challenge the authority of the big three Detroit car manufacturers, the body copy—written by Judy Protas and Julian Koenig52—confessed that the car was ugly and looked like a beetle. Through their ads, DDB fashioned the car for those who could think for themselves and didn’t want to be conformists.53 The advertising historian Bob Garfield wrote, “The car that presented itself as the antidote to conspicuous consumption was itself the badge product for those who fancied themselves a cut above.” In fact, the ad’s “disarming candor was nothing more lofty than conspicuously inconspicuous consumption.”54 Through unpredictable copy, fashioned by two Jews, DDB helped to convert the image of the Volkswagen beetle from a Nazi product into the darling of the American counterculture. If clever copy could help overcome the Nazi stigma of the Volkswagen, surely it could be activated to widen the appeal of rye bread from the purview of Jews to the general public. “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s” subtly indicated to Jews that this packaged rye bread was not for them. Rather, targeting a non-Jewish audience—one that would not wince at packaged rye bread—the now infamous tagline highlighted the authenticity of the bread as a Jewish consumable that could be enjoyed by all. In an essay on “The Psychological Power of Ethnic Images in Advertising,” Carol Nathanson-Moog writes, “Levy’s draws on images of other ethnic groups to unhinge the doors of stereotyping and expand the potential market for its unabashedly ‘real Jewish rye.’ It is a ‘set-breaker’: it works by jolting readers out of their preconceptions.”55 By 1967, the tagline, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye” situated Jewish difference within the larger context of the racial, religious, and ethnic panoply that defined New York City, simultaneously calling attention to and then shifting the focus away from Jewish idiosyncrasy and particularity. To the extent that Jews were just a part of the rich mix that comprised the social landscape of New York, they were not all that different. For the Jews, Doyle Dane Bernbach’s snappy copywriting simultaneously framed and then threw into question the value of the Jewish stereotype at a time when the use of ethnic stereotypes went unquestioned. “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s” further anticipated the social protest movements that came a few years later. If non-Jews could learn to love Jewish bread, couldn’t they also learn to accept, and maybe even love the Jews? Selling more than just bread, Nathanson-Moog suggests that the campaign sold “a perception of openness and mutual respect for differences.”56 In just three lines of text, Levy’s rye bread ad campaign conjured the heated social and political climate of the 1960s, implied that American Jews were worthy of special attention, and encouraged them to take pride in being Jewish.57

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By all accounts, Americans had increasingly accommodated Jewish Americans since the end of World War II. Events like the crowning of Bess Myerson as Miss America in 1945 and Hank Greenberg’s 1945 grand-slam home run for the Detroit Tigers leading his team to win the American League pennant, documented the evolution of Jews from the sidelines to center stage of the American landscape.58 Such “progress” led sociologists Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab to claim in 1995 that since the founding of the nation in the late eighteenth century, the absence of enmity had actually been more threatening to American Jewish existence than had hostility.59 According to Jonathan Sarna, between 1945 and the 1960s Jews were guided by a double agenda. At the same time that many traded their traditional backgrounds in the 1950s for the comforts of the middle class, thus becoming successful suburbanites, the surge in synagogue building, particularly in the suburbs, reflected an impressive rate of American Jewish affiliation.60 Yet, some claimed that this Jewish renewal or revival was actually more “show than substance,” that in fact, the integration of Jews into American society, while enhancing their power as individuals, often came at the expense of communal cohesiveness.61 More to the point, “what was revived was not so much religious belief as the belief in the value of religion.”62 Furthermore, although the decrease in anti-Semitism at the end of the 1960s was reassuring to many, other American Jews remained concerned about the general mood of extremism and violence observed in the Black nationalist movement and student unrest across universities nationwide.63 Nearly a decade into the Vietnam War, some Jews feared that tensions in the Middle East might replace Vietnam on the radical agenda and that political press was bad press for the Jews. The successful integration of Jews into American society from the 1940s through the 1960s implicitly offered ample opportunities for individuals to leave the Jewish community; and many did break their ties to the traditional Jewish community through moves to the suburbs and interfaith marriages. When Levy’s rye bread declared in 1961, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s,” the brand was utterly confirming what both the Jewish and nonJewish public already understood. Just as the bread had shed its overtly ethnic associations to take its place within the larger world of consumables, so too had many Jews shed their differences to integrate within the broader American society. In a series of stripped-down ads that sandwiched tightly cropped photographs of diverse subjects between two lines of text, copywriters Bill Bernbach and Judy Protas, art director Bill Taubin, and photographer Howard Zieff likened Levy’s to the most unlikely figures, from the Catholic choirboy

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(see plate 10) to the Irish American policeman, and from the Native American to the Asian American (see figures 38–40). By all visual accounts, ethnic group after ethnic group registered their satisfaction with the taste of this quintessentially Jewish food. In his search for “normal-looking people,” as opposed to the typically used blond bombshells, Howard Zieff selected his photographic subjects from the streets: “The Indian was an engineer for the New York Central . . . the Chinese guy worked in a restaurant near my Midtown Manhattan office. . . . They all had great faces, interesting faces, expressive faces.”64 Former DDB chair Roy Grace described Zieff ’s photographs as a “dialogue with humor, a dialogue with what we call real people.”65 Shown up close, the pleasure of each subject was reaffirmed in a single bite out of the sandwich, echoing the upturned lips of the subjects. In ad after ad, Bernbach and his creative team drew a connection between all Americans, such that if rye bread symbolized Jews, then Jews could be appreciated by anyone, and in fact, were just like everyone else. Market research conducted by The Pulse of New York, Inc., between 1960 and 1975 confirmed the impact of Doyle Dane Bernbach’s ad campaign for Levy’s rye bread. In 1960, prior to the legendary DDB ad campaign described above, the Pulse Study revealed that the consumption of the product was nearly the same in Jewish and non-Jewish homes, with 4.3 percent of Jewish homes stocking the Levy’s brand, compared to 3.1 percent of non-Jewish homes. However, by 1975, the Pulse Study showed that 26.3 percent of New York’s metropolitan Jews purchased their rye bread from retail bakeries, compared to only 6.8 percent of non-Jews. For the non-Jewish population, the Levy’s rye brand represented 6.7 percent of packaged sales, posing a legitimate challenge to retail bakeries. While this was never the case for Jews, for those who did purchase packaged rye, Levy’s was their brand of choice, outperforming Grossinger’s by two-to-one with 13.2 percent of packaged sales compared to 6.6 percent. DDB’s campaign struck a chord with both Jewish and non-Jewish consumers. Jewish life in America during the 1950s and 1960s was dominated by an agenda of tikkun olam (repair of the world), devotion to civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War, and world peace. However, the Jewish agenda began to change after Israel’s Six Day War in 1967, which served as a wake-up call to the dormant identities of many American Jews. Now the defense of Israel provided an unprecedented cohesion and sense of purpose to American Jewish activity.66 Max Fisher, then vice president of the Council of Jewish Federations and the general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, delivered a speech called “The Role of an American Jewish Leader in Today’s World”

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Figure 38. Policeman, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967  •  This famous Levy’s Rye Bread campaign featured photographs of conspicuously non-Jewish subjects who, in poster after poster, revealed their satisfaction with the quintessentially Jewish product. The campaign used stereotypes to throw into question the role of stereotypes.  •  Levy’s is a registered trademark of Arnold Products, Inc. Used with permission.

Figure 39. American Indian, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967  •  Levy’s is a registered trademark of Arnold Products, Inc. Used with permission.

Figure 40. Asian American, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967  •  Levy’s is a registered trademark of Arnold Products, Inc. Used with permission.

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at the 1967 General Assembly meeting in Cleveland.67 American Jews had entered the American power structure by 1967 so they were in a position to provide the necessary political and economic backing for Israel. The Six Day War, according to Fisher, prompted a new and confident Israel and a new American Jewish community rededicated to the cause of Jewish survival. Fisher proclaimed that beyond Jewish survival, it was incumbent upon this generation to “make good a great Jewish revival.”68 Seen from this perspective, American Jews had a responsibility to retain their difference and to assert their pride—in the service of Jews both in Israel and at home in America. The time had arrived for a shift from universalism to particularism.69 As the Six Day War redirected many American Jews from their assimilationist objectives, and reminded them of their ties to and shared fate with other Jews the world over, by the late 1960s, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye” inherited the proud connotations of the Jewish triumph. “Real Jewish” was no longer a derogatory anti-Semitic stigma that marginalized Jews from the Christian majority, or a designation that applied only to Levy’s rye bread; it now signified the strength of a people. Hot Dogs, Hebrew National, and the Coalescence of American Jewish Values The Hebrew National Kosher Sausage Company was established in 1905 by Isadore Pinckowitz (subsequently Isadore Pines), an immigrant butcher from Romania. Starting in 1943, the company aspired to broaden its reach beyond its primarily Jewish clientele, just as Levy’s rye bread did. As with numerous family-owned and family-operated Jewish companies established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the business fell into the hands of the American-born-and-raised second generation, they often chose to expand the product line, marketing efforts, and target audience. Upon Pines’s death in 1936, his son, Leonard Pines, introduced salami, sauerkraut, mustard, and other kosher products. Pines penetrated the growing suburban market in the 1940s with packaged products for supermarkets, demonstrating that kosher food products had appeal beyond immigrant consumers. Under the tutelage of its advertising agency, Rockmore Company, Inc., Hebrew National salami was promoted as the perfect product for old-fashioned picnics.70 This launched a marketing strategy that distinguished Hebrew National meat products as an easy marriage between traditional American and Jewish interests. The stage was now set for Scali, McCabe, Sloves, Inc., to enter and transform Hebrew National advertising in the early 1970s.

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Figure 41. Uncle Sam images from “We Answer to a Higher Authority” television commercial, 1972  •  As Uncle Sam prepares to eat his hot dog, an invisible figure (the voice of God) reveals that Hebrew National must answer to a higher authority according to the specifications of kosher products. Uncle Sam appears bewildered until he learns of Hebrew National’s high standards, at which point he consumes the hot dog.  •  Reprinted with permission from ConAgra Foods, Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1953, Ed McCabe, a fifteen-year-old high school dropout, contacted an employment agency which placed him in the mailroom of the McCann Erickson advertising agency. He eventually worked his way up to a copywriter, and in 1959 he left the company to write for various other ad agencies. In 1967, he co-founded Scali, McCabe, Sloves, Inc., in New York. He remained there as president and worldwide creative director until 1986. Perdue chicken’s “It Takes a Tough Man to Make a Tender Chicken,” Rally’s Hamburgers “ChaChing,” and Hebrew National’s, “We Answer to a Higher Authority” are but a few of McCabe’s celebrated campaigns that defined these brands as household names. Known for his wit and confidence, McCabe in 2008 acknowledged he was most proud of his work that had the greatest impact on popular culture, including Hebrew National. Although Hebrew National unrolled its “We Answer to a Higher Authority” slogan in 1965, it was Ed McCabe who paired their hot dog product with Uncle Sam in his 1972 television commercial, which features Uncle Sam as the Hebrew National spokesperson (see figure 41). Set against a pristine blue sky with only a single cloud (implying the presence of God), Uncle Sam prepares to eat his hot dog while an invisible authority figure says “Government regulations say we can make our Hebrew National beef hot dogs from frozen beef. We don’t. The government says we can use artificial coloring. We don’t.

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They say we can add meat by-products. We don’t. They say we can add nonmeat fillers. We can’t. We’re kosher, and have to answer to an even higher authority.” Indebted to the creative revolution in advertising, of which Ed McCabe was a pioneer, the Hebrew National commercial uses the iconic figure of Uncle Sam to taunt the government and harness the sensibility of the counterculture. As a personification of the United States, or more specifically, the U.S. government, the commercial presents Uncle Sam as bewildered; his desire to eat the hot dog is interrupted by a monologue that criticizes the government, and by extension, him. Only at the end of the commercial, when he learns that Hebrew National is void of any fillers or artificial coloring does he ingest the “authentic” hot dog. Uncle Sam’s confusion together with the anti-government statements signals a damaged political system in need of reform. As Uncle Sam consumes the all-beef hot dog, not only does the commercial infer that the country will be restored, but that Uncle Sam has been converted into a Jewish American figure. Here Hebrew National takes Levy’s rye bread’s confident suggestion of Jewish strength and integration one step further to now assert the superiority of their hot dog, and, by implication, the importance of American Jews. Uncle Sam was an easy target during the social protest movements and anti–Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s and 1970s. For example, Seymour Chwast’s 1967 “End Bad Breath” poster (see plate 11) opposed the bombing of Hanoi by rendering Uncle Sam’s face a sickly and greedy green. The lines between Uncle Sam’s nose and square-shaped mouth analogized him to a puppet or dummy. The bombing occurring inside Uncle Sam’s screen-shaped mouth (hence the bad breath) recalls how the American public watched news of the Vietnam War nightly on their television screens. Yet then, as now, the news was censored in order to assuage the public’s feelings about an unpopular war. For this reason, protest posters like Chwast’s, along with publications like Ginzburg’s were especially vital in giving voice to those who felt that their voices had been silenced by the government.71 Whereas Chwast’s “End Bad Breath” took serious issue with the government, McCabe’s commercial, like DDB’s ads for Volkswagen, Avis, and Levy’s, only co-opted the revolutionary spirit in order to increase the bottom line for their clients. “Business dogged the counterculture with a fake counterculture,” writes Thomas Frank, “a commercial replica that seemed to ape its every move for the titillation of the TVwatching millions and the nation’s corporate sponsors.”72 Aligning corporate America with the counterculture effectively extinguished any revolutionary flames by draining countercultural emblems of their dissenting value to make them more palatable for the purposes of mass consumption.

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Judging by the all-beef Hebrew National brand and its critique of other labels that used artificial coloring and fillers, it appeared that Uncle Sam had switched his allegiance, siding with the Jews. From a Jewish perspective, what made the commercial so compelling was that Uncle Sam had been interpreted by McCabe as a Jewish American hybrid figure, the coalescence of both Hebrew (Jewish) and national. This American/Jewish fusion echoed the acculturationist strategy of American Jews in the aftermath of Israel’s Six Day War. The theory of coalescence as a guiding force within the lives of many American Jews, according to the sociologist Sylvia Barack Fishman, represents the fusion of belief systems—in this case American and Jewish. Coalescence plays out differently among the different denominations of Judaism. While combining American values and traditional Judaism for Orthodox Jews requires learning to live with contradiction and a compartmentalization of religion, for Reform Jews the synthesis of American values and Jewish traditions happens much more fluidly. This fluid coalescence of American and Jewish ideas assumes a permeability of boundaries that is more easily tolerated by Reform or secular Judaism. For more observant Jews, however, the retention of boundaries requires more vigilance, therefore compartmentalizing religion, rather than adapting it to suit the times.73 According to this distinction, more traditional Jews might interpret Hebrew National’s slogan, “We Answer to a Higher Authority” as decisively religious, while assimilated Jews would likely recognize compatibility between American and Jewish concerns. The idea of coalescence is an American phenomenon, developing in response to the unprecedented conditions of Jewish life there. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s commitment to a “Great Society” in the 1960s and its concomitant attention to civil rights, immigration rights that set aside the national origins quota system from the 1920s, and equal rights, assured Jews in America that they no longer needed to privilege one side of their hyphenated identities at the expense of the other. In fact, they could proudly assert their rightful claim as American Jews to the values of life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness promised by the American dream.74 Although McCabe’s figure of Uncle Sam may appear as the ideal embodiment of “Hebrew” and “national,” Hebrew National products were designated mostly for East and West Coast urban centers with a heavy concentration of Jews and were anything but national.75 However, since hot dogs are as allAmerican as apple pie and Uncle Sam, expanding the marketing of the brand to areas with little Jewish awareness became a priority for ConAgra when

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it acquired the company in 1993.76 Around the same time, in consultation with Hebrew National’s new advertising firm, Grey N.Y., ConAgra decided to make the voice of God more approachable and friendly, hiring comedian Robert Klein to soften the severity of the original commercials.77 Theoretically, Hebrew National’s slogan, “We Answer to a Higher Authority,” would resonate with the religious and health-minded. Not only does the famous tagline reference the observance of kashrut as a mitzvah commanded by God, but it clearly implies the health benefits of kosher products. A 2006 thirty-second television spot, “No Ifs, Ands, or Butts,” purposefully acknowledged that kosher meats cannot use the rear portion of cattle. For Jews with more relaxed diets and non-Jewish consumers, the kosher designation simply affirmed the purity of the product compared to other non-kosher hot dogs that used fillers.78 “We Answer to a Higher Authority” might initially appear to revoke Levy’s rye bread’s message that “You don’t have to be Jewish.” Some scholars like Jeffrey Shandler have even contended that “You don’t have to be Jewish” reminded Jews of the privilege available to all Americans to choose their own religion. In fact, Shandler suggests that “You don’t have to be Jewish” could have theoretically been read by American Jews as the ultimate assimilatory act.79 However, I would argue that in the context of the creative revolution in advertising, a rising interest in the counterculture, and a more progressive American spirit in the late sixties and early seventies, Bill Bernbach’s slogan and Ed McCabe’s message were actually opposite, yet equivalent ways of demonstrating a proud and unapologetic Jewish identity. Advertising and the End of Authority in the Age of Postmodernism In the midst of the Vietnam War, social and political unrest in America, the Six Day War in Israel, and the creative revolution in advertising, in 1967 the French theorist Roland Barthes published his now-classic postmodern essay, “The Death of the Author.” A year later in 1968, French poststructuralist philosopher Michel Foucault, published his quintessential article, “What Is an Author?” Both philosophers were concerned with the limitations of the authorial voice. Foucault understood the author as the “principle of thrift in the proliferation of meaning.”80 Barthes suggested: “We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations

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drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.”81 Both Barthes and Foucault disputed the authority of the author, demonstrating how his authority controlled and contained the meaning of the text. They insisted upon the relativity of meaning and the potential of every text to signify in multiple ways. Inspired by and responsive to the social revolutions taking place in France before their very eyes, both philosophers were transposing these revolutions to literature and philosophy, putting words to the pivotal changes that were already underway in the late 1960s.82 Just as Barthes and Foucault dared readers to think for themselves and to honor their own experiences by abandoning the post-Enlightenment rules of reading (and viewing)—especially their attachment to the author/ artist—so too did the new advertising popularized by the creative revolution in the 1960s. Barthes’s final challenge to the author’s authority comes in the last sentence of “Death of the Author” when he asserts, “The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.”83 Barthes, like other pioneers in the intellectual, political, and creative domains, was agitating for new forms of expression and critique that activated rather than sedated readers, viewers, and consumers. Down with authority was the message that was spreading like wildfire across the western hemisphere in the sixties in the “innumerable centers of culture,” including literature, philosophy, art, design, and advertising. The irreverent overtones of the Levy’s rye and Hebrew National hot dog campaigns, together with their appropriation of archetypes like Uncle Sam and the multivalent messages of both ad campaigns, situate each squarely within the interests of late 1960s postmodern trends. Even as Levy’s and Hebrew National’s ad campaigns still aimed to convert viewers into consumers of their products, their nod to the counterculture and a diverse consuming population transcended the stifling dogmatism and rigidity of earlier formulaic advertising solutions. DDB’s close-up photographs of numerous ethnic types, excluding the Jews, for Levy’s rye bread ads, confronted their viewers head-on and encouraged them to see the absurdity of stereotypes. The appropriation and juxtaposition of iconic non-Jewish types with distinctly Jewish bread was not only funny, but also directed viewers toward recognizing the possibility of unity through diversity. This was a reassuring message at a time when both national and international social and political instability left some Jews feeling uneasy. Modernism in general, and modernism in advertising, more specifically, delivered definitive solutions to the challenges that vexed consumers in the first half of the twentieth century. Under the spell of postmodernism, humor

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and ambiguity substituted for absolutes and totalizing systems. Beginning with DDB, advertising poked fun at itself in order to secure the trust of its viewers. It also learned how to broaden its appeal in order to reach multiple audiences. Questions replaced answers, and the foibles and frailties of the human experience now registered as more authentic than modernism’s insistence on perfection, the utopian, and ultimately, the unattainable. Indeed, postmodernism recorded the loss of faith in the progressive ideals that had essentially sustained the modernists since the Enlightenment.84 No wonder Uncle Sam was confused! In the context of this unique and robust moment in the lives and history of American Jews, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye,” and “We Answer to a Higher Authority,” delivered reassuring messages to Jews and non-Jews alike. Cultural pluralism deemed both the Jews and their products acceptable. And for the Jews, these slogans reinforced that irrespective of their religious leanings—Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, secular, or ethnic—all were free to honor the individualistic ethos of America and be themselves. Far from being mutually exclusive, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye,” and “We Answer to a Higher Authority,” were actually analogous, proclaiming a message of Jewish strength and self-satisfaction to all who would listen. Indeed, Jews could now take pride in being different, even a cut above the rest—when it came to hot dogs, that is—for this was a sign of the times, and Jews and non-Jews alike were eating it up.

