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Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the Culture of Secular communities of Jew ish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews, or even those of religious Jews working in cultural areas not generally considered to be connected to Religion . The word ''secular'' in secular Jewish culture, therefore, refers ''not'' to the type of Jew but rather to the type of culture. For example, religiously observant Orthodox Jews who write literature and music or produce films with non-religious themes are participating in secular Jewish culture, even if they are not secular themselves. However, the Jewish People is an ethnic and sociological rather than a religious grouping while, religiously, Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief so that it has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life". This makes it difficult to draw a clear distinction between the cultural production of members of the Jewish people, and culture that is specifically Jewish. Furthermore, not all individuals or all cultural phenomena can be easily classified as either "secular" or "religious", a distinction native to European Enlightenment thinking and foreign to most of the history of the Jews outside Europe. In many times and places, such as in the ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after the Enlightenment , and in the contemporary United States and Israel , cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with others around them, and others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to religion itself. ORIGINS OF SECULAR JEWISH CULTURE For at least 2,000 years, there has not been a unity of Jewish culture. Jews during this period were always geographically dispersed (see Jewish Diaspora ), so that by the 19th century the Ashkenazi Jews were mainly in Europe, especially Eastern Europe ; the Sephardi Jews were largely spread among various communities in North Africa, Turkey, and various smaller communities in a diverse range of other locations; Mizrahi Jews were primarily spread around the Arab World ; and other populations of Jews were scattered in such places as Ethiopia the Caucasus , and India . (See Jewish Ethnic Divisions .) Although there was a high degree of communication and traffic between these communities — many Sephardic exiles blended into the Central European Ashkenazi community following the Spanish Inquisition ; many Ashkenazim migrated to the Middle East, giving rise to the characteristic Syrian-Jewish family name "Ashkenazi"; Iraqi-Jewish traders formed a distinct Jewish community in India; and so forth — many of these populations were cut off to some degree from the surrounding cultures by Ghetto ization, by Muslim laws of '' Dhimma '', and other circumstances. By 1931, shortly before the Holocaust , 92% of the world's Jewish population was Ashkenazi in origin, including the vast majority of European and of English-speaking Jews. Moreover, secularism as a concept was largely a European idea, and a series of movements in Europe militated for a new, heretofore unheard-of concept called "secular Judaism". For these reasons, much of what is thought of by English-speakers and, to a lesser extent, by non-English-speaking Europeans as "secular Jewish culture" is, in essence, the Jewish culture of Central and Eastern Europe, and its subsequent development in North America . Medieval Jewish communities in Eastern Europe continued to display distinct cultural traits over the centuries. Despite the universalist leanings of the Enlightenment (and its echo within Judaism in the Haskalah movement), many Yiddish -speaking Jews in Eastern Europe continued to see themselves as forming a distinct national group — ''" 'am yehudi",'' from the Biblical Hebrew — but, adapting this idea to European Enlightenment values, they assimilated the concept as that of an ethnic group whose identity did not depend on religion, which under Enlightenment thinking fell under a separate category. Constanin Măciucă writes of "a differentiated but not isolated Jewish spirit" permeating the culture of Yiddish-speaking Jews. This was only intensified as the rise of Romanticism amplified the sense of National Identity across Europe generally. Thus, for example, ''Bund'' members — that is, members of the General Jewish Labor Union in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — were generally non-religious, and one of the historical leaders of the ''Bund'' was the child of converts to Christianity , though not a practising or believing Christian himself. The Haskalah combined with the Jewish Emancipation movement under way in Central and Western Europe to create an opportunity for Jews to enter secular society. At the same time, Pogrom s in Eastern Europe provoked a surge of migration, in large part to the United States , where some 2 million Jewish immigrants resettled between 1880 and 1920. During the 1940s , the Holocaust uprooted and destroyed most of the European Jewish population. This, in combination with the Creation Of The State Of Israel and the consequent Jewish Exodus From Arab Lands , resulted in a further geographic shift. Defining secular culture among those who practice traditional Judaism is difficult, because the entire culture is, by definition, entwined with religious traditions: the idea of separate ethnic and religious identity is foreign to the Hebrew tradition of an ''" 'am yisrael"''. (This is particularly true for Orthodox Judaism .) Gary Tobin , head of the Institute For Jewish And Community Research , said of traditional Jewish culture: The dichotomy between religion and culture doesn’t really exist. Every religious attribute is filled with culture; every cultural act filled with religiosity. Synagogue s themselves are great centers of Jewish culture. After all, what is life really about? Food, relationships, enrichment hellip; So is Jewish life. So many of our traditions inherently contain aspects of culture. Look at the Passover Seder — it’s essentially great theater. Jewish education and religiosity bereft of culture is not as interesting. The Emergence of a Jewish Cultural Identity , undated (2002 or later) on MyJewishLearning.com, reprinted from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. Accessed 11 February 2006. Yaakov Malkin , Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College For Judaism As Culture {Link without Title} in Jerusalem, writes: Today very many Secular Jews take part in Jewish cultural activities, such as celebrating Jewish holidays as historical and nature festivals, imbued with new content and form, or marking life-cycle events such as birth, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, and mourning in a secular fashion