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5

Matchmaker, Matchmaker JDating in the Digital Age

M

eandering through Times Square in New York several years ago, I was struck by a large illuminated billboard featuring Stephanie and Avi—a stunning couple—whose chance encounter was facilitated by the Jewish Internet dating service known as “JDate®” (see plate 12). That JDate could sponsor a substantial ad in such prime real estate certainly speaks to the achievements of the company founded in 1997. Yet beyond the success of this online dating service, the advertisement makes an implicit statement about the successful integration and comfort level of Jews in contemporary American society, for in this ad, Stephanie and Avi step out as Jews. Although Jewish visual self-representation in America extends back to colonial times, early American Jews obviated any signs of their religion in order to blend into a developing mercantile culture. What differentiates the JDate ad is its proclamation of pride in belonging to the oldest monotheistic faith within the context of mainstream America. I can’t imagine such an overt advertising declaration during any other historical moment. Even Bill Bernbach’s audacious copywriting in the 1960s for Levy’s rye bread spread the “Jewish” word by expressing that Jewishness didn’t matter. The JDate billboard makes it clear that being Jewish not only matters, but is a vital part of one’s identity and worth preserving through non-mixed marriages, many of which will contribute to a new generation of practicing Jews. Beyond their Jewishness, the oversized portrait of our JDate couple further reifies a phenomenon identified by Walter Benjamin’s iconic 1936 essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Articulating a shift in society’s relationship to art, and even to reality, owing to the impact of technology, Benjamin identified a loss of authenticity and preciousness— \\ 145 //

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the “aura”—as an original work of art was replaced by a reproduction. As the reality effect of a mechanically produced film caused the stage actor’s aura to shrivel, Benjamin detected the film industry’s response in an “artificial buildup of the personality outside of the studio.”1 This he called the cult of the movie star. More than seventy-five years later, the larger-than-life personalities of movie stars have been transposed onto ordinary people, just like Stephanie and Avi—actual JDaters. As Benjamin forecasted, technology and the media—advertising in particular—have significantly determined our relationship to reality. Long before Benjamin’s prediction, the media—including everything from handwritten documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls from before the Common Era, to printed anti-Semitic caricatures in the early modern period—played a decisive role in determining Jewish lives. In this sense, advertising in the present is no different. What has changed, however, is the variety of media now available, and the effect of new media like digital technology in breaking down and overcoming fixed taboos such as publicly and proudly professing one’s difference from the mainstream, be it religious, ethnic, racial, or sexual. Internet access to diverse populations across the globe has encouraged globalization, the cross-pollination of ideas, and in many cases, a blurring of boundaries. Anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can now make himself or herself seen and heard. For many, the exposure to multiple social, cultural, and political perspectives has undone ingrained, preconceived group judgments. Cutting and pasting, clicking and dragging, navigating hyperlinks and hypertexts—all have opened multiple pathways for the consumption of information. Not only has the Internet revolutionized information sharing, but it has also unleashed new and creative forms of expression and connection. From Facebook to YouTube, and Tumblr to Twitter, social networking and new media have transformed our businesses and our lives. They have also pushed the frontiers of advertising and marketing. “Mass customization” has now replaced market segmentation and attention has shifted from the product to the user. Early in the twentieth century Joseph Jacobs’s revolutionary segmented marketing and advertising used the “K” and “OU” to inform Jewish buyers that certain products met the standards for kosher consumption. Nowadays, some advertising has returned to mass marketing, using computer-aided manufacturing systems to generate custom output. For example, Nike consumers—from competitive athletes to the occasional runner—can now customize their sneakers with their own stamp. Yet, in the midst of all of this connectivity, the need for human face-to-face connection is strong. Now

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more than ever, as Internet access affords unprecedented opportunities for connection, many have a heightened awareness of their solitude, especially as they repeatedly interface with the capricious content of the computer. For some, the limitless possibilities and utter freedom provided by the Internet and modern life have increased a deep-seated need for grounding and connection not only to other people, but also to one’s heritage. Even though how people meet has evolved along with the development of technology, the institution of marriage remains one of the most unwavering social establishments across the world. Using new media to reinforce an age-old matchmaking agenda, JDate ensures that Jewish roots are sustained for generations to come.2 From Yenta to JDate Whether initiated by a matchmaker, a blind date, or a chance meeting over the Internet, marriage has occupied an esteemed position within Judaism for thousands of years. By 1000 c.e., monogamy, essentially the norm for over 1,500 years, became a legal mandate.3 The wedding ceremony grew more elaborate over time, accompanied by music and wedding hymns. The bridal couple stood under the chuppa (wedding canopy) and everyone wore his or her Sabbath best. Along with such refinements to the institution of a Jewish marriage during the Middle Ages came an increase in the incidence of divorce and brides marrying as young as ten years old. The occurrence of child marriages typically resulted due to three concerns. First, anticipation of the long-awaited Messiah led mothers and fathers to rush the marriages of their children, hoping that they might then give birth to the Messiah. Second, with the growing frequency of persecutions, men wanted to marry off their daughters when they still could save for a dowry, fearing that their daughters might not be able to marry if they lost their savings. The third reason why child marriages occurred stemmed from the promotion of chastity. Benjamin Schlesinger reveals that at times these marriages ended before they were even consummated.4 According to the Shulchan Aruch–the standard Jewish law code, first printed in 1564—it was the duty of every Jewish man to marry by age eighteen, and it was even more admirable for him to marry earlier (but not before becoming a Bar Mitzvah at age thirteen). Marriage took its place within a sophisticated network of social, welfare, educational, and legal services. These services nourished the Jewish family by providing for its well-being and affirming a traditional Jewish value system. The institution of marriage

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was but a single piece of a larger corporate structure that upheld common goals and values.5 In historical Jewish communities, according to the sociologist Sylvia Barack Fishman, “a congruence of religious values, economic necessities, and cultural and societal pressures made married adults and their families central, and marginalized the unmarried.”6 However, with the tide of emancipation and the granting of the rights of citizenship to European Jews beginning in the late eighteenth century, many defected from Orthodox tradition. As Jews became citizens in various European countries over the course of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a shift occurred from the collective to the individual, and along with that, a new freedom to choose how to be a Jew, including the freedom to select one’s own spouse.7 Matchmaking by parents or the community yenta8 lost its relevance as the individual assumed more status within Europe. In urban industrial economies Jews absorbed secular values, further contributing to a loosening of the authoritative influence exercised by communities. In modern times the Jewish family has become much more heterogeneous. Yet family values persist and marriage between Jews is still the central pillar of modern Judaism even as it has modified within the more progressive denominations of Judaism to include intermarriage, same-sex marriage, and transgender couples.9 Between the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries within the Jewish community, the family became the issue on which concern for assimilation focused.10 Few would dispute that raising Jewish children remains critical to Jewish continuity. For this reason, the organized American Jewish community reacted with fears concerning Jewish survival in light of the alarming conclusions of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), which revealed that about 50 percent of marriages occur between a Jew and a nonJew. One decade later, the 2000 National Jewish Population Survey uncovered that 81 percent of the American Jewish population consisted of adults, aged eighteen and over, confirming a decline in the Jewish population. According to the survey, since 1990 the American Jewish population had actually diminished by several hundred thousand, partly due to women getting married later and postponing starting their families, often because of career choices. The study indicated that Jews were having fewer children (approximately 1.8 per household) than the number necessary to maintain the Jewish population replacement level (about 2.2). Sociologists of the Jewish family generally agree that the most striking attribute of the family has been its cohesiveness, and that historically, the family—regardless of denomination—has functioned to preserve Jews as a

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group.11 Therefore, the alarming statistics uncovered by the 1990 and 2000 National Jewish Population Surveys and the recent Pew Research Center study of U.S. Jews have triggered numerous concerns and responses from those who focus on American Jewish patterns and behaviors. Whereas some have viewed these developments as an inevitable transformation of Jewish life, the sociologist Norman Linzer believed that American Judaism was in jeopardy unless efforts were made to strengthen Jewish family life and institutions.12 Linzer traced the challenges posed to American Jews in the late twentieth century to what he called “deinstitutionalization.” Whereas traditional society prescribed codes of conduct and behavior that were reinforced through Jewish institutions, thereby narrowing the choices for decision-making, deinstitutionalization represented a shift of moral authority and responsibility. Now personal choice triumphed over institutional attachment and authority.13 Deinstitutionalization reflected a lack of communal cohesiveness, generally resulting from egoism, selfishness, and the pursuit of pleasure, all of which were seen as the guiding ethos of modern America. Traditionalists like Linzer sense the implosion of American Jewish life based upon recent population surveys and studies of U.S. Jews, while others—transformationalist thinkers like the sociologist Steven Mitchell Cohen—reassure the American Jewish establishment that the cause for concern is overstated. Cohen believed that the changes and evolution charted in 1990 and 2000 by the NJPS actually pointed to the resiliency and vitality of the Jewish people. He regarded the adaptations to life in America as the latest in a series of practical survival strategies implemented by Jews in the various countries they have lived. Since the Jewish Enlightenment and the origins of deinstitutionalization, the contest between tradition and transformation as the guiding ethos of Jewish life has played to the tune of Reform and Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionism, and Modern Orthodoxy. What are all of these denominations if not an attempt to recast tradition in a more modern guise, especially to keep the pulse of Jewish life strong when religion is chosen and not imposed? In addition to religious terms, the conflict between tradition and transformation has taken root in multiple expressions of Zionism, along with ethical Judaism. Concern over survival has been at the heart of modern discourse on Jewish life. Back in the 1950s, the tension between tradition and transformation led the Jewish thinker and writer Simon Rawidowicz to deem Jews (Israel) the ever-dying people. In the 1990s, Alan Dershowitz penned his book, The Vanishing American Jew. Just recently, Daniel Gordis wrote an article titled, “Ever Dying or Never-Dying.” Invoking Rawidowicz’s idiom, Gordis

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observed that most generations of Jews have feared that theirs was the last, and that, again based upon Rawidowicz, it is precisely this fear that has been the key to Jewish survival.14 Nontraditionalists subscribe to the idea that when the net of Jewish life is cast more broadly upon the panoply of experiences—including the cultural—discussions of Jewish concern and interest begin to surface in unexpected places. For example, a study commissioned by the Foundation for Jewish Culture in 2005 underscored the value of Jewish cultural engagement as a connector to Jewish life for “the intermarried, the geographically remote, the unmarried, and the unaffiliated.”15 Since the 1960s, organizations like the Foundation for Jewish Culture have identified the exceptional potential of Jewish art and culture to reach the disconnected. Just recently, however, this foundation announced its own end, prompting the Jewish historian David N. Myers to conclude, “This sends an ominous message to all those concerned with the vitality of Jewish culture.”16 Myers questions, Are we the last link in the chain of that great cultural transmission? “Does the demise of the Foundation for Jewish Culture signal the end of a remarkable century or so of frenetically creative Jewish cultural energy? . . . One would like to think that American Jewry, with its demographic diversity and philanthropic heft, would be able and willing to recognize the virtue of culture in our collective lives. . . . Culture is not the panacea to all our problems, but it does represent a vital lifeline.”17 Myers’s progressive position discloses that the experiences and expressions of Jewishness provided by art and culture, though unconventional from a more traditional perspective, are not to be discounted for their potential to nourish Jewish souls, especially in a moment when some disregard the value of tradition. The well-rehearsed argument between the necessity of tradition versus transformation might be the most consistent force connecting recent generations of Jewish life. Within the tradition/ transformation continuum, JDate takes a comfortable centrist position. It has heeded the call for continuity coming from the organized American Jewish community by reviving the ancient institution of the matchmaker. This modern-day yenta is a far cry from the meddlesome, gossipmonger character popularized in the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Jewish matchmaking in the age of the Internet is a response to the complexities of modern life, including long working hours, an increase in mobility, and the dissolution of traditional modes of socialization.18 The physical experiences associated with traditional courtship like sweaty palms, reddened cheeks, or tied tongues are suspended until actual physical encounters, or even disappear as initial dating awkwardness

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is worked out online.19 Continuity, JDate style, originates in a disembodied, digital form.20 JDate is simply the high-tech iteration of a long tradition of Jewish singles events and services with the objective of sustaining American Jewish life.21 Beyond introducing singles, JDate also participates in inculcating a sense of attachment to a people and lifestyle. The company attempts to create social experiences that effectively enable online introductions to evolve offline. JDate is helping to “strengthen the Jewish community and ensure that Jewish traditions are sustained for generations to come,” stated Greg Lieberman, president and CEO of Spark Networks, the parent company of JDate. “The way that we do that is by making more Jews.”22 Like Manischewitz one hundred years earlier, which applied the new concept of mass production to making matzos, thereby connecting more modern American Jews to the practice of traditional Jewish rituals, JDate’s success as a profit-driven enterprise depends upon using the latest technology for traditional matchmaking purposes. Internet dating began in 1992. It has since exploded, offering a plethora of matchmaking options from umbrella sites like eHarmony, to niche ones, such as JDate, CatholicSingles, and GoodGenes—a dating service for Ivy League Graduates.23 Alongside JDate, Spark Networks operates more than twenty dating sites variously providing services to other groups including: Christians (ChristianMingle®.com), Mormons (LDSSingles®.com), African Americans (BlackSingles®.com), and seniors (SilverSingles®.com). JDate is the oldest of the services and it is embraced by secular and religious Jewish leaders who are responding to the high rate of intermarriage. Some rabbis have even begun to purchase memberships in bulk for their congregants at a discounted rate.24 Employing experts ranging from psychologists to scientific advisors, the goal of these matchmaking machines is to implement the basic assumption that by asking the “right combination of questions and applying a theory of what makes and breaks relationships over the long term, a piece of software can predict a successful romance.”25 Following on the heels of print, broadcast, and television media before it, digital technology has become the latest medium used to abet and sustain Jewish life. Since its launch in February 1997 by Alon Carmel and Joe Shapira, two entrepreneurs originally from Israel, JDate has distinguished itself as the leading online Jewish singles service.26 It has even become part of our everyday language and popular culture, referenced by (Jewish) celebrities like Joan Rivers and Howard Stern and television shows like Sex and the City, Saturday Night Live, and The Daily Show.27 As of June 2010, JDate claimed 750,000 users.28 It

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is responsible for more Jewish marriages than all other online dating services combined, claiming credit for 52 percent of Jewish marriages arranged online, followed by Match.com with 17 percent, eHarmony with 10 percent, and all others accounting for 21 percent.29 JDate’s success derives from the fact that it connects Jewish singles, who share core Jewish values, to a global community.30 It lets Jewish singles know that they are not alone. Their transparent print, television, and Internet ads allow Jewish singles to feel hopeful, while subverting the stigma attached to being unmarried within traditional Judaism.31 JDate and Advertising in the Internet Era Dating began in the progressive 1920s as a relatively formal encounter between middle-class teenagers interested in getting to know each other and continued in this manner through the 1950s. The sexual revolution of the 1960s relaxed the dating formalities of earlier decades and by the late twentieth century, couples shifted their focus from dating and marriage for the purpose of creating a family to establishing relationships based upon love, passion, and friendship. As dating became more popular in the twentieth century, so too did personal ads. First in newspapers and magazines, and then through telephone personals, individuals seeking spouses began advertising for the man or woman of their dreams. Videotape technology enabled the incorporation of images into personal ads by the 1980s. Still, until the end of the twentieth century, a social stigma adhered to the use of personal ads. This finally changed with the widespread introduction of online dating services in the 1990s. As more and more couples started relationships this way, such services became more socially acceptable. The placement of JDate billboards in esteemed real estate from New York to Los Angeles attests to a conquest over the earlier stigma of the personal ad culture. JDate billboards attest to the acceptability of Jews. At Sunset and Alta Loma Road, dead in the center of West Hollywood, a JDate billboard stands out simply because it does not fit in.32 Amid seductive Guess jeans and Calvin Klein billboards on Sunset Boulevard peddling the lives and bodies of the rich and famous like Anna Nicole Smith or Brad Pitt, JDate intercedes to feature a wholesome (Jewish) couple, “posing together as a widely smiling success story of online JDating®.”33 Though perhaps not equal to a billboard with Adonis abs, isn’t an ad of a “well . . . Jewy couple . . . a guy and a girl. Dark hair, dark eyes, original noses. Unapologetically cliché,”34 equally as striking, especially in a culture where difference and diversity are regarded as hip? Triumphant as it might first appear to see JDate success stories on the

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spectacular billboards of populated urban centers, billboards are no longer the only power player in advertising. In one study, Reuters asked hundreds of pedestrians in Times Square whether billboard ads increased their chances of purchasing the product being pitched. About half answered that billboards increased their likelihood of purchasing the product, while only about 15 percent responded that billboards significantly affected their purchasing patterns.35 Billboards can command substantial attention, especially when placed in densely populated areas like Times Square. However, the relatively limited population of passersby in these locales does not compare to the efficacy of guerrilla marketing, which makes headlines these days, and the banners and pop-ups observed by boundless numbers of Internet users. Just as the subjects of advertising have shifted in our postcolonial celebration of diversity, the centers of advertising have also changed in our hyperconnected, super-networked times. In the Internet age, radio ads, television commercials, and billboards might be seen as the outer limits of advertising, having been replaced by newer guerrilla marketing strategies, Internet banners, and Adwords. In their article, “Marketing in the Internet Age,” Lisa Harris and Geraldine Cohen write “Mention the Internet, and intelligent people sometimes act as if they have had a portion of their brain removed— the memory.” Many marketing developments are not new, but rather updated versions of traditional practices—same message, different form.36 In this spirit, JDate’s marketing and advertising are actually more evolutionary than revolutionary. Their “Split Ad” print campaign offers a perfect case in point. Developed in 2010 by the McCann Erickson agency to attract subscribers to Israel’s JDate website, the campaign relied upon splitting twenty pictures of couples into forty single ads. Each advertisement invited readers of Israel’s largest business magazine to look for the photograph’s other half; the winner won a romantic weekend getaway. JDate’s “Split Ad” campaign bridged the gap between old and new media: “With an innovative use of print, we reminded singles that their other half is only a click away.”37 Rather than totally rejecting traditional print media, the campaign brought the interactivity of the new to this enduring medium. Clicking reminds viewers of JDate’s digital platform, but it is also synonymous with connecting—JDate’s overarching purpose. Within the historical context of advertising, however, since art directors and copywriters were first paired together at the Jewish Weintraub agency in New York in the late forties, advertising has steadily pursued a strategy of involving viewers in the production of meaning. This strategy leaves a lasting impression with viewers, by making them active participants in piecing together the big idea of the ad.

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In “Someone to zip you up,” a 2010 McCann Erickson Israel campaign, JDate partnered with international fashion brand, Mango, to target single women. A special tag was affixed to the back zipper of every dress in the Tel Aviv Mango stores. Launched to correspond with the Israeli equivalent of Valentine’s Day—Tu B’Av—the tag offered Mango shoppers a free one-month subscription to JDate and directed them to the JDate website. There they were reminded that nowadays women can do everything without a partner. They can run empires (here the ad featured Oprah Winfrey), run countries (the ad showed an image of Golda Meir), and even make babies. However, the ad playfully reminded them that there is still one thing they cannot do on their own—zip themselves up. Innovative as JDate Israel’s “Split Ad” and “Zip-Up” campaigns were in engaging the wider public in their efforts to convert them into JDaters, both campaigns harness the popularity of advertising in one medium and move it over into another. This harkens back to strategies used by Maxwell House with its Show Boat radio program in the 1930s and Joseph Jacobs Advertising referencing the Ruth Jacobs and Joey Adams radio shows in print in the 1960s. Historically, as advertising has expanded across different media platforms, it has seized new media in ideal evolutionary form to connect consumers to different products or brands. When it comes to new technology, according to Harris and Cohen, “We have a natural human tendency to overestimate the extent of change, but in reality new generations tend to display considerable continuity with those which have gone before . . . we tend to assume that contemporary changes are the most significant because we are closest to them and do not have the clarity accorded by distance from the phenomenon.”38 While it is hard to fully know the impact of the Internet age, we can anticipate the likelihood that Internet marketing will, like print and radio advertising and marketing before it, become absorbed under the umbrella of the customary.39 From billboards to print ads run in both Jewish and popular publications, to television commercials, the success of JDate is in no small part attributable to the fact that it exploits all available advertising outlets—both new and traditional. The company remains cognizant of drawing an arc between online and offline worlds and converting virtual introductions into offline relationships. JDate’s presence in the physical world—both in terms of advertising and events such as JDate-organized parties and travel excursions—further actualizes its mission of Jewish connection.40 Its esteem for Jewish tradition along with its efforts to reach interested singles means that it inserts itself where it is likely to be seen by both young and old prospective viewers. At JDate, lines between the past and the present are connected: generationally,

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Figure 42. JDate logo  •  JDate’s logo combines traditional and modern iconography, partially delineating a Jewish star. The placement of the text to the right of triangular shapes suggestive of the star, together with a red heart underneath also conjures an arrow—Cupid’s perhaps.  •  Image courtesy of JDate.com.

in terms of its mission, and also in its healthy respect for traditional advertising venues alongside newer digital outlets. The amorphousness of JDate’s logo itself permits for the intersection of traditional and modern iconography (see figure 42). Partially delineating the familiar shape of a Star of David, JDate’s logo softens the points of the star by substituting three rounded triangular forms for the customary angular shapes. This modification to the Jewish star draws a visual equivalence with the red heart, which replaces what would be a fourth triangle. Adhering to a red, white, and blue color palette, the logo marries American and Jewish symbols.41 The star is interrupted by the JDate text, which extends horizontally, creating an arrow-like shape (Cupid’s perhaps?) that often points back to the featured couple. Is one half of the star looking to find its other half? The open form of the logo remains open for interpretation. Whereas a clearly delineated Jewish star would likely trigger more serious religious associations—possibly turning some would-be users away—the less structured form of JDate’s logo makes it more playful and allows it to be interpreted according to individual interests. In fact, non-Jews comprise approximately 2 percent of the website’s subscribers, a low but curious statistic given that most users have made it their mission to date Jews. Typically, those non-Jews who choose to subscribe are motivated by the success of the website or by personal relationships they have enjoyed with Jews in the past.42 JDate’s name, logo, and mission statement make its objective of Jewish continuity transparent. Yet, more overtly religious Jewish dating websites, such as Frumster.com (now JWed), appeal to would-be users through talk of finding one’s bashert (true love or soulmate, sanctioned by God), and by emphasizing the centrality of marriage to Judaism through the numerous shots of newly married couples in their wedding garb. Before its name change, Frumster.com’s logo comprised two interlocking gold wedding bands. By comparison, JDate’s logo appears

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much more evocative in an effort to attract a more religiously relaxed and casual crowd and cut across Jewish denominational lines. At a time when advertising saturation can backfire to shorten the life cycle of any product, many advertisers have shifted their attention away from the product and toward users of the product.43 Mass customization, a twentyfirst-century Internet marketing phenomenon, prioritizes the user over the product to increase brand loyalty. It is the Internet equivalent of twentiethcentury mass marketing. Through the simple activity of clicking, mass customization aspires to entice the user into expressing herself, thereby creating a customized touch to an otherwise impersonal group solicitation. In “The Birth of the User,” the design theorist Ellen Lupton says: The dominant subject of our age has become neither reader nor writer but user. . . . Like a patient or child, the user is a figure to be protected and cared for but also scrutinized and controlled, submitted to research and testing. . . . How texts [or advertisements] are used becomes more important than what they mean. Someone clicked here to get over there. Someone who bought this also bought that. The interactive environment not only provides users with a degree of control and selfdirection but also, more quietly and insidiously, it gathers data about its audiences. . . . We may play the text, but it is also playing us.44 This two-way, dialogical pursuit takes the interaction between the author and reader encouraged by poststructualists like Barthes and Foucault in the late sixties to a new level. While mass customization would initially seem to represent the antithesis of mass marketing, Harris and Cohen are quick to point out how it is less a departure and more of a marketing refinement or evolution given the preference and even expectation of personalization facilitated by the Internet. Mass customization is a more evolved form of market segmentation in its promotion of individualized preferences even within a common market. With its focus on the user, rather than the product, mass customization aims toward relationship building, replacing the earlier twentieth-century practice of consumer engineering, which essentially “engineered” or designed products for the masses based upon the needs of consumers as determined by research.45 Even if users are being used themselves by marketers, given the fierce competition for their attention, they can actively shape both the information and commercial economies by deciding what to look at.46 Digital readers bring with them a different set of expectations than consumers of print media. Because most switch into a productive search mode versus

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a contemplative processing mode, Internet users are more impatient and easily distracted.47 By necessity, Internet companies, and those using the Web for advertising, must implement innovative strategies to highlight their products and services from all of the background noise. One of JDate’s strategies is to use actual users of their website as models.48 The company emphasizes real people and their testimonials—couples who found each other using the dating service and are now volunteering to advocate for JDate and pay it forward. Achieving the status of a verb, “JDating,” has resulted in JFamilies and JBabies, as illustrated by two recent JDate print advertisements (see figures 43 and 44). The ads, featuring JBaby Benjamin, who dons his parents’ wedding rings on his big toes, and Jennifer and Michael’s JFamily portrait with their five sons, ultimately reinscribe heteronormative, traditional family values. This is entirely consistent with JDate’s mandate to promote Jewish customs and to strengthen the Jewish community. Even though JDate accommodates gays and lesbians on their service, their marketing and advertising cuts through the center, with the potential of simultaneously reaching more socially, politically, and religiously progressive and conservative viewers. JDate’s emphasis on real couples and real families reinforces the authenticity of the website, all the while satisfying the prurient interests of the public. As in a reality show, JDate introduces everyday, undiscovered couples, babies, and even families to the public in an effort to spark a connection that gets Jewish singles imagining themselves in these Jewish ads and Jewish lives.

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Figure 43. JBaby Benjamin, JDate advertisement, 2010  •  JDate marries the power of advertising to Jewish tradition. JBaby Benjamin, who dons his parents’ wedding rings on his big toes, is testimony to the success of this marriage.  •  Image courtesy of JDate.com.

Figure 44. Jennifer and Michael’s JFamily, JDate advertisement, 2010  •  Jennifer and Michael’s JFamily attests to the success of JDate as a matchmaking resource, and to the importance of Jewish continuity.  •  Image courtesy of JDate.com.

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On May 6, 2011, Stefanie and Ethan, married in May 2009, appeared on the back cover of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal (see figure 45). Featured on the beach wearing bathing suits and shades, the headline copy reads, “We look forward to continuing our adventure together.” With an emphasis on excitement, the words “adventure” and “together” appear in distinctly larger font. Shown back to back, arms drawn in with their thumbs and forefingers posed as if shooting up toward the sky, the couple appears covered in dark mud, to draw a connection between adventure and the exotic. Stefanie and Ethan are anything but a banal couple—at least as captured in this photograph. As the dark mud downplays or obstructs their Jewishness, it brings to mind an exotic locale rich in rejuvenating minerals—perhaps the Dead Sea. Ironically, in a world of stock photos and Photoshopped beauty, it is the ordinariness of couples and families featured in JDate advertisements that makes them revolutionary and even irreverent. JDate ads command attention because, in fact, the subjects could be anyone, including you.

Figure 45. Stefanie and Ethan, JDate advertisement, 2011  •  While Stefanie and Ethan are an actual couple who met by JDating, they are anything but ordinary—at least as captured in this photograph. The dark mud covering their bodies brings to mind an exotic locale rich in rejuvenating minerals—perhaps the Dead Sea.  •  Image courtesy of JDate.com.

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Tradition, Transformation, and Adaptation The bold Jewish pride demonstrated by public JDate advertisements reflects a shifting American culture, as well as a shifting religious culture. No longer promoting images of white, Protestant, middle-class Americans popular in visual culture until the late sixties, Jewish expressions from Fiddler on the Roof to Seinfeld have grown increasingly familiar to the American public.49 Although the 1960s introduction of racial and ethnic diversity, visible in everything from iconic civil rights photographs to Bernbach’s advertising, certainly paved the way for these expressions, it followed on the heels of centuries of oppression and discrimination. Yet since becoming accepted as a part of popular discourse and imagination, racial, ethnic, and religious diversity have altered the dominant image of the typical American. To be ethnic is now to be more, not less, American.50 How else could, for example, the Chabad/Lubavitch Jewish reggae sensation, Matisyahu, be named Billboard magazine’s top reggae artist of 2006? Our ever-expanding media feeds itself by colonizing the aberrant. As idiosyncratic religious performers like Matisyahu are appropriated by the mainstream, the religious field itself undergoes “a phase of radical reconstruction,” according to the media historian Jeremy Stolow. This occurs “not only at the level of existing institutions and communities of faith, but also at the level of broader cultural formations haunted by ‘religious’ imagery,”51 because both religious and non-religious organizations and communities alike are contoured nowadays by modern communication technologies. One need only recall the engagement of modern technology by Al-Queda or the role of social media in promoting the Arab Awakening. JDate advertisements comfortably take their place among other diverse religious, sexual, ethnic, and gender expressions in our largely mediated environment. The reception of Jews within mainstream America is of little comfort to traditionalist sociologists of American Jewish life. Rather, they see this acceptance as a threat to Jewish longevity posed by intermarriage and increasing secularism, and fear that as American Jews enter deeper and deeper into American society, they will become lost as Jews. But nontraditionalists—including young Jewish hipsters and culturally identified Jews—actually take pleasure and pride in Jewish exceptionality. JDate first took to the streets with its Times Square campaign in 2004, two years after the 2002 debut of Heeb magazine. Subtitled the “New Jew Review,” Heeb targeted young Jewish hipsters with a taste for the irreverent. Raucous and intentionally provocative, as suggested by its title—an old ethnic slur for Hebrew or Jewish (“hebe”)—the

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magazine attempted to reclaim the power of the slur in support of the Jews, rather than something to be hurled against them.52 Boasting feature articles such as “Neil Diamond Centerfold: Ladies Contain Yourselves” (Winter 2002) Heeb magazine was anything but passive. It aggressively confronted Jewish taboos from tattoos to sex, with the objective of animating Jewish life for the young and Jewishly unencumbered. At times bordering on the tawdry, Heeb magazine and its website have pushed the boundaries of social acceptance and infused American Jewish society and culture with an exciting energy. Even as Heeb is reminiscent in spirit of the sexual and creative revolutions of the late sixties, it remains unabashedly Jewish. Although JDate and Heeb have different objectives, both have made a splash in the contemporary Jewish landscape by invoking the power of advertising and design to flaunt the (extra) ordinariness of Jewishness. Diversity, visual culture, and street culture, together with the accessibility facilitated by the Internet, have altered the public’s understanding of what is considered normal. Mainstream advertising for products ranging from Levi jeans to Pepsi often employs a spectrum of race and ethnicities along with the irony and look of the counterculture. Within this context, public JDate advertisements and commercials fit right into the visual landscapes of populated urban centers like Los Angeles and New York. Taking its traditional message of sustaining Jewish community and customs to the streets, JDate sends a positive note of Jewish exceptionality to Jews and non-Jews alike. Compared to a traditional Jewish dating service like JWed, which is geared toward more parochial Jewish singles, the spectrum of Jewish identities included under the umbrella of JDate echoes the diversity of the broader society. In this sense, it validates the non-Orthodox—Judaism American style. Yet, as the historian Jeffrey Gurock observes, Orthodox American Jews have equally resisted and welcomed attitudes of reconciliation or accommodation to American culture.53 This is apparent in the material culture of Orthodox Jews. Take, for example, “Shabbat: Just Do It” t-shirts and bumper stickers available for purchase on Judaicaheaven.com and other websites. While the t-shirt immediately brings to mind the active sportswear leader, Nike, and the attitude of fierce individualism abetted by the advertising industry, it simultaneously underscores the profound compatibility between American youth culture and observant Jewish youths. Moreover, inasmuch as the t-shirt and bumper sticker use the Nike slogan to announce the imperative of observing Shabbat, it illustrates Sylvia Barack Fishman’s claim that while the observance of Shabbat and kashrut may appear anachronistic to some Jews, they have actually become trendy among others.54 Using design

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and advertising to concoct a syncretic American Jewish identity illustrates both the fickleness of the media and the flexibility of Judaism in present day America. Even the traditional world of American Jewish Orthodoxy cannot escape the magnetic pull of American popular culture and new media. The elasticity of Jewish and American trappings goes both ways. Just as the observant Jew transforms into an ordinary American youth by proclaiming Nike’s tagline “Just Do It” on his Shabbat t-shirt, so too miniature frum (modest) clothing converts the Barbie doll into an observant Jew. On the one hand, the modest doll clothes marketed on the Ms. Modesty website in the first few years of the twenty-first century—downsized to fit a Barbie, one of the most identifiable icons of American pop culture—indicate just how deep the American emphasis on appearance, celebrity, and consumption runs. The website was started by a thirty-one-year-old single mother in the fall of 2000. Monica Garcia wanted to make frum doll clothing available to religious mothers and daughters. Aware of the huge influence Barbie has on little girls, Garcia didn’t want her own daughter playing with a doll who “dressed like a prostitute.”55 On the other hand, as director of the 1998 documentary Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour Susan Stern highlights, the irony of frum Barbie clothing is that Barbie was created, in part, to help young girls become comfortable with their bodies, and particularly to deal with their growing breasts.56 Even more paradoxical is that Barbie, labeled by artist and critic Rhonda Lieberman as the “ultimate shiksa (non-Jewish) goddess,” is the invention of a Jewish woman, Ruth Handler.57 As the creation of a Jewish woman, Barbie’s body becomes all the more ironic, especially given the stereotypes regarding the sexual repression of “Jewish American princesses,” and their proclivity toward consumption and self-adornment.58 Perhaps most ironic is that Ms. Modesty, the vendor of frum doll fashions, was the creation of a former Catholic, now turned Orthodox Jew—a testament to how our identities are never static, but always shifting and under reappraisal. Indeed, in “our contemporary geography of information flows . . . the field of religious symbols, practices, and modes of belonging has been radically extended along the axes of a dizzying array of technologies, genres, and forms.”59 Within the idiosyncratic context of the contemporary Jewish landscape in America, JDate’s enterprise of using Jewish and mainstream media avenues to reinforce traditional Jewish priorities makes perfect sense—both from a business and religious perspective. From market segmentation in the last century to mass customization in the twenty-first century, advertising, marketing, and the Internet have abetted American Jewish identities. Promoting parity between the religious and

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the quotidian, JDate advertising encourages an American Jewish coalescence, wedding the Jewish and secular pieces of life.60 The visibility of JDate billboards featuring couples like Stephanie and Avi insert Jewish life within broader American society, while mirroring the public face of our private lives, now evident in our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter culture. JDate’s marketing and advertising remind us of the reality that behind every campaign exists a purposeful design that exceeds the aesthetic, and is tied to consumption of larger social, cultural, political, and religious imperatives.

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Conclusion More than a Mirror

I

n 2006, Reboot, a movement of young Jewish creatives dedicated to the renewal of Jewish values and traditions, published a groundbreaking study detailing what being Jewish means to Generation Y (young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five). One-on-one interviews with a cross-section of individuals together with Generation Y focus groups from Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York highlighted that, unlike earlier generations, this cohort did not connect to Judaism through established institutions. In fact, when asked to identify what the acronyms of some of the more popular organizations like AIPAC stood for, many were unable to do so.1 The Reboot study noted this generation’s decreasing institutional awareness and declining denominational identification. While this growing detachment from conventional Jewish practices and institutions was cause for concern in the 1990 and 2000 National Jewish Population Surveys and the recent 2013 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews, Reboot’s study unexpectedly highlighted the importance of culture (particularly popular culture) as a mechanism for Jewish connection. It also tracked a shift in this generation’s understanding of community. Most young Jews saw themselves tied more to a global Jewish community that encompassed a broader connection to a people rather than to localized communities. Just as eighteenth-century painted portraits of colonial Jews disclosed nothing of Jewish particularity as Jews opted to appear like others from the merchant class, Reboot’s study confirmed that American and Jewish values are largely indistinguishable for this generation.2 Being Jewish is simply one identity among many identities assumed by Generation Y. Rather than feeling apologetic or remorseful over a condition of splintered identities, the study found that this group felt \\ 163 //

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confident and proud. Compared to the disconcerting feelings unleashed in the established community after the release of the 1990 and 2000 National Jewish Population Surveys, Reboot’s study painted a more multidimensional, albeit grittier portrait of contemporary Jewish life. Had Reboot’s report been published in the seventies, it might have been titled, “Judaism Burger King Style: Have It Your Way.” Instead, the creative network paid tribute to Starbucks—the international mega star of contemporary coffee companies. Its report was named, “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam . . . Jewish Identity and Community in a Time of Unlimited Choices” (see figure 46). Starbuck’s recognizable paper cup and just a hint of its iconic logo figured prominently on the front cover of the study. However, the selection boxes, which would usually indicate the customer’s coffee and milk choices, referenced a smorgasbord of Jewish preferences from Matisyahu—the Chabad reggae sensation—to meditation, with activism and the ritual mikvah in between. Consistent with Reboot’s idiosyncratic discoveries about Generation Y, the largest box at the bottom

Figure 46. Cover page of “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam . . . Jewish Identity and Community in a Time of Unlimited Choices,” Reboot study, 2006  •  Reboot’s use of Starbuck’s identifiable paper cup and logo on the cover of its study of Generation Y pays tribute to this multinational company. The selection boxes on the cup have been altered to indicate this generation’s broad spectrum of Jewish preferences.  •  Reboot, www.Rebooters.net.

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of the cup was designated “Other…” recalling how this cohort comfortably picks and chooses from available options of being Jewish, thus customizing their Jewish identities. Reboot’s appropriation of Starbuck’s menu choices and packaging to introduce the distinctive characteristics of this generation to the larger American Jewish community illustrates the transcendence of Starbucks within the public’s collective consciousness. More importantly, for our purposes, Reboot’s incorporation of the Starbuck’s brand signals the efficacy of marketing and advertising as the sine qua non for navigating contemporary life in America. It is the pabulum of our consumer-based society. The likening of Reboot’s findings to a Starbuck’s latte serves as a stark reminder of the growing ascendancy of advertising over the past one hundred years. Its dual capacity to educate and entertain has ensured that the American public has tuned into its messages, delivered through jingles, melodramatic narratives, comic strips, illustrations, photography, the airwaves, on the highways, and nowadays, literally, everywhere we look, from the sky where one might observe a banner trailing a plane to the World Wide Web. Consciously feeding the consuming public a steady diet of insecurity and anxiety obtained through the ever-quickening tempo of modern life, advertising continuously intervenes to ease their burden. Advertising is both the problem and the answer, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape its all-pervasive clutches. Just when it seems that market saturation might desensitize consumers and spell the end for a particular commodity, something new emerges on the horizon. Now, with the possibility of mass customization, for example, consumers can also become producers, or “prosumers.” With prosumerism, the consumers provide both the parts and the labor, simultaneously designing and then buying their own labor—hungering for “customization and the opportunity to add their input.”3 Like Reboot’s “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte” study, prosumerism and mass customization signal the allure of unlimited choices, and of blending our identities and experiences. Advertising, marketing, and branding have continued fashioning Jews in America since the massive immigration of Eastern European Jews a century ago to the ubiquitous Starbucks, prosumer present. For decades, these activities have registered and moved the needle of Jewish civic, political, religious, and cultural engagement. In more mundane ways, they have recorded and directed Jewish daily preferences from household goods to food products. Now, more than ever, advertising, together with branding, ensures the most comprehensive and effective means of public engagement. Even political campaigns choose this iconic language, packaging their candidates as brands

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(e.g., the Obama brand versus the Romney brand in the 2012 presidential election). For nearly one hundred years, advertising has relied upon clever devices to direct audiences toward desired outcomes. Though often dubious and selfserving, at times these outcomes have encouraged the education and uplift of society. In the twenties and thirties, for example, by appropriating the geometric forms of Picasso or Charles Sheeler, print advertising introduced those who didn’t have the opportunity to attend art galleries or museums to the new vocabulary of modern art.4 This approach is no different in the present, especially as it riffs on both popular and elite cultural trends. Advertising can bring attention to iconic literary works, like Apple’s 1984 commercial did. Public service announcements supporting social and political causes can bring society’s marginalized or disenfranchised out of invisibility. Even if advertising is the pabulum of our consumer-based society, its ability to educate, entertain, and offer critical commentary upon pressing social and political issues likens its best examples and campaigns to works of canonical importance in other fields. Although the preponderance of advertising in our lives feels invasive of our time and space—both public and personal—good advertising often does some good. Since 2010, Reboot has used the language of branding in its “National Day of Unplugging” campaign to encourage a day away from the electrical devices that dictate our lives. Inserting Jewish values into the hyperconnected lifestyles of Americans from the youngest millennial generation to baby boomers, the campaign advances a ten-principle Sabbath manifesto that requires participants to: avoid technology, connect with loved ones, nurture one’s health, get outside, avoid commerce, light candles, drink wine, eat bread, find silence, and give back. Though appropriating Jewish ritual and social ideals in an effort to reconnect Jews to their tradition, and calendared each year to correspond with the Sabbath, the largely nonsectarian values promoted by the National Day of Unplugging appeal to Jews and non-Jews alike. Each year, the campaign is covered by Jewish and non-Jewish media. Unplugging becomes synonymous with rededication to nature, other people, imagination, invention, and self-discovery. The “unplugged” find the time to clarify, reorder, and prioritize their values. Reboot’s National Day of Unplugging redefines the importance of connection—not to our devices, but to the natural world, people, and heritage. By tasting the satisfaction that comes from connection to the physical rather than the immaterial world experienced over the twenty-four hours of Shabbat, Reboot’s campaign attempts to redirect Jews to Judaism.

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Like a mirror, advertising has reflected the priorities and concerns of the Jews in America over the past century. Nowadays, however, more than a mirror, advertising conveys a mosaic of Jewish life. As Reboot’s “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte” study reveals, this mosaic is fragmentary, refractive, and diverse. It is bound by many threads—religious, secular, political, and cultural. A review of “Jew York,” a 2013 multimedia show featuring the work of eightyseven Jewish artists at a gallery in New York, observed that nothing more than their ethnicity united the artists in the exhibit. “Part of the fun,” a critic wrote, “is teasing out the interconnections—that’s what Jewish Geography is all about. Anyway, its random diversity is kind of the point.”5 “Jew York” offers yet one more example of today’s reality of eclectic and blended Jewish identities, which is evident across the cultural spectrum from the fine arts to popular culture. America is changing, and so too are Jews—heterogeneity and pluralism are the order of the day according to the 2013 Pew Research Center survey of nearly 3,500 American Jews. Alongside a rising rate of intermarriage and secularism, approximately 90 percent of respondents still claimed that they were proud to be Jewish. Although the growing detachment from Judaism is legitimate cause for concern, this overwhelming sense of Jewish pride is no small feat. Like Reboot’s report, the Pew study confirmed that there are multiple pathways of practicing Judaism and Jewish values, and multiple avenues of feeling and acting Jewish. To what extent has advertising been responsible? The National Day of Unplugging is one example of advertising acting as an instrument of engagement to heighten the experiential aspect of Judaism and create meaningful opportunities that make Jewish life more compelling. More than a reflective mirror, advertising, marketing, and branding get people talking, asking questions, and making connections. Advertising is a prism through which to view the pathways and perspectives that have shaped the multidimensional American Jewish portrait. So long as there is Jewish life in America, advertising will be there, monitoring, recording, and tightening its grip on this most intriguing market.

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NOTES

Introduction: More than Advertising 1 Sut Jhally, “On Advertising: Sut Jhally v. James Twitchell,” Stay Free, no. 16 (Fall/Winter 1999). http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/16/twitchell.html. See also Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). 2 Clive Dilnot, “The State of Design History, Part I: Mapping the Field,” Design Issues 1, no. 1 (Spring, 1984): 5. 3 Ibid., 6. 4 Clive Dilnot, “The State of Design History, Part II: Problems and Possibilities,” Design Issues, 1/2 (Fall, 1984):14. See also Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (London: Oxford University Press, 1972); and T. J. Clark, “The Conditions of Artistic Creation,” Times Literary Supplement (May 24, 1974): 561–562. 5 Cradle-to-cradle sustainability is a form of intelligent design that considers extending and even upgrading the materials used for products as they are cycled through systems of usability. This approach to sustainability emphasizes effectiveness over efficiency. For more on cradle-to-cradle, see Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (New York: North Point Press, 2002). 6 Dilnot, “State of Design II,” 15. 7 Richard Buchanan, “Human Dignity and Human Rights: Thoughts on the Principles of Human-Centered Design,” Design Issues (MIT) 17, no. 3 (Summer 2001), 35–39. 8 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, trans. H. Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1968). 9 See Adam Curtis, “The Century of the Self: The Engineering of Consent,” British Broadcasting Corporation, RDF Media, 2002. http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc id=-678466363224520614#. 10 Adam Curtis, “The Engineering of Consent,” television mini-series documentary The Century of the Self, part 2, British Broadcasting Corporation, RDF Media, 2002. 11 Frederic Wakeman, The Hucksters (New York: Bantam Books, 1948). 12 Alessandra Stanley, “Smoking Drinking, Cheating, and Selling,” New York Times, July 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/arts/television. 13 Danielle Berrin, “Mad Men: The Jews and Hollywood Anti-Semitism,” Jewish Journal, July 30, 2010, http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/print/mad_men_the_jews_and_ hollywood_anti_semitism _20100730/. See also, Rob Eshman, “Is Don Draper Jewish?” Jewish Journal, October 11, 2007, http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/print/is_don_ draper_jewish_20071012. 14 Ibid. See also Lauren M. E. Goodlad et al., eds., “The Mad Men in the Attic: Seriality \\ 169 //

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and Identity in Modern Babylon,” in Mad Men, Mad World: Sex, Politics, Style, and the 1960s (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013). 15 Stanley, “Smoking, Drinking, Cheating, and Selling.” 16 Goodlad, “The Mad Men in the Attic,” 327. 17 Michael Elkin, “Mad About the Men?” Jewish Exponent, July 24, 2008, http://www .jewishexponent.com/article/. 18 Eshman, “Is Don Draper Jewish?” 3. 19 See Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998), 36–42. 20 Ibid., 47. 21 Ann duCille, “Black Barbie and the Deep Play of Difference,” in The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, ed. Amelia Jones (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). 22 Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks, 139–140. 23 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity 1920–1940 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 35. 24 See, Jack Barbash, “Advertising,” Jewish Virtual Library, 2008, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0001_0_00496.html. 25 See “History of Advertising/ the Creative Revolution,” http://historyofads.the-voice. com/the-creative-revolution. 26 See Pulse Report, “1960 Inventory of Food and Drug Products in New York Homes” (New York: The Pulse Incorporated, 1960). 27 Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks, 141. 28 Ibid., 158. 29 Ibid., 160–162. See also, Norman Kleeblatt, ed., Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Jewish Identities (New York: The Jewish Museum and New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996), 4–5. 30 Charles S. Liebman, The Ambivalent American Jew: Politics, Religion, and Family in American Jewish Life (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), 26. 31 See Pulse Report, 1963–1980. 32 Kleeblatt, Too Jewish? 4–5. 33 See David Biale ed., Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York: Schocken Books, 2002). See also David Biale, Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). 34 Ibid, Not in the Heavens, 1–14. See also Gregory Kaplan, “An Intellectual History of Secularism.” www.jbooks.com/secularculture/G_Kaplan.htm. 35 In “An Intellectual History of Secularism,” Gregory Kaplan recounts how secularism is generally believed to have ensued in the wake of the scientific revolution, which challenged faith-based views with empirical values. See Gregory Kaplan, “An Intellectual History of Secularism,” www.jbooks.com/secularculture/G_Kaplan.htm. See also Biale, Not in the Heavens. 36 Biale, Not in the Heavens. 37 David Siminoff, “JDate: Using the Power of the Internet to Build Community,” Contact: The Journal of Jewish Life Networks/Steinhardt Foundation 8, no. 3 (Spring 2006): 15.

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A Portrait of American Jewish Life 1 Richard Brilliant, Facing the New World: Jewish Portraits in Colonial and Federal America (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1997), 1. 2 Ibid., 1. 3 See Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Coalescing American and Jewish Values,” in Jewish Life and American Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 12–32. 4 Brilliant, Facing the New World, 2. 5 According to Ellen Smith, Jewish first-naming patterns, unlike surnames, provided a more accurate way to identify Jews in colonial America. This is because it was customary for Jews to honor their deceased relatives by naming their children after them. This practice continued into the mid-nineteenth century. See Ellen Smith, “Portraits of a Community: The Image and Experience of Early American Jews,” in Facing the New World, Brilliant, 15. 6 For more on the tradition of aniconism, see Kalman Bland, The Artless Jew: Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the Visual (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). In Kalman’s words, “Jewish aniconism implies that Jews are a People of the Book rather than a People of the Image. Proponents of Jewish aniconism deny the existence of authentic Jewish traditions in painting, sculpture, and architecture. They concede that Jews imitate, in production and reception, the foreign art of their host or neighboring cultures. They claim that Jewish attitudes toward visuality and the visual arts range from indifference to suspicion and hostility” (3). See also Richard I. Cohen, Jewish Icons: Art and Society in Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 1–9. In his introduction to the book, Cohen, referencing Yale historian of religion Erwin R. Goodenough, claimed that just because Jews “were people of the text . . . they did not shy away from the visual.” If our understanding of art is expanded to take into account a larger visual and material culture, including tombstones, synagogue mosaics, and ceremonial artifacts, along with painted portraits, then Jews were active participants in the visual traditions. 7 See http://www.forward.com/about/history/. 8 Ibid. 9 See Marlene Booth and Linda Matchan, The Forward: From Immigrant to Americans, video recording, 1989. Produced by Marlene Booth and Linda Matchan. On March 25, 1911, the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire occurred in New York City, killing 143 primarily Jewish and Italian immigrant garment workers. 10 Ibid. 11 According to the film The Forward: From Immigrant to Americans, Cahan was actually accused of corrupting Yiddish. Many Americanisms reached ordinary women, who began to incorporate words like “kitchen” and “chicken,” in their daily lexicon along with Yiddish words. 12 Clearly this list is not comprehensive, but rather represents an attempt to chronicle an array of Jewish publications that captures the enormous social, cultural, and religious breadth of America’s Jews. In selecting representative examples from among hundreds of options, I decided to limit the possibilities by adopting publications that continued uninterrupted over most of the twentieth century with the exception of the Forward.

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Much has already been written on this mammoth Jewish publication and its vast influence. See for example, Ehud Manor, Forward: The Jewish Daily Forward (Forverts) Newspaper: Immigrants, Socialism, and Jewish Politics in New York, 1890–1917 (Eastbourne, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2009). In fact, the iconic stature of the Forward might skew the consideration and analysis of other Jewish publications. Moreover, much has been written on the Jews of New York. My intention in this chapter is to strike a relationship with Jews outside of New York through a close reading of the ads and articles that appear in some of their media. While I recognize that, alongside this selection of Jewish journals published in English, there exists even more (especially into the early twentieth century) published in Yiddish, because English was the language of Americanizing Jews, I have focused only on journals published in English. 13 Judah Leib Gordon, “Awake My People!” in The Jew in the Modern World, ed. Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 313. 14 Ofer Shiff, “At the Crossroad between Traditionalism and Americanism: NineteenthCentury Philanthropic Attitudes of American Jews toward Palestine,” in Jewish History 9, no. 1 (Spring 1995), 38. 15 Ibid., 46. 16 According to an entry on the American Israelite in the Jewish Encyclopedia, upon extending the circulation of the paper, Isaac Mayer Wise became aware of the fact that many Jews in America could not read English. To prevent these Jews from abandoning Judaism, in 1855, he began the publication of Die Deborah, a paper with similar goals as the American Israelite, except that it was printed in German. See Leo Wise, “The American Israelite,” in jewishencyclopedia.com. 17 Ibid. 18 Congregation B’nai B’rith was established in Los Angeles on July 17, 1862, at a time when there were approximately 200 Jews in the city. Eventually, the temple became Wilshire Boulevard Temple, one of the premiere Reform congregations in the city. For more on the Jews of Los Angeles, see Reva Clar, The Jews of Los Angeles—A Chronology (Los Angeles: Jewish Historical Society of Southern California, 2002). 19 Beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century, reformers in Germany began to modify the traditional liturgy by introducing sermons, mixed seating, choirs, instrumental music, and changes to the dietary laws of Judaism. Many of these reforms found their way into America in the mid-nineteenth century. See Jonathan Woocher, Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986) 5. See also Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development (New York: Dover Publications, 1992). 20 Reva Clar, “Los Angeles Jewry—A Chronology,” in The Jews of Los Angeles: Urban Pioneers (Southern California: Jewish Historical Society, 1981), 5. http://home.earthlink. net/ ~nholdeneditor/jews_of_los_angeles.htm. 21 See Norman L. Kleeblatt, ed., The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 22 See Ross Schneiderman, “Ad Targets Lactose Intolerant Jews,” Jewish Daily Forward, June 13, 2003, http://forward.com/articles/7447/ad-targets-lactose-intolerant-jews.

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The article uses a recent Lactaid ad that appeared in Hadassah and Reform Judaism magazines, responsive to Wieden and Kennedy’s now famous “Got Milk” campaign, to address the predicament of lactose intolerance among upward of 90 percent of Ashkenazic Jews in America. Substituting a dotted line for a milk mustache on the upper lip of a woman, the ad replaces the question “Got Milk?” with “Miss Milk?” 23 See “A Novelty in the Anglo-Jewish Newspaper World,” Daily Jewish Courier, March 23, 1914, http://flps.newberry.org/article/5423972_5_098.1 24 See Chicago Sentinel, February 11, 1911 and March 11, 1911. 25 See “The Jew in the United States,” Chicago Sentinel, February 4, 1911. 26 Meyer A. Novick, “Preservation vs. Intermarriage,” Chicago Sentinel, September 1911. For more on the threat of intermarriage to the stability of the Jewish family facilitated by a more tolerant society in mid-to-late nineteenth century Europe, see Paula E. Hyman, “The Modern Jewish Family: Image and Reality,” in The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory, (New York: Oxford, 1989), 179–193. 27 Mordecai M. Kaplan, “The Reconstruction of Judaism,” in The Jew in the Modern World, ed. Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 396–399. 28 Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 702. 29 Charles Liebman, quoted in Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World, 399. As Liebman explained, the idea of a Jewish peoplehood, though comfortable to second-generation American Jews, was not easy for them to acknowledge publicly, given the religious orientation of America. 30 See Melvin M. Forgen and Harry Schneiderman, “Review of the Year 5695,” in American Jewish Yearbook, July 1, 1934–June 30, 1935, 141–146. 31 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 229–232. 32 Ibid., 288. 33 Ibid., 213. 34 Ibid., 304, 306. 35 See “Texas: LOC spotlights Houston Jewish Herald (1908–1911), http://tracingthetribe .blogspot.com/2010/05/texas-loc-spotlights-houston-jewish-html. 36 Woocher, Sacred Survival, 20. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 For more on the Jewish participation in World War II, see Deborah Dash Moore, GI Jews: How World War Two Changed a Generation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 41 Woocher, Sacred Survival, viii. 42 Jonathan D. Sarna, American Judaism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 307. 43 “The War in Vietnam: New Role of the Military,” Jewish Herald Voice, vol. 60, no. 25, September 9, 1965, 1.

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44 Sarna, American Judaism, 317. 45 Woocher, Sacred Survival, 65. 46 Sarna, American Judaism, 316–317. 47 David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), 200. 48 Ibid., 200–202. 49 Sarna, American Judaism, 317. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid., 307. 52 Ibid., 316. 53 Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, 177. 54 For more on the role of philanthropy in the rehabilitation of American Jewish identities, see my dissertation, “Photography, Philanthropy, and the Politics of American Jewish Identity” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1998). It is also worth mentioning that alternative philanthropies to the towering United Jewish Appeal, such as the New Israel Fund, began surfacing in the seventies. Such organizations should also be seen as an expression of the reawakening that struck American Jews at this time, as well as an expression of dissent with the largely conservative political values of the American Jewish establishment. 55 Throughout the 1970s, the organized American Jewish community was preoccupied with what it perceived as a growing Jewish alienation. In fact, at the 1970 General Assembly in Boston, many sessions were devoted to the enhancement of Jewish identity, including Manheim Shapiro’s address, “How Can Federations Enhance Jewish Identity and Commitment?” In 1971, Irving Blum chaired the Task Force on Jewish Identity, and in his address to the General Assembly in 1971, Blum called for a “comprehensive approach to building greater Jewish identity,” acknowledging the multiple paths and motivations for achieving a multiplicity of Jewish identities. Blum stated “we find ourselves in a transitional stage where we have made Americans of our Jews but now we need to make Jews out of Americans.” See Manheim S. Shapiro, “How Can Federations Enhance Jewish Identity and Commitment?” General Assembly Papers, 1970, and Irving Blum, “Improving the Quality of Jewish Life—Report and Recommendations of the Task Force on Jewish Identity,” General Assembly Papers, 1970. 56 Melvin F. Verbit, “Improving the Quality of Jewish Life—Report and Recommendations of the Task Force on Jewish Identity,” General Assembly Papers, 1970. 57 See David Clayman, “The Law of Return Reconsidered,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, no. 318, July 16, 1995, http://jcpa.org/jl/hit01.htm. 58 See Barry A. Kosmin et al., Highlights of the National Jewish Population Survey (New York: Council of Jewish Federations, 1991). 59 See To Renew and Sanctify: The Report of the North American Commission on Jewish Identity and Continuity (New York: Council of Jewish Federations, 1995), preface I. 60 American Israelite, April 13, 1995, B-28. 61 Shlomo Barer, a correspondent of the Israeli radio, who witnessed part of the unfolding of the Operation Magic Carpet rescue campaign in 1949, even noted: “An Arabian

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Nights flavor was evoked by few random items worked into some of the reports—about some of the Yemenites being ‘hereditary sword-bearers,’ about their having several wives, about their marrying so young that among the new arrivals a girl of twelve was already a mother. The Palestine Post’s editorial, indeed, pointed out that no tale of the Arabian Nights was ‘so romantic and picturesque, so adventurous and exciting as this home-coming of a whole community.’” See Shlomo Barer, The Magic Carpet (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1952), 5.















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The Spaces and Places of Jewish Advertising 1 Jesse Cogan, “What Madison Avenue Knows About the Jews,” The Times of Israel Magazine, January 1975. 2 Susan Chevlowe, “Framing Jewishness: Photography and the Boundaries of Community,” in The Jewish Identity Project: New American Photography (New York: Jewish Museum, 2005), 2. 3 Stephen J. Whitfield, “Fiddling with Sholem Aleichem: A History of Fiddler on the Roof,” in Key Texts in American Jewish Culture, ed. Jack Kugelmass (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 111. 4 Ibid., 116. 5 Joyce Antler, “Yesterday’s Woman, Today’s Moral Guide: Molly Goldberg as Jewish Mother,” in Key Texts in American Jewish Culture, ed. Jack Kugelmass (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 143. 6 I wish to express my gratitude to the late David Koch for providing access to various Jewish journal and trade articles featuring Joseph Jacobs Organization as well as publications by the Joseph Jacobs Organization. 7 Sue Bricker, “Ethnic Marketing Is Still Big Business,” Drug Trade News, June 15, 1970. 8 Although, achieving the highest score on the exam to become an assistant principal, the school board advised Joseph to retake the test the next year, concerned that he was too young to supervise forty-to fifty-year-old teachers. 9 I would like to express my gratitude to Richard Jacobs, who sadly passed away in 2011, for sharing information with me about his father’s early years. For a fascinating and recent publication addressing the history and influence of the Jewish Daily Forward—or Forverts as it was known in Yiddish—on the lives of American Jews, see A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward, ed. Alana Newhouse (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007). 10 See Leonard Sloane, “A Bull’s-Eye in Aiming at Jewish Market,” New York Times, August 17, 1969, Business and Finance section. 11 To this day, kosher goods are thought by some to be superior quality products because they are in compliance with religious imperatives. 12 Richard Jacobs, “The New York Jewish Market: Group of Three Million Make Up Prime Segment in Sales and Profit Picture,” Grocer Graphic, October 18, 1965, 25. 13 I would like to thank Elie Rosenfeld for sharing his knowledge about the early years of the Joseph Jacobs Organization with me. 14 Originally, three separate entities—the Genessee Pure Food Company, C. W. Post, and the Cheek-Neal Corporation—the General Foods Company was formed in 1923.

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15 See http://www.dailyprogress.com/entertainment/hilde-lee-crisco/article_2aef3b3db44e-5b0a-b70d-6e96468e7822.html. 16 See Joan Nathan, “The Crossover Kitchen,” Hadassah Magazine, March 1994, 51. 17 Kenneth W. Goings, Mammy and Uncle Moses: Black Collectibles and American Stereotyping (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), xix. 18 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity 19201940 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 193. 19 Larry Vincent Buster, The Art and History of Black Memorabilia (New York: Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2000) 35. 20 Goings, Mammy and Uncle Moses, xix. 21 Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 193. 22 Jacobs, “The New York Jewish Market.” 23 In a fascinating analysis of the Yiddish language, Paul Buhle has framed its adaptability, commenting upon the easy accommodation of the language from one linguistic climate to another. According to Buhle, this adaptability enabled Yiddish speakers to “translate” their culture into new forms. Advertising and marketing are perfect examples. See Paul Buhle, From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture (London and New York: Verso, 2004), 20. 24 See Jacobs, “The New York Jewish Market.” 25 See Sarah E. Newton, “The Jell-O Syndrome: Investigating Popular Culture/Foodways,” Western Folklore 51, no. 3/4 (July-October 1992). 26 Ibid., 250. 27 Ibid., 252. 28 Ibid., 251. It should be noted that the work of Joseph Jacobs—of Eastern European origin himself—initially appealed to the transitioning Ashkenazic community rather than to Sephardic Jews. More recently, though, the organization has acquired clients like Sabra Hummus. 29 Tales and Legends of Israel (The JELL-O Company, Inc., 1933), 4. 30 In his introduction to From the Lower East Side to Hollywood, Buhle reveals, “By the time the US entered the First World War, when the massive Jewish immigration was about to be cut off substantially, not even a quarter of Greater New York’s Jewry actually lived in the Lower East Side.” He continues that Jews “never outnumbered Italians there, and a large portion were already on their way outward toward the Bronx, Brooklyn, and beyond for a generation occasionally more homogeneously Jewish than the old neighborhood of yore. . . . Nevertheless, the Lower East Side became to an increasing degree the symbolic home of Jewishness, for at least two generations” (From the Lower East Side to Hollywood, 18–19). 31 Advertising, in particular, was the domain of non-Jewish, white, Anglo-Saxons. Indeed, Albert Lasker’s position as president of Lord and Thomas, one of the most renowned advertising agencies in America, was anomalous, given his Jewish background. 32 David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), 180–181. 33 Buhle, From the Lower East Side to Hollywood, 84. 34 Ibid., 85. For more on Jewish entertainment and Yiddish broadcasting, see J. Hoberman

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and Jeffrey Shandler, Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting (Princeton: Princeton University Press; New York: The Jewish Museum, 2003); see also Jeffrey Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) and Ari Y. Kelman’s Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). 35 By 1970, the WEVD station’s Jewish programming lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily. Sue Bricker, “Ethnic Marketing Is Still Big Business,” Drug Trade News, June 15, 1970. 36 I am indebted to Richard Jacobs for informing me about the involvement of the Joseph Jacobs Organization with Jewish radio programming. 37 Telephone conversation on February 1, 2014, with Elie Rosenfeld, current CEO of Joseph Jacobs Advertising. 38 Jacobs, “The New York Jewish Market.” 39 Both Richard Jacobs and David Koch alluded to a phenomenon they coined “the first Jewish ad syndrome.” Essentially, this occurs when major agencies, writing their first Jewish ad, want to throw the whole Jewish sink into the ad, flattening out the punch line. 40 The Lowest Cost To The World’s Richest Market (New York: Joseph Jacobs Organization, 1946), 7–8. 41 Ibid., 5. 42 Neither Richard Jacobs nor David Koch ever shared with me before their passing why Joseph Jacobs encouraged his son to acquire outside experience. One can only speculate that Joseph recognized the value of integrating trends and techniques from the larger advertising world into his own firm, as evidenced by his employment of John Winters. 43 Jacobs, “The New York Jewish Market.” 44 Ibid. 45 For more on the Joseph Jacobs Organization and its use of the Pulse Study, see Cogan, “What Madison Avenue Knows About the Jews,” and James Robison, “Madison Avenue Goes Beyond Lox, Bagels,” Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1976. Its booklet, The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market, also contains various statistics collected from the Pulse Study. 46 Jacobs, “The New York Jewish Market.” 47 Richard Jacobs, “To See the Forest, Concentrate on the Trees,” Media-Scope, October 1969. 48 The firm remained on Madison Avenue for approximately thirty years. 49 Robison, “Madison Avenue Goes Beyond Lox, Bagels.” 50 See Samuel Heilman, “Starting Over: Acculturation and Suburbia, the Jews of the 1950s,” in Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995). 51 Jacobs, To See the Forest, Concentrate on the Trees.” 52 Robison, “Madison Avenue Goes Beyond Lox, Bagels.” 53 See the National Jewish Population Study, Intermarriage: Facts for Planning (New York: Council of Jewish Federations, 1971).

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54 Sloane, “A Bull’s-Eye in Aiming at Jewish Market.” 55 The assertion of Jewish difference and pride will be explored in chapter 5, “You Say You Want a Revolution: The Mainstreaming of Jewish Identity in American Advertising.” 56 Cogan, “What Madison Avenue Knows About the Jews.” 57 Ibid. 58 Stewart Ain, “Many Businesses Enjoying Renaissance of Kosher Food,” Jewish World, February 27–March 5, 1987. 59 See Pulse Reports from 1976 to 1987. 60 Ain, “Many Businesses Enjoying Renaissance of Kosher Food.” 61 As implied earlier, this Jewish renewal came about for a host of reasons, including the assertion of ethnic pride in the 1970s because of an emotional connection to Israel, and also due to new Jewish alternatives, such as the havurah movement. 62 The Joseph Jacobs Organization rented space in the Lincoln Building, the headquarters of the Harry Helmsley real estate empire. I would like to thank David Koch for bringing this to my attention. 63 Conversations with Elie Rosenfeld on June 28, 2013 and July 3, 2013. 64 The company was almost sold in the aftermath of these unfortunate occurrences. 65 The Manischewitz Cook-Off contest continues. Winners receive a $25,000 package, which includes a new kitchen. G.E. supplied the appliances for the first four years of the campaign; currently, Home Depot provides the appliances. 66 E-mail correspondence with David Koch, August 25, 2011. Manischewitz and Maxwell House 1 In their respective projects, ranging from gender and assimilation, to the intersection of women and consumption, Paula Hyman, Barbara Schreier, and Jenna Weissman-Joselit have investigated the adjustments made by women in particular to combine tradition with modernity during this pivotal moment in American Jewish history. See Paula E. Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Roles and Representation of Women (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995); Barbara Schreier, Becoming American Women: Clothing and the Jewish Immigrant Experience, 1880–1920 (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1994); Jenna Weissman-Joselit, The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture 1880–1950 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994). 2 Weissman-Joselit, The Wonders of America, 262. 3 Ibid., 142. 4 Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (New York, Basic Books, 1999), 131. 5 Ibid., 132. 6 Ibid. 7 Andrew R. Heinze, Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 151. 8 In 1921, Gold Medal flour published a cookbook in Yiddish designed to introduce Jewish housewives to new, “American” food combinations and recipes. Jenna WeissmanJoselit describes this cookbook as “nothing less than a key ingredient in Jewish ritual

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practice.” For more on the Gold Medal flour cookbook, see Weissman-Joselit, The Wonders of America, 190. 9 My thanks to Sasha Senderovich for translating the original Yiddish text. 10 See Heinze, Adapting to Abundance, 73–78. Heinze’s research shows that early in the twentieth century, Jewish immigrants were drawn to the charm of Christmas trees. American Jewish participation in Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas centered more upon the related activities of decorating and gift-giving rather than on the religious aspects: “In 1906, Abraham Stem, a member of the New York City Board of Education, noted that most of the kindergartens in Jewish neighborhoods had trees. . . . The charm of the Christmas tree was best reflected in the introduction of trees into some Jewish homes. . . . Addressing the influence of Christmas upon immigrants, a reporter for the Tageblatt claimed at the start of 1899 that it was not necessary to travel uptown to witness the holiday’s effect, because ‘East Broadway and Henry Street showed quite a number of Christmas trees in Jewish houses.’” 11 Ibid., 148. Heinze’s research additionally suggests that luxury products were almost always identified by their English names. 12 Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image,” in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 32–51. 13 Heinze, Adapting to Abundance, 162. 14 Ibid., 85. 15 Ibid. 16 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 157. 17 Ibid., 66. Marchand reveals that advertising trade journals attributed 85 percent of consumer spending to women. 18 Ibid., 66–67. Quoted by Marchand from the newsletters and news bulletins of various advertising agencies in the thirties, including J. Walter Thompson and Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn. 19 Ibid., 71–72. 20 Ibid., 66–67. 21 Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds, 169. 22 Ibid., 133. According to Pendergrast, author of both Uncommon Grounds and For God, Country, and Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola called its beverage “good to the last drop” as early as 1908. 23 M. M. Manring, Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998), 100–103. It is worth noting that copywriter, James Webb Young, was also the copywriter for the Aunt Jemima advertising campaign in the 1920s. For the Maxwell House coffee campaign, Young drew upon his own experience of selling Bibles across the South before becoming a copywriter. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 191. 26 Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds, 192. In his chapter on the impact of the Depression, Pendergrast claims that Maxwell House coffee net profits had dropped from three million dollars before the stock market crash to no real profit just three years later in 1932.

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27 Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 88. 28 Ibid., 88–89. 29 Ibid., 89–94. 30 Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds, 193. 31 Ibid., 194–196. Pendergrast conveys that, “At the height of the firm’s popularity, with Maxwell House Show Boat cresting the waves of the air, Bill Benton resigned. . . . Benton later observed that ‘the Maxwell House coffee program was, to my eternal regret, the stimulus that changed the commercials. . . . It inevitably led to the singing commercial and all the current excesses. . . . I invented things I now apologize for.” 32 Joan Nathan, Jewish Cooking in America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 21–22. 33 Telephone conversation with Richard Jacobs, January 24, 2008. 34 For more on classical typography, see Beatrice Warde, “The Crystal Goblet,” in Graphic Design and Reading, ed. Gunnar Swanson (New York: Allworth Press, 2000). In this canonical modernist essay, Warde emphasizes typography’s functional objective of communication by analogizing “proper” typography to a crystal goblet. The purpose of typography, according to Warde, is to remain quiet and invisible, so that its message may be easily absorbed by the reader. Noisy typography, by comparison, calls attention to itself, thereby derailing typography’s functional goal as a vehicle of transmission. 35 Weissman-Joselit, The Wonders of America, 184. 36 I have encountered various explanations of how Dov Behr assumed the Manischewitz surname. According to Laura Manischewitz Alpern, great-granddaughter of Behr Manischewitz, Dov Behr received his last name upon his arrival to America, while it has also been noted that the Manischewitz surname belonged to a deceased man whose passport Dov Behr appropriated at the time of his passage to America. See Laura Manischewitz Alpern, Manischewitz: The Matzo Family (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 2008). 37 Jacob Horowitz’s production of matzo preceded Manischewitz’s by five years. For a useful historical timeline of kosher food in America, see www.lubicom.com/kosher/ history/. 38 See Shmuel Singer, “The Machine Matzah Controversy,” Jewish Action, Spring 2006. 39 See Alpern, Manischewitz: The Matzo Family, 51. 40 Ibid., 68. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid., 76–84. 43 Ibid, 86. 44 Ibid, 94. 45 Ibid. 46 See Heinze, Adapting to Abundance, 73–78. 47 The depiction of Jewish symbols—the Jewish star, menorah, Torah scroll—remained part of the visual iconography of Manischewitz ads until the 1980s when the company, consistent with more modern design trends, adopted a more minimalist packaging design. 48 In its first “Independent Inventory Study of Brands of Selected Food and Grocery Products in Jewish and Non-Jewish Homes in New York City” completed for the Joseph

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Jacobs Organization in 1944, The Pulse of New York, Inc. described itself in the following way: The Pulse of New York, Inc. is a market research organization founded in 1941 . . . In its research studies, the Pulse employs only the personal interview method. It will accept no projects which are to be done by means of telephone or mail interviews. This attitude stems from two important considerations. One is the problem of sampling because the officers of this company do not believe adequate samples can be obtained by any method other than the personal visit. The second is the psychological factor of rapport. Only the personal interview can insure cooperation or at least make known the degree of cooperation offered by the respondent. . . . The Pulse of New York specializes in studies in specific markets rather than socalled nationwide surveys. 49 Bernard Manischewitz, “America’s Influence on Jewish Cooking,” (speech delivered at Hunter College at the “Jewish Life as Reflected in Jewish Foods” Symposium, March 6, 1956). 50 David Biale, Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 1–2, 5. 51 Manischewitz, “America’s Influence on Jewish Cooking.” 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 See Hasia R. Diner, “A Set Table: Jewish Food and Class in Eastern Europe,” in Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 146–177. 55 Ibid. 56 The reason for abandoning the smaller format haggadah is not clear. 57 For more on the suburbanization of Jewish life, see Samuel Heilman, Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995) Also, see Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998). 58 Murray even proposed Mogen David as a viable alternative to cola and beer, and informed the audience of its multiple uses, including moistening fruitcakes. He also promoted a forty­-two-page Mogen David recipe book. As radio and television commercials endeavored to expand the market for Mogen David and Manischewitz beyond the Jewish segment, there was no mention of either wine as a Jewish product other than the religious iconography present in their labels. Rather, the success of both brands depended on their ability to speak simultaneously to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. For example, the familiar image of a family seated around a holiday table and Hebrew letters reassured Jewish consumers of the authenticity of Mogen David. Non-Jews presumably overlooked the specificity of these signs, including the Jewish star emblazoned on the curtains that opened and closed before the commercial breaks on Dollar a Second, to accept Mogen David as an American wine. 59 See Stephen J. Whitfield, “Declarations of Independence: American Jewish Culture in the Twentieth Century,” in Cultures of the Jews, ed. David Biale (New York: Schocken Books, 2002), 1100.

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60 During the forty-four-year run of the Pulse Survey, the consumption of Maxwell House achieved its zenith in 1987, with 66.7 percent of New York Jews stocking regular Maxwell House coffee on their shelves. 61 See chapter 2 for a discussion of the findings of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey. 62 In 1998, the company was sold again to R.A.B. Holdings, an independent distributor of specialty foods, including ethnic food, such as kosher, Asian, Italian, Irish, Hispanic, Mexican, Greek, and German products. In April 2014, Manischewitz announced that it had been bought by Sankaty Advisors, a division of Bain Capital. 63 Michele Hirsch, “Rice, Beans, and Manischewitz,” New Voices, November 24, 2008, http://newvoices.org/artsculture/rice-beans-and-manischewitz.html. In fact, after American Jews, the second largest customer demographic of Manischewitz wine is African Americans, who enjoy its sweet flavor. 64 See Stuart Elliot, “Manischewitz Wants to Move to a Mainstream Aisle,” New York Times, Media Section, July 7, 2006. 65 See Joseph Berger, “Giving a Haggadah a Makeover,” New York Times, April 9, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/nyregion/09haggadah.html. 66 Ibid. 67 See Jonathan Safran Foer, “Why a Haggadah?” New York Times, April 1, 2014, http:// www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/why-a-haggadah.html. 68 Ibid. See also Steve Lipman, “Good to the Last Dayenu,” Jewish Week, March 22, 2011, http://www.thejewishweek.com/print/16170. You Say You Want a Revolution 1 At twelve years old, Lasker began his own paper in Galveston, Texas, the Galveston Free Press. Following high school, he worked as a reporter for newspapers in New Orleans and Dallas. For more on Albert Lasker, his background as a reporter, and his impact on advertising during the first half of the twentieth century, see Stephen R. Fox, “The Age of Lasker,” in The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 40–77, and John Gunther’s biography, Taken at the Flood: The Story of Albert D. Lasker (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1960). See also, Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz, The Man Who Sold America (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2010) and Phillippe Lorin, 5 Giants of Advertising (New York: Assouline Publishing, 2001), 5–55. 2 See Cruikshank and Schultz, The Man Who Sold America, Introduction and Chapter 1. 3 Lasker’s employment was originally extended because of the need to repay a $500 loan from Ambrose Thomas, which he used to satisfy a gambling debt. 4 Fox, “The Age of Lasker,” 59. 5 Cruikshank and Schultz, The Man Who Sold America, 142. 6 See Gunther, Taken at the Flood, 230–231. Gunther offers another example of Lasker’s strong sense of justice: on December 12, 1938, when President Franklin Roosevelt was considering the appointment of Professor Felix Frankfurter to the Supreme Court, Lasker urged President Roosevelt not to heed the concern of some American Jews re-

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garding the potential anti-Semitic backlash should he appoint a second Jewish Supreme Court justice, but rather to make his decision based upon Frankfurter’s judicial qualifications, irrespective of his Jewishness. 7 Ibid. 8 Quoted in ibid., 61. 9 Lorin, 5 Giants of Advertising, 18. According to Jeffrey Cruikshank and Arthur Schultz, Lasker learned about the “salesmanship in advertising” theory of advertising from the patent medicine copywriter, John E. Kennedy. Lasker, who, prior to his contact with Kennedy, believed that advertising was news, learned from Kennedy that it was more precisely defined by three words, “salesmanship in print.” See Cruikshank and Schultz, The Man Who Sold America, 56. 10 Lorin, 5 Giants of Advertising, 38. 11 Doris Willens, Nobody’s Perfect: Bill Bernbach and the Golden Age of Advertising (Seattle: CreateSpace, 2009), 21–23. 12 See ibid., 87–92. 13 See Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising (Chicago: Advertising Publications, Inc., 1966); Rosser Reeves, Reality in Advertising (New York: Knopf, 1961); and David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man (New York: Vintage Books, 1963). 14 See Fox, The Mirror Makers, 273–274. 15 One example of such practices would be the passage of the Immigration Act in 1924, which set quotas on the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States from particular countries. 16 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 35–36. Unsurprisingly, professional exclusivity extended also to women. For the most part, African Americans worked in the agencies as janitors in the 1920s and 1930s. 17 Ibid., 274. 18 Adam Curtis, “The Century of the Self: The Engineering of Consent,” British Broadcasting Corporation, RDF Media, http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc id=-678466363224520614#. 19 Much the same can be said of midcentury modern graphic design, particularly that emanating from Switzerland, otherwise known as the International Style. With an emphasis on order and rationality, the International Style became synonymous with the use of a grid, advocating for precision, objectivity, and universality. 20 Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 35–50. 21 Ibid., 44–46. 22 Ibid., 46. 23 Mark Tungate, Adland: A Global History of Advertising (London and Philadelphia: Kogan Page, 2007), 49. 24 Bernbach met Ned Doyle at Grey Advertising, shortly after World War II. Ned Doyle was of Irish and German descent. 25 Ohrbach’s department store was originally a client of Grey Advertising. The client encouraged Bernbach to establish his own agency and agreed to pay for their first

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campaigns up front, enabling the newly formed Doyle Dane Bernbach to cover its overhead. See Tungate, Adland: A Global History of Advertising. 26 Fox, The Mirror Makers, 275–276. 27 See the Pulse Report, 1948. The Pulse of New York, Inc. 28 See the Pulse Report, 1946. The Pulse of New York, Inc. 29 See Samuel Heilman, Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 22. 30 See Cal Jillson, Pursuing the American Dream (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 268. 31 Heilman, Portrait of American Jews, 22–25. The notion of a “controlled acculturation,” noble as it was, according to Heilman was challenged by suburban life. This, in part, was due to suburban sprawl; even as Jews established Jewish institutions like community centers and synagogues, residential dispersal made it difficult to support and sustain such institutions. 32 “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Rye Bread Campaign,” entry in Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns/Henry S. Levy & Sons, Inc., http://www.enotes.com/ marketing-campaign/henry-s-levy-sons-inc. 33 See Bob Levenson, Bill Bernbach’s Book: A History of the Advertising That Changed the History of Advertising (New York: Villard Books, 1987). 34 Tungate, Adland: A Global History of Advertising, 52. 35 See Kera Bolonik, “Remembering Phyllis Robinson: The Original Mad Woman,” http:// nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/01/phyllis_robinson_was_the_origi.html. 36 Certainly, for the majority of the twentieth century, men achieved the highest acclaim in the field of advertising, especially as creative and artistic directors. However, as early as the 1920s, women worked as copywriters. 37 Stephen Baker, Advertising Age, November 1, 1965. 38 Bob Garfield, “Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Campaigns http://adage.com/ century/campaigns.html. See also Peter Bart, “Advertising: An Enthusiastic Ad Producer,” New York Times, September 1, 1963, Business and Finance section. For interesting and more contemporary discussions on cause marketing and the potential for advertising as an agent of social change, see Judith Schwartz, “Socially Responsible Advertising: Altruism or Exploitation,” in Citizen Designer, ed. Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne (New York: Allworth Press, 2003), 9–19. See also Naomi Klein, No Logo (New York: Harper Collins, 2000). 39 See Carl Hixon, “The Bernbach Fantasies: Former DDB Chief ’s Poignant Legacy,” Advertising Age, August 11, 1986. 40 Writing about Bernbach’s admiration for Paul Rand, Doris Willens discloses that Rand was the one figure from his pre-DDB days that Bernbach spoke of with pride, claiming that, “Rand did for the advertising artist what Beethoven did for the musician; he actually liberated him.” Nonetheless, Rand grew impatient and resentful toward Bernbach for suggesting that he taught Rand everything he knew about advertising. As Bernbach’s success grew, so too did his ego, such that this superior sensibility was not at all uncommon. In fact, a famous anecdote recounts how, once on an elevator ride, someone casually remarked, “Nice weather,” for which Bernbach took credit and replied, “Thank you.”

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Willens reveals that Bernbach’s closest colleagues contemplated his need to take credit. One wonders whether Bernbach’s ego issues weren’t, in some way, a response to the profound rejection he suffered by his parents. For more on Bernbach’s relationship with Paul Rand and his inflated ego, see Doris Willens, “Past Imperfect,” in Nobody’s Perfect, 37–39. 41 Quoted in Doris Willens, “Bernbach’s Way,” in Nobody’s Perfect, 12. 42 Ibid., 14. 43 Philip B. Meggs, “Two Magazines of the Turbulent ’60s: A ’90s Perspective,” in Graphic Design History, ed. Steven Heller and Georgette Balance (New York: Allworth Press, 2001), 31. 44 Ibid., 32. 45 Ibid., 34. 46 Ibid., 31. 47 Frank, The Conquest of Cool, 54–55. 48 See Frank, “How Do We Break These Conformists of Their Conformity? Creativity Conquers All,” in The Conquest of Cool, 89–103. 49 Ibid. 50 Garfield, “Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Campaigns,” 4. According to Garfield, Bernbach’s creative revolution was not the overturning of fifties-era “motivational” manipulation. It was simply the most agreeable and effective expression of it. 51 See Garfield, “Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Campaigns,” Ad Age, http://adage .com/century/campaigns.html. Garfield names Volkswagen campaign as the top campaign (#1 out of 100). 52 As a minimalist, Bernbach had no interest in creating the descriptive text that followed the headline. Doris Willens writes that he was an “idea man.” Nobody’s Perfect, 15. 53 Frank, The Conquest of Cool, 65. 54 Garfield, “Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Campaigns,” 4. 55 Carol Nathanson-Moog, “The Psychological Power of Ethnic Images in Advertising,” in Ethnic Images in Advertising (Philadelphia: Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, 1984), 19–22. 56 Ibid. 57 One blogger on the Huffington Post credits advertising for its contribution to tolerance and understanding. In this context, he references DDB’s campaign for Levy’s rye bread, claiming that their lack of subtlety helped to create a subtle shift in attitudes toward American Jews. See Bob Jeffrey, “Advertising: It’s Not Just for Selling Stuff,” http://www .huffingtonpost.com/bob-jeffrey/advertising-its-not-just_b_50768.html. 58 Neither Myerson’s or Greenberg’s Jewishness were of importance to their accomplishments. What is of significance, however, is that Myerson did not succumb to the pressure to change her name in order to conceal her Jewishness. Likewise, Hank Greenberg, and later, Sandy Koufax refused to participate in World Series games that fell on the Jewish High Holidays. See Jeffrey Shandler, “American Jewish Popular Culture,” in From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America, ed. Michael W. Grunberger (New York: George Braziller for the Library of Congress, 2004), 202.

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59 See Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews and the New American Scene (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 45. 60 According to Jonathan Sarna, between 1945 and 1965, over 1,000 synagogues and temples were built or rebuilt in America, primarily in the suburbs. See Jonathan Sarna, “Renewal,” in American Judaism: A History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 272–333. 61 David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), 178. 62 Sarna, American Judaism, 277. 63 According to Earl Raab, “The stance of radical campus youth was a special affront to the Jewish community because so many of them were its own children.” See Earl Raab, “Review of the Year: United States and Other Countries,” American Jewish Yearbook, 1970, volume 71 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society), 191–255. 64 Bernard Weintraub, “Arts in America; from Ordinary Faces, Extraordinary Ads,” February 21, 2002, nytimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/arts/arts-in-americafrom-ordinary-faces-extraordinary ads. 65 Ibid. 66 Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, 184. 67 The General Assembly is the governing body of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA)—an outgrowth of the United Jewish Communities—which itself was an outgrowth of the Council of Jewish Federations in 1999. The General Assembly meets annually. Over the years, distinguished scholars, politicians, and Jewish professionals and laypeople have been invited as speakers at the General Assembly meetings, offering their positions on issues and situations that have preoccupied American Jews. 68 Max M. Fisher, “The Role of an American Jewish Leader in Today’s World,” General Assembly Papers 1967, Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, 3–6. 69 Sarna, American Judaism, 307. 70 See William M. Freeman, “News of the Advertising and Marketing Fields,” New York Times, October 9, 1955, F10. The article accounts for various advertising strategies employed by Rockmore, including a recipe contest for sandwiches, in addition to the selection of a “salami queen,” a “frankfurter queen,” and salami-sculptured statuettes awarded to hit Broadway shows. Salami-scented letters were even sent through the mail, although the Post Office complained. 71 Now with the Internet and the age of information, alternative viewpoints are readily accessible. For more on the importance of protest posters, see Steven Heller, “Power to the Paper: An Interview with Carol Wells,” http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/power-tothe-paper-an-interview-with-carol-wells. See also Carol Wells, “Why the Poster in the Internet Age?” in The Graphic Imperative: International Posters of Peace (Boston: Social Justice & the Environment, 2005). 72 Frank, The Conquest of Cool, 6–7. 73 See Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Coalescing American and Jewish Values,” in Jewish Life and American Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 15–32. 74 Jillson, Pursuing the American Dream, 215–225. 75 Gerry Khermouch, “Hot Dog on a Rollout,” Advertising Industry, January 17, 2000.

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76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 “Con Agra Launches Hebrew National Ad Campaign,” Cattlnetwork: The Source for Cattle News, June 5, 2006, http://www.cattlenetwork.com. 79 See Shandler, “American Jewish Popular Culture,” 203. 80 See Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984). 81 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Image-Music-Text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 146. 82 In 1964, three years before he penned “The Death of the Author,” Barthes wrote what has become another classic text, “The Rhetoric of the Image,” wherein he transposes some of these same concerns to reading images. Contemplating how “meaning gets into an image,” Barthes insists upon the relativity of meaning, and the potential of every image to signify in multiple ways. Of special note is that Barthes uses the example of an advertisement inasmuch as he claims that in advertising the meaning is never accidental. See Roland Barthes, “The Rhetoric of the Image,” in Image, Music, Text. 83 Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” 148. 84 Rick Poyner, No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 11.











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Matchmaker, Matchmaker 1 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 221, 231. 2 Unlike traditional arranged marriages, JDate and other online dating services introduce two willing participants. As with an actual matchmaker, wherein a person’s odds of meeting someone are completely tied to the matchmaker’s skills, with an online version, or scientific matchmaking, the matches are only as good as the system. 3 Benjamin Schlesinger, The Jewish Family (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 5–8. 4 Ibid. 5 See Stanley R. Brav, Jewish Family Solidarity: Myth or Fact? (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2007), 3–20. 6 See Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Transformations in the Composition of American Jewish Households,” www.jcpa.org. 7 See, Paula Hyman, “The Modern Jewish Family: Image and Reality,” in The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory, ed. David C. Kraemer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 184. Citing historian Jacob Katz in her article “The Modern Jewish Family: Image and Reality,” Hyman reveals that the freedom of choice to select one’s spouse was a key aspect in the modernization of the Jewish family. 8 The 1964 Broadway musical production of Fiddler on the Roof introduced the institution of the Jewish matchmaker known as Yentle to the American public. The Yiddish word yenta more generally references a meddlesome, gossipy woman. 9 The rulings by various state Supreme Courts since 2008 on marriage between same-sex

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couples, including New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii, and most recently, California, will undoubtedly challenge the traditional heteronormative authority of the Jewish family, particularly on the fringes of traditional Judaism, including the Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements, and those who identify as secular Jews. For more on the changing nature of the Jewish family, see Contact: The Journal of Jewish Life Network/ Steinhardt Foundation 7, no. 3 (Spring 2003). For more on intermarriage between those from non-Jewish faiths, see D. R. Hoge and K. M. Ferry, Empirical Research on Interfaith Marriage in America (Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1981). See also Milton L. Barron, The Blending American: Patterns of Intermarriage (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1972). 10 According to Ruth Pinkenson Feldman, “Judaism has always placed a high value on marriage and family. However, the very high value that the Jewish community gives to marriage may place enormous feelings of insecurity and guilt on those in the community who are single by chance or by choice. This is particularly true for women, since they may not be viewed as favorably as single men, who have an important public role in synagogue life and represent a much smaller percentage of the community than single Jewish women.” See Ruth Pinkenson Feldman, “Stress Points in the Contemporary Jewish Family,” in Crisis and Continuity: The Jewish Family in the 21st Century, ed. Norman Linzer, Irving N. Levitz, and David J. Schnall (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 1995), 29. Also see, Hyman, “The Modern Jewish Family: Image and Reality,” 180. 11 Brav, Jewish Family Solidarity, 3–20. 12 Linzer, Levitz, and Schnall, eds., Crisis and Continuity, x. 13 Ibid., 1–23. 14 See Daniel Gordis, “Ever-Dying or Never-Dying, November 24, 2013, http://danielgordis.org/2013/11/24/ever-dying-or-never-dying/. 15 See Steven M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman, Cultural Events and Jewish Identities: Young Adult Jews in New York (New York: UJA Federation of New York, February 2005), 7. 16 David N. Myers, “The End of Culture,” Jewish Journal, October 3, 2013, http://www. jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/the_end_of_culture_foundation_for_jewish_ culture_closing_down. 17 Ibid. 18 Giovanni Frazzetto, “The Science of Online Dating,” EMBO Reports 11, no. 1 (2010): 25. 19 Ibid. 20 See Elizabeth Wasserman, “Logging On for Love,” The Atlantic, February 2006, http:// www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2006/02/logging-on-for-love/4573/. 21 Lessley Anderson, “OyBay—Company Business and Marketing,” The Industry Standard, September 11, 2000, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mOHWW/is_35_3/ ai_66672510/ 22 Quoted in Emma Green, “Convincing Millennials to ‘Marry a Nice Jewish Boy,” The Atlantic, November 7, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/ convincing-millennials-to-marry-a-nice-jewish-boy/281229/. See also David Siminoff, “JDate: Using the Power of the Internet to Build Community,” Contact: The Journal of Jewish Life Networks/ Steinhardt Foundation 8, no. 3 (Spring 2006): 15. 23 Brad Stone, “Love Online,” Newsweek.com, February 19, 2001, 1–3.

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24 Michael Winerip, “His 50 First Dates (or in Her Case, 3),” New York Times, July, 5, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05generationb. 25 Wasserman, “Logging On for Love.” 26 Michael Aushenker, “JDate Parties Offline,” Jewish Journal, August 24, 2000, http:// www.jewishjournal.com/ singles/article/jdate_parties_offline_20000825/. JDate is owned by Spark (formerly MatchNet). It runs over twenty online matchmaking sites. See Omri Cohen, “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Where Are the Revenues?” Haaretz.com, August, 31, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/matchmaker. 27 Siminoff, “JDate: Using the Power of the Internet to Build Community,” 15. 28 Sharyn Alfonsi and Victoria Thompson, “As Dating Pool Shrinks, Love Matches Grow,” ABC News, June 18, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com. 29 See www.Spark.net. 30 JDate also operates sites out of Israel, England, and France. 31 Siminoff, “JDate: Using the Power of the Internet to Build Community,” 15. 32 Michael Green, “New JDate Billboard Flirts with Hollywood’s Drivers,” Forward.com, April 28, 2006. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Wendy Davis, “JDate Hawks in Times Square,” Online Media Daily, September 1, 2010, http://www.mediapost.com/publications. 36 Geraldine Cohen and Lisa Harris, “Marketing in the Internet Age: What Can We Learn From the Past?” Management Decision 41, no. 9 (2003): 944–956. 37 See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmAR8NkoE90. 38 Ibid., Harris and Cohen. 39 Ibid. 40 JDate’s online publication, JMag, complements its dating website, featuring stories and essays submitted by JDate subscribers for JDate subscribers, including advice on travel, fashion, and dating trends. 41 Interestingly, even JDate Israel retains the same identifiable logo, reminding users of the company’s American origins. 42 See Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “JDate’s Challenge: Everyone Wants In,” Jewish Journal, May 13, 2009. 43 Ibid. 44 Ellen Lupton, “The Birth of the User,” in Looking Closer Five, ed. Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, and Steven Heller (New York: Allworth Press, 2006), 23. 45 Cohen and Harris, “Marketing in the Internet Age,” 951. 46 Lupton, “The Birth of the User,” 25. 47 Ibid., 24. 48 To further support this notion, in February 2009, JDate announced the launch of JDating—an online webisode series—to provide viewers with an entertaining window into the dating ups and downs of eight JDate members. 49 According to Sylvia Barack Fishman, “Jews in many other countries report that their cultures have not been Judaized to the extent of American culture; in some cases, their cultures are openly hostile to Jews and Judaism. The Judaization of the broader culture

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is arguably unique to the United States, and, even if not unique, marks a departure from many other situations that Jews have lived in and are living in today.” Barack Fishman, “Transformations in the Composition of American Jewish Households.” 50 Sylvia Barack Fishman, Jewish Life and American Culture (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), 183. 51 Jeremy Stolow, Orthodox by Design (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 3. 52 Heeb halted its print publication in 2010. 53 Jeffrey Gurock, American Jewish Orthodoxy in Historical Perspective (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 1996) xiv. 54 Barack Fishman, Jewish Life and American Culture, 127. 55 Steve Lipman, “Bottom Line is the Neckline,” JewishWorld Review, March 14, 2001, http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0301/msmodesty.asp. 56 William Lobdell, “Barbie: Leaving Barbie’s Body to the Imagination,” Washington Post, March 16, 2001, http://www.loper.org/george/trends/2001/March/26/html. 57 See Rhonda Lieberman, “Jewish Barbie,” in Too Jewish: Challenging Traditional Identities, ed. Norman L. Kleeblatt (New York: The Jewish Museum and New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996). 58 For more on this, see Riv-Ellen Prell, “Why Jewish Princesses Don’t Sweat,” in Too Jewish: Challenging Traditional Identities, ed. Norman L. Kleeblatt (New York: The Jewish Museum and New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996). 59 Stolow, Orthodox by Design, 3. 60 Sylvia Barack Fishman, The Way Into the Varieties of Jewishness (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2007), 214–215.







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Conclusion 1 AIPAC stands for American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It is the most influential Jewish lobby in America. 2 Roger Bennett, Erin Potts, Rachel Levin, and Stacy Abramson, “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam . . . ,” Jewish Identity and Community in a Time of Unlimited Choices, Reboot. April 2006, http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details. cfm?PublicationID=329. 3 Dmitri Siegel, “Designing Our Own Graves,” in Graphic Design: Now in Production, ed. Andrew Blauvelt and Ellen Lupton (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center and New York: Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, 2011). 4 See Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 142. 5 See Robin Cembalest, “Let My People Show: Welcome to ‘Jew York,’” Art News, http:// www.artnews.com/2013/06/27/jewish-art-show-jew-york/.

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INDEX

The letter f following a page number denotes a figure. A&P grocery stores, 92–93, 93f accommodation, 4, 126, 135; and The Goldbergs, 56; of immigrants to Israel, 40; and JDate, 160; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 66, 80; and Manischewitz, 97 acculturation, 3–4, 126; “acculturation without assimilation,” 126, 184n31; and Chicago Sentinel, 26; and Hebrew National, 141; and Jacobs, Joseph, 58; and kosher certification, 83; and Manischewitz, 109; and Maxwell House coffee, 87–88; and “Yinglish,” 87 Adams, Joey, 67–68, 69f, 154 adaptation, selective, 21 Adenite Jews, 52 The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (television program), 105 Adwords, 153 afikomen (piece of broken matzo), 103 African Americans, 9, 183n16; and Aunt Jemima/Rastus, 60–61; BlackSingles.com, 151; and Manischewitz, 108, 112, 182n63 AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), 163, 190n1 Alexander II, czar, 20 Alka-Seltzer, 122, 130, 133; “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” 133; “Mama mia! That’s a spicy meatball,” 122, 133 Alpern, Laura Manischewitz, 95, 180n36 The Ambivalent American Jew (Liebman), 12 American Airlines, 122 American Dream, 123–124, 141 American Hebrew Congregations, 22 American Home Products, 76 American Israelite (newspaper), 17, 19, 21–23, 29, 33–34, 36, 123, 172n16; anti-Zionist position of, 22, 26; and back-to-school

advertisements, 39; and Crisco advertisement, 32, 32f; electronic form of, 52; and gas water heater advertisement, 31–32, 31f; and General Electric advertisement, 38–39, 38f; and Jewish reawakening, 46– 49, 51–52; “Let There Be Light” motto of, 21; and Manischewitz, 97; and Operation Moses, 46–49, 47f, 48f; and UJA advertisement, 41–42. See also The Israelite Americanization, 34; and Gold Medal flour advertisement, 87; and JELL-O, 62–63; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 62–63, 92; and Manischewitz, 84, 87, 114, 117; and Maxwell House coffee, 84, 87, 92, 117 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish Agency, 51–52; Operation Magic Carpet, 51–52 American Medical Association, 132 Anglo, Protestant, heterosexual mainstream. See mainstream America; white America aniconism, 171n6 anti-Semitism, 7, 42, 135, 146; and Coughlin, Charles, 34, 67; and Dreyfus Affair, 24; and Lasker, Albert, 182n6; and Levy & Sons, 138; and Mad Men (television series), 7–8; and real Jewish “Mad Men,” 10. See also Nazis anti-Zionism, 22, 26 Apollo 17, 110 Apple Computer, 14, 166 Arab Awakening, 159 The Arabian Nights (Holland), 52 Die Arbeter Tsaytung (The Workman’s Paper), 17 armed forces (U.S.), 40 Art Deco, 28

\\ 201 //

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Art Nouveau, 24, 26–27 Art Students League, 125 Ashkenazi Jews, 24, 172n22; and JELL-O, 63; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 63, 176n28 Asian Americans, 136, 137f assimilation, 9, 11–12, 22, 27, 33–34, 50, 123; “acculturation without assimilation,” 126; and Hebrew National, 141–142; and JDate, 148; and JELL-O, 63; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 57, 63, 74–75, 78, 80; and Levy & Sons, 138, 142; and Manische­ witz, 82, 96–97, 178n1; and Maxwell House coffee, 82, 178n1; and melting pot, 58, 61, 74–75, 78, 123; putting brakes on, 57. See also integrationism At Grandmother’s (JELL-O booklet), 61–64 Atlanta (Ga.), 121, 163 “At the Crossroad between Traditionalism and Americanism” (Shiff), 20 Aunt Jemima, 60–61, 179n23 Avant Garde (magazine), 132 Avis, 122, 125, 140; “We’re Number Two,” 122 “Awake My People” (Gordon), 20 Baff, Bruce, 78 Bain Capital, 182n62 Baird’s bread, 39 Barbara Bush (Liebermann artwork), 81 Barbie dolls, 161 Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour (Stern), 161 Barer, Shlomo, 174n61 Bar Mitzvah, 70, 147 Barnum and Bailey circus, 98 Barsimson, Jacob, 77 Barthes, Roland, 87, 142–143, 187n82 baseball, 135, 185n58 bashert (true love or soulmate, sanctioned by God), 155 Bates, Ted, 124 Bayer aspirin, 19, 55 Behr Manischewitz, Dov, 94–96, 180n36 Belding, Don, 121

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Ben Gurion, David, 49 Benjamin, Walter, 5, 145–146 Benny, Jack, 61, 68 Benton, Bill, 91, 180n31 Berlin, Irving, 39 Bernays, Edward, 6 Bernbach, Bill, 3, 6, 10–11, 122–125, 127, 130– 133, 135–136, 183nn24–25, 185n50, 185n52; ego of, 184n40; and Levy & Sons, 122, 127, 130–131, 135–136, 142, 145; and Rand, Paul, 10, 130, 184n40. See also Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) Bernbach, Jacob and Rebecca, 122 Biale, David, 13, 100 The Biblical Picture Gallery (General Baking Company), 64–65, 65f, 66f bicentennial (U.S.), 44–45, 45f, 76–77 Billboard (magazine), 159 billboards, 4, 17; and JDate, 145, 152–154, 161 “The Birth of the User” (Lupton), 156 Black nationalist movement, 135 Black Pride, 126 BlackSingles.com, 151 Blum, Irving, 174n55 B. Manischewitz Company. See Manische­ witz B’nai B’rith Jewish Monthly, 72 B’nai B’rith Messenger, 19, 22–25, 25f, 27–29, 29f, 33, 36; “The Chosen One,” 49; and Colgate-Palmolive advertisement, 39; cover page of, 27–28, 45, 45f, 49–50; and El Al airlines advertisement, 43; and Hellman’s/Best Foods mayonnaise advertisement, 44; and “Malke” (Stein), 49–50; masthead of, 22; and Operation Moses, 49; travel advertisements in, 43; and UJA advertisement, 41–42, 41f Bond Bread, 64–66, 65f, 66f, 74 Bowles, Chet, 91 boycotts, 33 branding, 9, 165–167; and brand loyalty, 156; and Hebrew National, 141; and JDate, 156; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 61, 68, 79–80; and kosher certification, 83;

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and Levy & Sons, 135; and Manischewitz, 81, 98, 117, 181n58; and Maxwell House coffee, 85, 85f, 88, 90–94, 93f, 98, 115, 117; in political campaigns, 165–166; and Sachplakat (Object Poster), 130; and Starbucks, 164–165, 164f Brilliant, Richard, 16 Brim decaffeinated coffee, 109 Brit Millah, 70 Brodkin, Karen, 9 the Bronx, 66, 176n30 Brooklyn, 66, 84, 176n30 Browning, King, & Co., 22 Buchanan, Richard, 5 Buhle, Paul, 176n23, 176n30 burial practices, Jewish, 27 Burnett, Leo, 9 Burns, George, 68 Bush, Barbara, 81 Buster Brown shoes, 39 Cahan, Abraham, 17, 171n11 calendar, Jewish, 28, 33, 84, 166. See also names of Jewish holidays Calvin Klein, 152 candles on Friday night, 78 capitalism, 2, 56 Carbone, Evelyn, 122 Carmel, Alon, 151 Cascarets “candy cathartic,” 24, 25f Catholics: Catholic choirboy, 135–136; Catholic Italian Americans, 122; CatholicSingles, 151; and frum (modest) doll fashions, 161 Cernan, Gene, 4, 110 Chabad/Lubavitch, 159, 164 chai (lucky), 80 challah, 76, 127 chametz (food products containing flour forbidden during Passover), 95 chaplains, Jewish, 40 Chase Manhattan Bank logo, 5 chastity, 147 Cheek, Joel Owsley, 84, 92

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Cheek-Neal Coffee Company, 84, 85f, 91, 175n14 Chermayeff and Geismar design firm, 5 Chevlowe, Susan, 56 Chicago (Ill.), 9, 19, 25–27, 35; and Lasker, Albert, 120–121 Chicago Sentinel, 19, 25–28, 35, 123; cover page of, 27, 35; and Manischewitz, 97; masthead of, 26–27 chicken soup, 99 children, Jewish, 50; and Barbie dolls, 161; child marriages, 147; and diminishing population, 148; and haggadah, 104–105; and Jacobs, Joseph, 62; and JDate, 148, 157, 157f; and JELL-O, 62; in Jewish Herald Voice, 35–36, 37f; “parable of the captivated child,” 30–32, 31f; and youth culture, 186n63 Chomsky, Noam, 2 Christianity, 42, 138; and ChristianMingle .com, 151; Christian musical liturgy, 23, 172n19; and Christmas, 33, 86–87, 86f, 107, 118, 179n10; and Easter, 22–24, 28–29, 29f, 33–34, 39, 97, 179n10 Chun King Chinese food, 68, 69f chuppa (wedding canopy), 147 Chwast, Seymour, 140 cigarettes, 121–122. See also names of cigarette brands Cincinnati (Ohio), 21–22; and General Electric advertisement, 38–39, 38f; Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 51; and Manischewitz, 94–95; and Operation Moses, 46–49, 47f, 48f civil religion, Jewish, 29–30, 35–36, 39–40, 53 Civil Rights Act (1964), 126 civil rights activism, 3, 11, 40–41, 119, 132–133, 136, 141, 159; and Fiddler on the Roof, 57; and Mad Men (television series), 7; and Soviet Jewry, 40–41 coalescence, theory of, 56, 81, 138–142 Cohen, Arthur, 58 Cohen, Geraldine, 153–154, 156 Cohen, Richard I., 171n6

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Cohen, Steven Mitchell, 149 Cold War, 7, 125 Colgate-Palmolive Co., 19, 39, 75 colonial Jews (U.S.), 15–16, 45–46, 45f, 76, 126, 145, 163, 171nn5–6 computer technology, 78–79, 146–147. See also digital technology ConAgra, 139f, 141–142 Cone, Fairfax, 121 Congregation B’nai B’rith, 23, 172n18 connectivity, 146–147, 153–154 Conservative Jews, 30, 144, 149, 187n9 consumers, Jewish, 6–7, 14, 28–29; and Barbie dolls, 161; and Bond Bread, 64–66, 65f; consumption ethic, 30, 90, 124; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 122–123, 128, 136; and Hebrew National, 138; and Israeli products, 38; and JELL-O, 61–64, 63f, 64f; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 55–56, 58–59, 61–64, 72–75, 80; and kosher certification, 83–84; and Lasker, Albert, 11, 123; and Manischewitz, 81–82, 97–102, 97f, 107–109, 112–113, 113f, 178n1; and Maxwell House coffee, 82, 88–92, 94, 98, 102, 178n1; and mayonnaise, 126; and National Day of Unplugging, 166–167; and packaged bread, 125–126; and prosumerism, 165; and Reconstructionism, 30–33. See also Pulse Survey Cooking Light (magazine), 79, 113 copywriting, 21, 120–125; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 122, 124–125, 127–135, 128f; and “first Jewish ad syndrome,” 177n39; and gender distinctions, 184n36; and Hebrew National, 119–120; and JDate, 153; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 70–72, 71f, 75–77, 80, 177n39; and Koch, David, 76–77, 177n39; and Lasker, Albert, 9, 120–123, 125; and Levy & Sons, 119–120, 127–130, 128f, 134; and Maxwell House coffee, 90–91; and Rand, Paul, 130–131; and Robinson, Phyllis, 127–128, 128f; and Webb, Ewing, 90–91; and Winters, John H., 70–72, 71f; and Young, James Webb, 90–91, 179n23

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corporate America, 112, 182n62; and counterculture, 133, 140; and Doyle Dane Bern­ bach, 133. See also names of corporations Coughlin, Charles, 34, 67 Coulter Dry Goods, 28, 29f Council of Jewish Federations, 46, 136, 138, 186n67. See also Jewish Federations of North America, General Assembly; National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) counterculture, 14, 44, 117, 132–134, 140, 142–143, 160. See also youth culture crabs, 33 “cradle-to-cradle” sustainability, 5, 169n5 creative revolution, 3, 6, 73, 119, 160; and Hebrew National, 140, 142; and Levy & Sons, 132–133, 142, 185n50; and postmodernism, 143 Crisco, 32–33, 32f, 59 Customs and Traditions of Israel (Joseph Jacobs Organization), 74 C. W. Post, 175n14 Daily Jewish Courier, 26 The Daily Show (television show), 151 “Daisy Girl” commercial, 133 Dane, Maxwell, 10 Davis, Sammy Jr., 107 The Day (newspaper), 59 DDB. See Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) “The Death of the Author” (Barthes), 142– 143, 187n82 Die Deborah (newspaper), 172n16 Debs, Eugene V., 67 deinstitutionalization, 149 Del Monte, 68 Depression, 30–33, 31f, 32f, 92, 93f, 116, 179n26 Derrida, Jacques, 3 Dershowitz, Alan, 149 desktop publishing, 78–79 Detroit (Mich.): Detroit car manufacturers, 134; Detroit Tigers, 135 Diaspora, Jewish, 30, 57 dietary laws, 11, 172n19; and chametz, 95;

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and coffee beans as legumes, 92; forbidden bread consumption, 33; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 59–60, 78, 92; and kashrut, 33, 76, 83–84, 142, 160; and Manischewitz, 83–84, 95–96, 102; and Maxwell House coffee, 83–84, 92. See also kosher certification difference, 8–12, 119, 144; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 133–135, 138, 144; and Fiddler on the Roof, 57; and Forward, 146; and The Goldbergs, 56–57; and JDate, 152; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 55, 76 digital technology, 146, 151. See also computer technology Dilnot, Clive, 4–5 Diner, Hasia, 101–102 diversity, 12, 52; and Hebrew National, 143; and JDate, 152–153, 159–160; and “Jew York,” 167; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 73, 76, 80; and Levy & Sons, 143; and Mad Men (television series), 7; and Manischewitz, 96, 107–109 divorce, 147 Dollar a Second (television game show), 106, 181n58 Doyle, Ned, 10, 183n24 Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), 10, 119, 122, 125–138, 143–144; and Alka-Seltzer, 122, 130, 133; “anti-advertising” approach of, 133–134; and “Daisy Girl” commercial, 133; and El Al airlines, xviiif, 1–3, 43, 122, 125; and “interrupted idea,” 131; and Levy & Sons, 10–11, 76, 119, 122, 125–131, 128f, 129f, 134–136, 137f, 140, 143, 185n57; and Ohrbach’s, 125, 127, 130, 183n25; and Protas, Judy, 134–135; and Robinson, Phyllis, 127–128, 128f; and Volkswagen, 122, 125, 130–131, 133–134, 140; in-your-face attitude of, 132; and Zieff, Howard, 135– 136, 137f. See also Bernbach, Bill Dreyfus, Alfred, 24 Dubnow, Simon, 29 Duchamp, Marcel, 2–3 duCille, Ann, 9

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Dugan Brothers bakery, 74 Durkheim, Emile, 29 Dylan, Bob, 43, 119 Easter, 22–24, 28–29, 29f, 33–34, 179n10; Easter Parade, 39; and Manischewitz, 97 Eastern European Jews, 2, 17, 25–26, 122–123, 165; and Bernbach, Bill, 122; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 58, 61, 80, 92, 176n28; and Manischewitz, 83, 117; and Maxwell House coffee, 83, 92, 117 Ebony (magazine), 108 economy, American, 6; and Depression, 30–33, 31f, 32f, 92, 93f, 116, 179n26; and Jacobs, Joseph, 65; and Maxwell House coffee, 90–91, 179n26; and stock market crash, 91, 179n26 education, Jewish, 9; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 67, 75; and Maxwell House coffee, 103, 116; in Renew and Sanctify report, 51; secular education, 25 Egypt, 2, 42 eHarmony, 151–152 El Al Israel airlines, 10, 36; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, xviiif, 1–3, 43, 122, 125 Elliott, Stuart, 113 Ellis Island, 17 “End Bad Breath” poster (Chwast), 140 English language, 12; Americanisms, 19, 171n11; and American Israelite, 21, 172n16; and Gold Medal flour advertisement, 87; and Jewish Daily Forward, 17, 19, 87, 171n11; Jewish journals published in, 10, 17, 19, 21; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 72, 115; kosher cookbooks in, 59; and luxury products, 179n11; and Maxwell House coffee, 93–94, 103, 105, 115; and Orthodox Union, 34; and Tales and Legends of Israel (JELL-O Company), 63–64, 63f, 64f; and WEVD radio station, 68; and “Yinglish,” 87 Enlightenment, Jewish, 20, 100, 149 Erwin Wasey Agency, 70, 91 ethical Judaism, 149

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Ethiopian Jews, 46–49, 47f, 48f, 51–52 ethnicity, 12, 35, 42; and discrimination, 9, 42, 123; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 123, 125, 134–136, 143; ethnic marketing, 58–62; and Fiddler on the Roof, 57; and Hebrew National, 144; and JDate, 146, 159–160; and “Jew York,” 167; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 57–62, 74–76, 78, 178n61; and Lasker, Albert, 123, 125; and Levy & Sons, 144; and Manischewitz, 113; and photography, 56 European Jews, 20, 24, 36, 37f, 40, 148 “Ever Dying or Never-Dying” (Gordis), 149–150 “Evree onochee” (”I am a Hebrew”), 23 exceptionality, Jewish, 159–160 exodus, 40–42, 44; and Maxwell House coffee, 116; and Operation Moses (1984), 46–49, 47f, 48f, 52 Exodus (1960 film), 40 Facebook, 146, 161 Facing the New World (Brilliant), 16 Fact (magazine), 132 Facts and Foibles of the Jewish Market (Joseph Jacobs Organization), 76 Father Knows Best (television program), 105 Federal Housing Administration (U.S.), 9 Feldman, Ruth Pinkenson, 188n10 feminism, 3, 19, 115, 132 Fiddler on the Roof (Broadway musical), 57, 80, 150, 159, 187n8 “Fiddling with Sholem Aleichem” (Whitfield), 57 Fisher, Max, 136, 138 Fishman, Sylvia Barack, 141, 148, 160, 189n49 flappers, 85, 85f, 87, 90 flash mobs, 6 Florsheim Shoes, 25 Foley Bros. Department Store, 34 Foote, Emerson H., 121 Forverts. See Jewish Daily Forward Forward. See Jewish Daily Forward

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The Forward: From Immigrant to Americans (film), 171n11 Foucault, Michel, 142–143 Foundation for Jewish Culture, 150 Four Barbras (Kass artwork), 81 Fox, Stephen, 109 France, 142–143, 189n30 Frank, Leo, 121 Frank, Thomas, 109, 140 Frankfurter, Felix, 182n6 Freud, Sigmund, 6 frum (modest) doll fashions, 161 Frumster.com, 155 Gaines Burger, 55 Galveston (Tex.), 120, 182n1; Galveston hurricane (1900), 120 Garcia, Monica, 161 Garfield, Bob, 134, 185n50 gas water heaters, 31–32, 31f gays, 157. See also same-sex marriage gefilte fish, 80, 99, 108 gender, 2, 9, 42, 178n1, 183n16, 184n36; and Brim decaffeinated coffee, 109; and Crisco advertisement, 32–33; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 3, 127–128; and El Al airlines advertisement, 3; and General Electric advertisement, 38–39, 38f; and JDate, 160; and Jewish Daily Forward, 19; and Lucky Strike cigarettes, 121–122; and Mad Men (television series), 7; and Manische­ witz, 82, 95, 112, 113f, 178n1; and Maxwell House coffee, 82, 89–91, 105–106, 105f, 115, 178n1. See also women, Jewish General Baking Company, 64–66, 65f, 66f General Electric, 38–39; and Manischewitz’s “Cook-Off ” contest, 79, 178n65; “Progress Is Our Most Important Product,” 39 General Foods Corporation, 57, 59, 63, 76, 91–92, 109, 175n14 General Mills, 77 Generation Y, 163–165, 164f Genessee Pure Food Company, 175n14 German Jews, 20, 25–26, 123; and Jacobs,

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I NDEX / / 207

Joseph, 61; and Lasker, Albert, 120; and Manischewitz, 96–97 German language, 172n16 gingerbread men cookies, 86–87, 86f Ginzburg, Ralph, 132, 140 globalization, 52, 146 The Goldbergs (television program), 56–57, 61, 80 Gold Dust Washing Powder, 18 Gold Medal flour, 86–88, 86f, 178n8, 179n9 Gold’s horseradish, 52 Goldwater, Barry, 132–133 Goodenough, Erwin R., 171n6 GoodGenes, 151 Good Housekeeping, 91 Gordis, Daniel, 149–150 Gordon, Judah Leib, 20–21 “Got Milk” campaign, 172n22 goyim (non-Jews), 44, 127 Grace, Roy, 136 “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam . . . (Reboot report), 164–165, 164f, 167 graphic design, 5, 103–104, 124, 132; and International Style, 183n19 “Great Society,” 141 Grey Advertising, 10, 125, 127, 183n25 Grey N.Y., 142 Grossinger’s resort, 136 guerrilla marketing, 153 Guess jeans, 152 Gulf Oil, 33 Gurock, Jeffrey, 160 Guthrie, Woody, 43 Ha’am, Ahad, 29 Hadassah Magazine, 72, 77, 77f haggadah: and Maxwell House coffee, 55, 82, 92–94, 93f, 98, 102–105, 110–112, 111f, 114– 117, 180n34, 181n56; and Obama, Barack, 114, 114f, 115; Ten Plagues illustration, 94, 102, 104, 104f halachic controversy, 95 Handler, Ruth, 161

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Hanukkah, 45–46, 45f; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 59, 105–106, 105f; and Manischewitz, 107, 117–118; and Maxwell House coffee, 84, 105–106, 105f Harris, Lisa, 153–154, 156 Hart, Michael, 45–46, 45f haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), 20, 100, 149 havurah (nondenominational, informal Jewish fellowship), 44, 178n61 health benefits, 78, 112–113, 142 Hebrew National, 14, 49, 119, 138–144; and kosher certification, 49, 119, 138–142, 139f; “No Ifs, Ands, or Butts,” 142; “We Answer to a Higher Authority,” 119, 139–142, 139f, 144 Hebrew Union College, 22 Heeb (magazine), 159–160 Heilman, Samuel, 126, 184n31 Heinze, Andrew, 87, 179nn10–11 heksher (stamp of kosher certification), 11, 82–83 Hellman’s/Best Foods mayonnaise, 44, 76 Helmsley, Harry, 178n62 Helms Olympic bread, 33 Hemingway, Ernest, 130 Henry S. Levy & Sons. See Levy & Sons Heston, Charlton, 103 The Hidden Persuaders (Packard), 6 hipster Jews, 4; and Heeb magazine, 159–160; and Maxwell House coffee, 117 Hirschberg, Abraham, 26 Hitler, Adolf, 34–35 Hobler, Atherton, 91 Holland, Rupert, 52 Holocaust, 2, 9, 11–12, 36, 37f, 42, 125 Home Depot, 178n65 home economists, 59, 99, 101 Honoring 1776 and Famous Jews in American History (Maxwell House–sponsored booklet), 76–77 Hopkins, Claude, 122 Horowitz, Jacob, 180n37 hot dogs, 119, 141–142, 144. See also Hebrew National

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housewives, 39; as “balabusta” (exemplary homemaker), 61, 86–87, 86f; and Gold Medal flour, 86–87, 86f, 178n8; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 61–62, 71f, 74, 79; and Manischewitz, 101; and Maxwell House coffee, 88–90, 89f, 105–106, 105f Houston (Tex.), 33, 40, 52 How Jews Became White Folks (Brodkin), 9 The Hucksters (Wakeman), 6 Huffington Post, 185n57 humor, Jewish, 61, 67, 77, 77f, 125, 143–144; and “klitchik,” 125 Hungering for America (Diner), 101–102 Hunter College, 99–101 Hutton, Edward, 91 hygiene products, 38–39, 38f, 121 Hyman, Paula, 178n1, 187n7 identities, Jewish, 2, 14, 30, 136, 142; and coalescence, theory of, 56, 81, 138–142; and frum (modest) doll fashions, 161; and Generation Y, 163–165, 164f; hyphenated identities, 16, 123, 141; and JDate, 145, 160–161; and Jewish reawakening, 42–46, 49–52, 174nn54–55; and “Jew York,” 167; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 56–57, 75; and Manischewitz, 98; and Maxwell House coffee, 82, 98 immigrants, 3, 9, 49, 51, 53, 179n10; Behr, Dov, as, 94; Bernbach, Jacob and Rebecca, as, 122; and Chicago Sentinel, 25–26; and Christmas trees, 87, 179n10; Eastern European Jews as, 17, 25–26, 58, 80, 83, 117, 122–123, 165; and Fiddler on the Roof, 57; and The Goldbergs, 56–57; and Hebrew National, 138; to Israel, 40–43, 41f, 51–52; and Jewish Daily Forward, 17–19, 58; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 59– 60, 66–68, 72, 75, 176n30; Lasker, Morris, as, 120; and Manischewitz, 83, 117; and Maxwell House coffee, 83, 116–117; Pines, Isadore, as, 138; and quotas, 67, 141, 183n15; second-generation, 13, 17–18, 56, 66–68, 72, 116, 138

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Immigration Act (1924), 126, 183n15 Immigration and Nationality Act (1965), 119 The Importance of Today’s Jewish Market (Joseph Jacobs Organization), 76 individualism, 83; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 119, 125, 135, 144; and JDate, 148, 155–156, 160 innovation: and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 133; and JDate, 153–154, 157; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 55–56; and Manische­ witz, 82, 96, 98, 112; and Maxwell House coffee, 82 Inquisition, 16 Instagram, 161 integrationism, 11–12, 20–30, 173n29; and American Israelite, 21–23, 26, 29, 34; and B’nai B’rith Messenger, 22–25, 25f, 27–28; and Chicago Sentinel, 25–28; and Hebrew National, 140; and JDate, 145; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 80; and Levy & Sons, 135, 140; and Manischewitz, 109, 117; and Maxwell House coffee, 117; and Reconstructionism, 30; survivalist/integrationist response, 12, 20 interactivity, 153–154, 156 intermarriage, 27, 50, 75–76, 109, 135, 167, 173n26; and Bernbach, Bill, 122; and JDate, 148, 150–151, 159 Internet, 6, 12–13, 52–53, 68, 145–147, 186n71; and banners/pop-ups, 153; and focus of user, 156–158, 158f; and mass customization, 156, 161, 165. See also JDate Irish Americans, 136 irony, 10, 28; and Barbie dolls, 161; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 125, 133; and JDate, 158, 160; and Jewish hipsters, 117; and Lasker, Albert, 120 irrationality, 6, 124–125, 183n19 isolationism, 60, 147 Israel, 1–2; American Jews’ support of, 11, 35–38, 37f, 40–43, 41f, 50, 75, 136, 138, 141, 178n61; association of Holocaust with, 42; Batsheva Dancers, 43; established as Jewish state (1948), 36, 40; Festival of Music

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I NDEX / / 209

and Drama (Caesarea), 43; immigrants to, 40–43, 51–52; Inbal Dancers, 43; Israel Philharmonic, 43; and JDate, 151, 153–154, 189n30, 189n40; as Jewish melting pot, 43; Knesset, 49; Law of Return (1950), 49; and Operation Moses (1984), 46–49, 47f, 48f, 52; products from, 38, 49, 52; and Reconstructionism, 30; Six Day War (1967), 2, 42–44, 75, 136, 138, 141–142; travel to, 1–2, 36, 43, 51; and Tu B’Av, 154; Yom Kippur War (1973), 44 The Israelite (weekly journal), 20–22. See also American Israelite Ivy League, 123, 151 “J’Accuse” (Zola), 24 Jackson, Andrew, 90; The Hermitage, 90 Jacobs, Joseph, 10–11, 55–72, 79, 146, 175n8, 177n42; and The Biblical Picture Gallery (General Baking Company), 64–66, 65f, 66f; Cheek, Joel, compared to, 84; and “designer label,” 59; heart attack of, 72; and Jewish Daily Forward, 58–59; and Lower East Side, 58–66; and Midtown, 66–75. See also Joseph Jacobs Organization Jacobs, Patricia, 67–68, 69f Jacobs, Richard, 61, 72–73, 75–76, 78–79, 175n9, 177n36, 177n39, 177n42 Jacobs, Ruth, 67–68, 69f, 154 Javits, Jacob, 68 JDate, 13–14, 145–162, 158f; in Israel, 151, 153–154, 189n30, 189n40; and JBabies, 157, 157f; and JDating, 189n48; and JFamilies, 157, 157f; and JMag, 189n40; logo of, 155, 155f, 156, 189n40; and matchmaking, 147–148, 150–151, 187n2, 187n8; mission statement of, 155; organized parties/travel excursions of, 154; and Spark Networks, 151, 189n26; “Split Ad” print campaign, 153–154; success of, 151–155; and survival, Jewish, 148–150; and tradition/transformation continuum, 149–150; “Zip-Up” campaign, 154

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Jefferson, Thomas, 15–16 JELL-O, 61–64, 63f, 64f, 74 Jerusalem, 126 Jewcy.com, 117 Jewish Action (magazine), 52 Jewish Daily Forward (newspaper), 10, 17–19; “Bintel Brief,” 17–18; electronic form of, 52–53; “English Section,” 17, 19; Gallery of Disappearing Men, 18; and Gold Medal flour, 86–87, 86f; “how to” ads in, 58; as intergenerational bridge, 18; and Jacobs, Joseph, 58–59; and Manischewitz, 97, 97f; and Maxwell House coffee, 85, 85f, 88, 89f; and Rokeach Scouring Powder, 18, 18f Jewish Family Services, 13 Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 51 Jewish Federations of North America, General Assembly, 46–49, 47f, 48f, 174n55, 186n67 Jewish Geography, 167 Jewish Herald Voice (newspaper), 35–36, 39; 39th anniversary Passover issue, 35–36, 37f; 56th anniversary Passover issue, 40; electronic form of, 52; Rosh Hashanah edition (1965), 40; and Vietnam War, 40. See also Texas Jewish Herald The Jewish Home Show (television program), 68 Jewish Jackie Series, 81 Jewish Journal (newspaper), 158, 158f Jewish Life (journal), 36, 39–41, 43. See also Orthodox Union “Jewish Life as Reflected in Jewish Foods” (Hunter College symposium), 99–101 The Jewish Market (Joseph Jacobs Organization), 60f Jewish Morning Journal (newspaper), 59 Jewish Museum (New York), 12, 81 Jewish World (newspaper), 78 “Jew York” (2013 multimedia show), 167 Jhally, Sut, 2 jingoism, 123 Joey Adams Show (radio program), 67–68, 69f

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Johnson, Lyndon B., 133, 141 Johnson-Reed Act (1924), 19 Joint Distribution Committee, 13 Jolly Green Giant, 9 Joseph Jacobs Organization, 12, 55–80, 178n64; and Baff, Bruce, 78; and computer technology, 78–79; and ethnic marketing, 57–62, 74–76, 78, 178n61; and Jacobs, Richard, 61, 72–73, 75–76, 78–79, 175n9, 177n36, 177n39, 177n42; and JELL-O, 61–64, 63f, 64f, 74; and Koch, David, 76–77, 79, 175n6, 177n39, 177n42, 178n62; and kosher certification, 55, 59–61, 60f, 73–74, 73f, 77–78, 77f, 92, 146, 175n11; and Lower East Side, 58–66, 176n30; and Madison Avenue, 75–80, 177n42, 178n62; and Manischewitz, 79–80, 110, 112, 113f, 178n65; and market segmentation, 10, 55, 58–60, 63–64, 80, 146; and Maxwell House coffee, 67, 75–77, 88, 92–94, 93f, 102, 105–106, 105f, 110–112, 111f; and Midtown, 66–75; publications of, 70, 71f, 73–74, 73f, 76; and radio, 67– 68, 69f, 154, 177n35; and Rosenfeld, Elie, 78–80, 175n13; and Upper West Side, 79; and Winters, John H., 70–72, 71f, 177n42. See also Jacobs, Joseph; Pulse Survey Journal American (newspaper), 132 journals, Jewish, 10, 19–20, 171n12; electronic forms of, 52–53; and Jacobs, Joseph, 55–56; and Jewish reawakening, 46; and Reconstructionism, 30. See also titles of Jewish journals Judah, Benjamin S., 16 Judaicaheaven.com, 160 Judaism as a Civilization (Kaplan), 30 J. Walter Thompson, 90–91, 133 JWed, 155, 160 Kaplan, Gregory, 170n35 Kaplan, Mordecai, 29–30 kashrut (adherence to dietary restrictions), 33, 76, 83–84, 142, 160 Kass, Deborah, 81

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Katz, Jacob, 187n7 kehillah (community), 83 Kennedy, John E., 183n9 Kennedy, Robert, 42 Kerouac, Jack, 130 Kiddush (blessing over wine), 106; Kiddush cups, 23 King, Martin Luther Jr., 42 Kleeblatt, Norman, 12 Kleenex, 121 Klein, Robert, 142 Koch, David, 76–77, 79, 175n6, 177n39, 177n42, 178n62 Koch, Ed, 68 Koenig, Julian, 134 Kohlberg & Co., 112 Kollek, Teddy, 68 kosher certification, 11; and Bernbach, Bill, 122; and Colgate-Palmolive advertisement, 39; and Crisco, 32–33, 32f; and Gold Dust Washing Powder, 18; health benefits of, 78, 112–113, 142; and Hebrew National, 49, 119, 138–142, 139f; heksher (stamp of kosher certification), 11, 82–83; and The Jewish Market, 60f; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 55, 59–61, 60f, 73–74, 73f, 77–78, 77f, 92, 146, 175n11; and kosher cookbooks, 59; and kosher restaurants, 28; and “K”/“OU” symbols, 55, 59, 146; and Manischewitz, 83, 97, 97f, 99–102, 108, 112–113; and Maxwell House coffee, 49, 59, 82–83, 92–93, 108; and Monfort wine, 49; and Orthodox Union, 34; and Rokeach Scouring Powder, 18, 18f; and travel to Israel, 43; and Whitney’s Yogurt, 77, 77f Kotex, 121 Koufax, Sandy, 185n58 Kraft Food Corporation, 57, 76, 79, 116 Lactaid advertisement, 172n22 lactose intolerance, 24, 25f, 172n22 Ladies’ Home Journal (magazine), 91 lard, 59

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I NDEX / / 211

Lasker, Albert, 9, 11, 120–123, 176n31, 182n1, 182n3, 182n6; and “salesmanship in print,” 121, 183n9. See also Lord & Thomas Lasker, Eduard, 120 Lasker, Morris, 120–121 Lawford, Peter, 107 Law of Return (1950), 49 LDSSingles.com, 151 Leave It to Beaver (television program), 105 Leeser, Isaac, 21 Lender’s bagels, 76 lesbians, 157. See also same-sex marriage Let My People Go (television show), 40 Levi jeans, 160 Levy & Sons, 10–11, 76, 119, 122, 125–131, 134– 136, 143–144, 185n57; “All Right Already . . . tomorrow, I’ll have it for you!,” 128–130, 129f; “Are you buying a bread or a bed?,” 128, 128f; Hebrew National compared to, 138, 140, 142; history of, 126–127; JDate compared to, 145; “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s,” 119, 126, 134–135, 137f, 138, 142, 144 Libby’s, 68 Lieberman, Greg, 151 Lieberman, Rhonda, 81, 161 Liebman, Charles, 12, 173n29 lifestyles, Jewish, 13; and American Israelite, 22; and JELL-O, 63; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 58, 63, 72, 88; and Maxwell House coffee, 88; and Orthodox Union, 34 Linzer, Norman, 149 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 135 Lois, George, 132 Lopez, Aaron, 15 Lopez, Joshua, 15 Lopez, Sarah Rivera, 15 Lord, Daniel M., 120–121 Lord & Thomas, 9, 120–121, 123, 176n31 Los Angeles, 19, 22–23, 29f, 39; B’nai B’rith temple, 23, 172n18; and Generation Y, 163; and JDate, 152, 158, 158f, 160; and Maxwell House coffee, 90; Russian Jews in, 49; Sunset Boulevard, 152; Watts riots,

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119; Wilshire Boulevard Temple, 172n18 Lower East Side, 4, 17; and Christmas, 87; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 58–66, 92, 176n30; and Maxwell House coffee, 92 The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market (Joseph Jacobs Organization), 70, 71f Lubalin, Herb, 132 Lucky Strike cigarettes, 121–122 Lupton, Ellen, 156 Mabley and Carew Co., 22 “The Machine Matzah Controversy” (Singer), 95 Macintosh computers, 14 Macy’s department store, 34 Madison Avenue, 119, 124, 178n62; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 75–80, 177n42; and Mad Men (television series), 6–11; and real Jewish “Mad Men,” 9–11 Mad Men (television series), 6–11, 105, 105f Magritte, René, 3 mainstream America, 8, 11–13, 21, 49, 119, 124–125; and JDate, 145–146, 159–161; and JELL-O, 63; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 63, 67, 73–74, 76, 80; and Manische­ witz, 97, 100, 113; and Maxwell House coffee, 90 Malcolm X, 119 “Malke” (Stein), 49–50 Manischewitz, 4, 11, 14, 28, 35, 81–84, 94–103, 106–109, 112–115, 117–118; and Behr Manischewitz, Dov, 94–96, 180n36; “Cook-Off ” contest, 79–80, 178n65; and health benefits, 112–113; and hipster Jews, 117; history of, 94–96, 112, 180n36, 182n62; JDate compared to, 151; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 79–80, 110, 112, 113f, 178n65; and kosher certification, 83, 97, 97f, 99–102, 108, 112–113; label of, 98, 106, 181n58; logo of, 98, 108–109; and Mad Men (television series), 8; “Man, oh Manischewitz,” 106–107, 110; and Manischewitz, Bernard, 99–101, 112;

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Manischewitz (continued) and Manischewitz, Jacob, 96; and Manischewitz, Meyer, 94, 96–97; Manischewitz American Matzos (Rolston artwork), 81, 109, 117; and matzos, 28, 35, 81–82, 94–99, 97f, 101, 106, 108–109, 112, 151, 180n37; parodies of, 117; “Start Your Ovens!” campaign, 113–114; and Tam Tam crackers, 80, 98; and technology, 95–96, 98–99, 107; and wine, 82, 106–109, 112, 113f, 114–115, 117–118, 181n58, 182n63; “World Famous,” 98 Manischewitz, Bernard, 99–101, 112 Manischewitz, Dov. See Behr Manischewitz, Dov Manischewitz, Hirsch, 96 Manischewitz, Jacob, 94, 96 Manischewitz, Max, 96 Manischewitz, Meyer, 94, 96–97 Manischewitz American Matzos (Rolston artwork), 81, 109, 117 “Manischewitz Wants to Move to a Mainstream Aisle” (Elliott), 113 Marchand, Roland, 30–32, 89–90 “Marketing in the Internet Age” (Harris and Cohen), 153–154, 156 market segmentation, 10, 55, 58–60, 63–64, 80, 117, 146, 156, 161 Marlboro Man, 9 marriage, 147–148; child marriages, 147; and JDate, 145, 147–148, 152, 155, 188n10; and matchmaking, 147–148, 150–151, 187n2, 187n8; and monogamy, 147; non-mixed marriages, 145; same-sex marriage, 148, 157; and transgender couples, 148. See also intermarriage Marxism, 2 mass customization, 156, 161, 165 Match.com, 152 matchmaking, 147–148, 150–151, 187n2, 187n8 MatchNet, 189n26. See also Spark Networks Matisyahu, 159, 164 matzos, 22, 46, 48f, 49, 80; and Horowitz, Jacob, 180n37; and Manischewitz, 28, 35,

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81–82, 94–99, 97f, 101, 103, 106, 108–109, 112, 151, 180n37; Manischewitz American Matzos (Rolston artwork), 81; and Maxwell House coffee, 115; square matzos, 96 Maxwell House coffee, 11, 14, 82–92, 89f, 98, 102–106, 110–117, 182n60; “A Carnival of Southern Hospitality” series, 91; “electraperk” technology, 108; “Famous Jewish American Patriots” campaign, 45–46, 45f; “good to the last drop,” 82, 90, 93, 102, 106, 108; haggadah of, 55, 82, 92–94, 93f, 98, 102–105, 104f, 110–112, 111f, 114–117, 114f, 180n34, 181n56; and hipster Jews, 117; history of, 84–85, 85f; Honoring 1776 and Famous Jews in American History, 76–77; and instant coffee, 102; JDate compared to, 154; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 67, 75–77, 88, 92–94, 93f, 102, 105–106, 105f, 110–112, 111f; and kosher certification, 49, 59, 82–83, 92–93, 108; Maxwell House Show Boat (musical show), 91–92, 154, 180n31; price of, 92–94, 93f, 179n26; and radio, 91–92, 180n31 Maxwell House Hotel (Nashville, Tenn.), 84, 90–91 McCabe, Ed, 139–142 McCann Erickson agency, 139, 153–154 McDonough, William, 5 Meggs, Philip, 132 Meir, Golda, 154 menorah, 23, 43, 45, 45f, 105, 117–118, 180n47 Menorah Journal (magazine), 29 Metzger’s Milk, 34 middle class, 9, 62, 66, 135, 152, 159 Middle East, 135 mikvah (ritual bath), 164 Miss America, 135, 185n58 mitzvot (commandments), 34, 83, 95, 100, 142 mixed marriages. See intermarriage model minority, 9 modernity, 13, 44, 143–144; and Gold Medal flour, 86–87, 86f; and JDate, 147–149, 155, 155f; and JELL-O, 64; and Lasker, Albert,

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I NDEX / / 213

123–124; and Manischewitz, 83, 96–101, 97f, 109–110, 117, 178n1, 180n47; and Maxwell House coffee, 83, 88–89, 94, 106, 115–117, 178n1 Modern Orthodoxy, 149 Mogen David wine, 106, 181n58 The Molly Picon Show (radio program), 67 Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci), 2–3 Monarch Wine Company, 106 Monfort wine, 49 monogamy, 147 Moore, Clement Clarke, 118 Mormons, 151 “The Most Unique Sales Opportunity in the World” (Winters), 70, 71f mothers, Jewish, 30–32, 31f; and Barbie dolls, 161; and diminishing population, 148; in Jewish Herald Voice, 35–36, 37f; in Jewish Life, 39; “Yiddishe Mama,” 61 mothers-in-law, Jewish, 32–33, 32f movie star, cult of, 146 Ms. Modesty website, 161 multiculturalism, 52 Murray, Jan, 106, 181n58 Myers, David N., 150 Myers, Mordecai, 16 Myerson, Bess, 135, 185n58 Nashville (Tenn.): The Hermitage, 90; Maxwell House Hotel, 84, 90–91 Nathanson-Moog, Carol, 134 National Day of Unplugging, 166–167 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), 50, 75, 163–164; and diminishing population, 148–149; and JDate, 148–149; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 75, 109–110, 112 Native Americans, 136, 137f nativism, 60 Nazis, 30, 33, 49; propaganda machine of, 5; and Volkswagen beetle, 122, 134 Neal, John, 84 nebbish (misfit), 2 “Neil Diamond Centerfold: Ladies Contain Yourselves (Heeb magazine), 160

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New Israel Fund, 174n54 “New Jew Review” (Heeb magazine), 159 New York City, 12; Board of Education, 179n10; garment district, 122; and Generation Y, 163; Greenwich Village, 125; and JDate, 145, 152–153, 159–160; Jewish Museum, 12, 81; and “Jew York,” 167; and Levy & Sons, 128–129, 129f, 134, 136; Lower East Side, 4, 17, 58–66, 87, 92, 176n30; Madison Avenue, 6–11, 75–80, 119, 124, 177n42, 178n62; and Manische­ witz, 96–100; and Maxwell House coffee, 84; and Monarch Wine Company, 106; and Pulse Survey, 72, 98, 100–101, 125–126, 136, 180n48, 182n60; subway/bus commuters in, 132; Third Avenue trolley, 58; Times Square, 4, 13, 145, 152–153, 159; Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (1911), 18; Upper West Side, 79 New York Times, 76, 113, 116; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 128, 128f, 132; and Levy & Sons, 128, 128f New York World Telegram, 127, 132 Nike, 146, 160–161 North American Commission on Jewish Identity and Continuity, 50–51; Renew and Sanctify report, 51 nostalgia, 44–46, 45f, 61, 82; and Manische­ witz, 107, 112; and Maxwell House coffee, 110 Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought (Biale), 100 Novick, Meyer A., 27 nuclear weapons, 132–133 Obama, Barack, 114, 114f, 115, 165–166 Object Poster (Sachplakat), 130 Ogilvy, David, 122, 124–125, 129 Ogilvy and Mather agency, 124 Ohrbach’s department store, 10, 125, 127, 130, 183n25 Oneida table silver, 28 online dating service. See JDate Operation Exodus (1989–1995), 51–52

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214 \ \ I NDEX

Operation Magic Carpet (1949), 51–52, 174n61 Operation Moses (1984), 46–49, 47f, 48f, 52 Operation Solomon (1991), 52 orientalism, 52 Orthodox Jewish Life. See Jewish Life Orthodox Jews, 13, 19, 29–30, 34, 40–41; and Bernbach, Bill, 122; and coalescence, theory of, 141; and frum (modest) doll fashions, 161; and Hebrew National, 144; and JDate, 148–149, 160–161; and Jewish reawakening, 43, 49–50; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 61, 78, 80; and Levy & Sons, 127, 144; and Manischewitz, 96, 101; and Maxwell House coffee, 106, 115; Modern Orthodoxy, 149; and “Who is a Jew” controversy, 49 Orthodox Union (journal), 19, 34, 36, 52. See also Jewish Life Osem products, 52 otherness. See difference Packard, Vance, 6 Palestine, 20–21, 35 Palestine Post (newspaper), 174n61 Palmolive, 121 parve cleaning products, 39 Passover, 18, 18f, 22, 27–28, 29f, 34–36, 39–40; and chametz, 95; “The Fifth Cup” Passover campaign, 43; and Jewish reawakening, 43–52; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 59, 74, 92; and “Malke” (Stein), 50; and Manischewitz, 81–82, 95–97, 97f, 101, 106–107; and Maxwell House coffee, 44, 55, 82, 88, 92–94, 93f, 102, 110, 111f, 114–117, 114f; and Operation Moses, 46–49, 47f, 48f; and Revolutionary War (U.S.), 44–46, 45f. See also haggadah; Seder table patent medicines, 24–25, 25f, 120, 183n9 patriotism, American Jewish, 77 Pendergrast, Mark, 91, 179n26, 180n31 peoplehood, Jewish, 30, 82, 173n29 Pepsi, 160

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Perdue, 139; “It Takes a Tough Man to Make a Tender Chicken,” 139 perfumes, 28, 29f persecutions, 9, 33, 35, 40, 147 personal ads, 152 persuasive advertising, 121–122, 124 Pertussin cough syrup, 68, 69f Peter, Paul, and Mary (musical group), 43 Pew Research Center, 149, 163, 167 Philadelphia cream cheese, 76 photography, 16, 22, 36, 39, 49; in American Israelite, 51; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 131, 135–136, 143; and ethnic identity, 56; and JDate, 153, 158, 158f; and Jewish Daily Forward, 19; and Maxwell House coffee haggadah, 115; and Ogilvy, David, 124, 129; and Zieff, Howard, 135–136, 137f Photoshop, 158 Picasso, Pablo, 166 Picon, Molly, 67–68 Pinckowitz, Isadore. See Pines, Isadore Pines, Isadore, 138 Pines, Leonard, 138 pipe organs, 23–24 pluralism, American, 35, 39, 57, 167 popular culture, 4, 166–167; and Generation Y, 163; and Hebrew National, 139; and JDate, 13, 151, 161; and Maxwell House coffee, 103 portraiture, 15–16, 171n6 Post cereals, 68 postcolonialism, 52, 153 posters, 17; “End Bad Breath” poster (Chwast), 140; and Levy & Sons, 135–136, 137f; protest posters, 186n71; and Sach­ plakat (Object Poster), 130 postmodernism, 12, 110, 142–144, 187n82 poststructualism, 142, 156 Postum Cereal Company, 91 pride, Jewish, 2, 120, 167; and Hebrew National, 144; and JDate, 145, 159; and Levy & Sons, 134, 138; and Maxwell House coffee, 46 Proctor & Gamble, 59

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I NDEX / / 215

Prohibition, 106 prosumerism, 165 Protas, Judy, 134–135 Protestants, 16, 28, 159 psychoanalysis, 6 “The Psychological Power of Ethnic Images in Advertising” (Nathanson-Moog), 134 psychology, 6, 124, 132, 151 Pulse Survey, 58, 72–74, 78, 94, 98, 100–101, 110; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 125–126, 136; “Pantry Study,” 72, 98, 100–101, 125–126, 180n48, 182n60 Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 25f, 120 Purim, 59, 74 Quaker Oats Company, 75 Al-Queda, 159 Raab, Earl, 135, 186n63 R.A.B. Food Group, 113, 182n62 Rabin, Yitzhak, 68 race, 2, 9, 42; and Aunt Jemima/Rastus, 60–61, 179n23; and Black militancy, 42, 126, 135; and discrimination, 9, 42, 123, 159; and JDate, 146, 159–160; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 60–61; racial minorities, 60–61, 123; racial prejudices, 121; racial segregation, 9; and skin color, 9 radio, 17; and Benny, Jack, 61; and Coughlin, Charles, 34, 67; and JDate, 153; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 67–68, 69f, 78; and kosher certification, 82; and Manischewitz, 106; and Maxwell House coffee, 91–92, 154, 180n31; WEVD radio station, 67–68, 69f, 177nn35–36 radio, Israeli, 174n61 Rally’s Hamburgers, 139; “Cha-Ching,” 139 Rand, Paul. See Rosenbaum, Peretz Rawidowicz, Simon, 149–150 reawakening, Jewish, 42–53, 174n54 Reboot, 163–167, 164f; “Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam . . . , 164–165, 164f, 167; National Day of Unplugging, 166–167

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Reconstructionism, 30, 144, 149, 187n9 Reed, Jimmy, 31–32, 31f Reeves, Rosser, 122, 124 Reform Jews, 19–21, 23, 27, 172nn18–19; and civil religion, 29–30, 35–36, 39–40; and coalescence, theory of, 141; and Hebrew National, 144; and Jacobs, Joseph, 61; and JDate, 149; and Jewish reawakening, 43, 50; and Levy & Sons, 144; and Manische­ witz, 97; and Maxwell House coffee, 106; and musical liturgy, 23, 172n19; and same-sex marriage, 187n9 Reform Judaism (magazine), 72 refugees, Jewish, 36 reggae, 159, 164 Reuters, 153 Revolutionary War (U.S.), 44–45, 76–77; bicentennial of, 44–45, 45f, 76–77 “The Rhetoric of the Image” (Barthes), 187n82 Richard, Cyril, 107 rituals, Jewish, 13–14, 20, 30, 34–35, 126; and Gold Medal flour, 178n8; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 78; and Manische­ witz, 83–84, 94–95, 98–100, 102, 107, 112, 113f, 114; and Maxwell House coffee, 83– 84, 88, 94, 115–116; and National Day of Unplugging, 166–167. See also haggadah; kosher certification Rivers, Joan, 151 R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, 76, 79 Robinson, Phyllis, 127–128, 128f Rockmore Company, Inc., 138, 186n70 Rockwell, Norman, 87 Rokeach Scouring Powder, 18, 18f “The Role of an American Jewish Leader in Today’s World” (Fisher), 136, 138 Rolston, Adam, 81, 109, 117 Romney, Mitt, 165–166 Roosevelt, Franklin, 35, 182n6 Roosevelt, Theodore, 90 Rose, Ernestine L., 77 Rosenbaum, Peretz, 10, 130, 184n40 Rosenfeld, Elie, 78–80, 175n13

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216 \ \ I NDEX

Rosh Hashanah, 33–34; and Jacobs, Joseph, 59; and Jewish Herald Voice, 40 Rubin, Whitey, 126–127 Russian Jews, 20, 49, 51; and National Farm School (Philadelphia, Pa.), 120; and Operation Exodus, 51 The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966 film), 49 Ruth Jacobs Jewish Home (radio program), 67–68, 69f rye bread, 119, 127, 134, 136. See also Levy & Sons Sabbath, 28, 29f, 147, 166 sabra (native-born Israeli), 2 Sabra Hummus, 176n28 Sacred Survival (Woocher), 34–35 Safran Foer, Jonathan, 116 “salesmanship in print,” 121, 129–130, 183n9 same-sex marriage, 148, 157, 187n9 Sanka coffee, 68 Santa Fe Railroad, 22 Sarajevo Jews, 51 Sarna, Jonathan, 41, 115, 135, 186n60 Saturday Evening Post (magazine), 87–88, 89f, 123 Saturday Night Live (television show), 151 Scali, McCabe, Sloves, Inc., 119, 138–139 Schindler, Rabbi, 68 Schlesinger, Benjamin, 147 Schreier, Barbara, 178n1 Schultz, Arthur, 183n9 scientific advertising, 122, 124–125, 130, 133; and Bernbach, Bill, 130, 133; and JDate, 151, 187n2 Sears, Roebuck, & Company, 25 Second Commandment, 16 secularism, 11–13, 44, 50, 167, 170n35; and American Israelite, 21, 29; and B’nai B’rith Messenger, 29; and Chicago Sentinel, 27, 29; and coalescence, theory of, 141; and German Jews, 25; and Gold Medal flour, 88; and Hebrew National, 144; and JDate, 148, 151, 159, 161; and Jewish Daily

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Forward, 17; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 77; and Levy & Sons, 144; and Manischewitz, 82, 84, 95–96, 98–100, 113; and Maxwell House coffee, 82, 84, 88, 103; and same-sex marriage, 187n9; secular/religious synergy, 77 Seder table, 34; and afikomen, 103; and Manischewitz, 107, 112; and Maxwell House coffee, 55, 82, 94, 103–104, 110–112, 111f, 114–117, 114f; White House Seder, 114–115, 114f Seinfeld (television program), 116, 159 Sephardic Jews, 176n28 Sex and the City (television show), 151 sexuality: and Heeb magazine, 160; and JDate, 159–160; and Mad Men (television series), 7; sexual revolution, 133, 152, 160 Shabbat, 106, 112, 160–161, 166 “Shabbat: Just Do It” t-shirts/bumper stickers, 160–161 Shandler, Jeffrey, 142 Shapira, Joe, 151 Shapiro, Manheim, 174n55 Sheeler, Charles, 166 Shevuoth, 59, 106 Shiff, Ofer, 20 shiksa (non-Jewish woman), 161 shochet (ritual slaughterer), 94 Show Boat (Broadway musical), 91–92, 154, 180n31 shtetl (ghetto) life, 32 shul (synagogue), 28 Shulchan Aruch (code of law), 147 Shuster, George N., 99 SilverSingles.com, 151 Sinai, Mount, 100, 103 Singer, Isaac, 94–95 Singer, Shmuel, 95 Singer sewing machine, 94–95 Six Day War (1967), 2, 42–44, 75, 136, 138, 141–142 Skulnick, Menasche, 67–68 Smith, Anna Nicole, 152 Smith, Ellen, 171n5

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I NDEX / / 217

smoking, 7, 76, 79, 121–122 socialism, 2, 17, 67 social justice, 11, 35, 41, 121 social status, 123; and Manischewitz, 106–107; and Maxwell House coffee, 84, 88–92, 89f Southern Pacific railcars, 23 Southwest Council of Federations and Welfare Funds (Fort Worth), 36 Soviet Jewry, 40–41 Spark Networks, 151, 189n26 “Split Ad” print campaign, 153–154 Spratt’s patent for self-sealing can, 21 star, Jewish, 23; and Colgate-Palmolive advertisement, 39; and JDate, 155, 155f; and Manischewitz, 97–98, 106, 180n47; and Maxwell House coffee, 102–103; and Mogen David wine, 181n58; Star of David, 26–27, 97, 106, 155 Star, Leo, 106 Starbucks, 164–165, 164f “The State of Design History” (Dilnot), 4–5 Statue of Liberty, 35 Stein, Julia, 49–50 stereotypes: Aunt Jemima/Rastus, 60–61, 179n23; and Barbie dolls, 161; and Crisco advertisement, 32–33; and El Al airlines advertisement, 3; and Levy & Sons, 134, 137f, 143; and Manischewitz’s “Cook-Off ” contest, 79; and Maxwell House coffee, 89–90; and people of color, 109 Stern, Abraham, 179n10 Stern, Howard, 151 Stern, Susan, 161 Stoffer, Edith, 99, 101 Stolow, Jeremy, 159 Streisand, Barbra, 81 Streits, 14 Stuart, Gilbert, 15 suburbanization, 3–4, 56–57, 67, 75, 105, 135, 184n31, 186n60 Super Bowl halftime, 14 Supreme Court (U.S.), 182n6 survival, Jewish, 29–30, 51; and JDate, 138,

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148–150; survivalist/integrationist response, 12, 20 Switzerland, 183n19 synagogues, 35, 135, 184n31, 186n60 Syria, 2, 42 Syrup of Figs, 24, 25f Szyk, Arthur, 74 Tageblatt (newspaper), 179n10 Tales and Legends of Israel (JELL-O Company), 63–64, 63f, 64f Talmud, 70; and JELL-O, 63f, 64 Tam Tam crackers, 80, 98 Task Force on Jewish Identity, 46 tattoos, 160 Taubin, Bill, 135 technology, 6; and Benjamin, Walter, 5, 145–146; computer technology, 78–79, 146–147; digital technology, 146, 151; and JDate, 145–147, 151–152; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 78–79; and Manischewitz, 83, 95–96, 98–99, 107–108; and Maxwell House coffee, 83, 89, 91, 98, 102, 108; photogravure/halftone technology, 22; printing technology, 21–22; and radio, 91; videotape technology, 152 Ted Bates agency, 124 Tel Aviv, 154 television, 17, 73, 78; and Alka-Seltzer, 122, 133; and “Daisy Girl” commercial, 133; and Hebrew National, 139–142, 139f; and JDate, 151–154; and kosher certification, 82, 139–142, 139f; and Manischewitz, 106–108, 112; and Maxwell House coffee, 108; and Mogen David wine, 106; and self-reflexive ads, 122, 133; and Vietnam War, 140. See also titles of television programs The Ten Commandments (1956 film), 103 Texaco Motor Oil, 33 Texas, 33–36, 84 Texas Jewish Herald (newspaper), 19, 33–36; 39th Anniversary–Passover Edition, 35–36, 37f. See also Jewish Herald Voice

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218 \ \ I NDEX

“This Land Is Your Land” (song), 43 Thomas, Ambrose, 121, 182n3 tikkun olam (repair of world), 13, 50, 136 Times Square, 4, 13, 145, 152–153, 159 Tony the Tiger, 9 Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities (Jewish Museum exhibition), 12, 81 Torah, 126; Torah scroll, 180n47 traditional Jews, 4, 13–14, 20–21, 28, 39–40, 122, 126, 135; and Bernbach, Bill, 122; Eastern European Jews as, 25–26; and Fiddler on the Roof, 57; and The Goldbergs, 57; and Gold Medal flour, 86–87, 86f; and Hebrew National, 141; and JDate, 147–152, 154–155, 155f, 157, 157f, 159–161; and Jewish reawakening, 42–53; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 61, 64–66, 66f, 74, 78; and Manischewitz, 82–83, 95–101, 108–110, 112, 117, 178n1; and Maxwell House coffee, 82–83, 88, 93–94, 98, 102–106, 108, 110–112, 111f, 115–117, 178n1; and National Day of Unplugging, 166–167; and Orthodox Union, 34; and same-sex marriage, 187n9; and tradition/transformation continuum, 149–150 transgender couples, 148 tref (forbidden foods), 33 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (1911), 18 Tu B’Av, 154 Tumblr, 146 Tupperware, 100 “Twas the Night Before Christmas” (Moore), 118 Twitchell, James, 109 Twitter, 146, 161 tznius (humility), 83 Uncle Sam, 139–142, 139f, 144 Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (Pendergrast), 91, 179n26 Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 68

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Union of Orthodox Congregations of America, 34, 55 United Jewish Appeal (UJA), 36, 40–44, 41f, 136, 138, 174n54; “The Fifth Cup” Passover campaign, 43–44; and Operation Moses, 46–49, 47f, 48f; “We Are One” slogan, 43–44 United Jewish Communities, 186n67 United Nations, 36 United Welfare Fund, 33 Upper West Side, 79 upward mobility, 3, 9, 27–28; and Jacobs, Joseph, 62; and JELL-O, 62; and Manische­ witz, 107 Uris, Leon, 40 The Vanishing American Jew (Dershowitz), 149 Verbit, Mervin, 46 Vietnam War, 3, 40, 42, 119, 142; and antiwar protests, 132–133, 135–136, 140; bombing of Hanoi, 140 Vladeck, B. Charney, 58 Volkswagen, 122, 125, 130–131, 133–134, 140; “Think Small,” 122, 131, 133–134 Wakeman, Frederick, 6 Warhol, Andy, 81, 130 Washington, George, 15–16, 45–46, 45f Washington Post (newspaper), 72 Washington Times Herald (newspaper), 72 Watson, John B., 90 Webb, Ewing, 90–91 Weiner, Matthew, 7–8 Weintraub Agency, 10, 130, 153 Weissman-Joselit, Jenna, 83–84, 178n1, 178n8 Wells, Rich, Greene agency, 133 WEVD radio station, 67–68, 69f, 177nn35–36 “What Every Manufacturer Should Know About Kosher” (Joseph Jacobs Organization), 73–74, 73f “What Is an Author?” (Foucault), 142–143 “What Madison Avenue Knows About the Jews” (Jacobs), 61

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“What You Should Know About Kosher” (Joseph Jacobs Organization), 74 white America, 8–9, 11–12; and Aunt Jemima/ Rastus, 60–61; and JDate, 159; and Lasker, Albert, 9, 11, 176n31; and WASPs, 124–125 Whitfield, Stephen, 57, 109 Whitney’s Yogurt, 77, 77f “Who is a Jew” controversy, 49 Who’s Who in Advertising, 9–10 “Why a Haggadah?” (Safran Foer), 116 Willens, Doris, 184n40, 185n52 Willis, Paul, 70 wine: and Manischewitz, 82, 106–109, 112–115, 113f, 117–118, 181n58, 182n63; and Mogen David, 106, 181n58 Winfrey, Oprah, 154 Winston cigarettes, 68 Winters, John H., 70–72, 71f, 177n42 Winthrop, John, 126 Wise, Isaac Mayer, 20–21, 26, 42, 172n16 Wise, Leo, 21 Wish-Bone Italian salad dressing, 39 women, Jewish, 90; in colonial mercantile society, 15–16; as deserted wives, 18; and diminishing population, 148; and Gold Medal flour, 86–88, 86f; and JDate, 148, 154, 188n10; and kosher certification, 83–84; and Maxwell House coffee, 89–91, 89f; as mothers, 30–32, 31f, 35–36, 37f, 39, 148; and women’s journals, 72; “Yiddishe Mama,” 61. See also housewives Wonder Bread, 124 The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture (1880–1950) (Weissman-Joselit), 83–84, 178n1, 178n8 Woocher, Jonathan, 34–35 “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (Benjamin), 5, 145–146 world peace, 40, 136 World War I, 176n30 World War I, post, 33 World War II, 2, 5, 34–36, 37f; and war bonds, 35

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World War II, post, 7, 9, 42–43, 122, 124–126, 135; and Doyle Dane Bernbach, 125–126, 183n24; and Jacobs, Joseph, 59, 67–68; and Jacobs, Richard, 72; and Jewish Daily Forward, 19; and Jewish reawakening, 42–43; and Lasker, Albert, 122; and scientific advertising, 122, 124–125, 130, 133 xenophobia, 123 yarmulkes (skullcaps worn by men), 16, 45, 45f Yemenite Jews, 43, 51–52, 174n61 yenta (matchmaker), 148, 150, 187n8 “yes men,” 6 Yiddish language, 4, 12; and The Goldbergs, 57; and Gold Medal flour, 86–87, 178n8, 179n9; and At Grandmother’s (JELL-O booklet), 61–64; Jewish Daily Forward published in, 17, 19, 58, 85–87, 97, 171n11; and Joseph Jacobs Organization, 57, 59–64, 66–68, 69f, 72, 115, 176n23; kosher cookbooks in, 59, 178n8; and Maxwell House coffee, 85, 85f, 93–94, 103, 115; and WEVD radio station, 67–68, 69f, 177nn35–36; Yiddishisms, 10–11, 61; and “Yinglish,” 87 Yiddish literature, 18 Yiddish theater, 67 Yom Kippur, 23 Yom Kippur War (1973), 44 Young, James Webb, 90–91, 179n23 youth culture, 119, 125, 131–133, 160–161, 186n63. See also counterculture YouTube, 146 Yuban coffee, 90 Zieff, Howard, 135–136, 137f Zionism, 26, 36, 149 Zionist Organization of America, 40 “Zip-Up” campaign, 154 Zola, Émile, 24

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kerri Steinberg holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a professor at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, where she teaches courses in art history and visual culture, political graphics, and the history of the communication arts. She has published various reviews and articles on topics ranging from “Frum Fashion” to photography, philanthropy, and the politics of American Jewish identity. Steinberg additionally maintains an active role in the community, where she has served on boards such as the Foundation for Jewish Culture and UCLA’s Center for Jewish Studies. She currently sits on the board of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics. Steinberg’s research merges her background in visual culture and art and design history with the Jewish experience in America. She has been an invited speaker at symposia and conferences on topics ranging from graphic design education to the branding and packaging of modern American Jewish identity. From fashion design through advertising, her work assigns prominence to the role of the visual in reinforcing and producing American Jewish identities, moving issues of visual representation from the sidelines to the center.

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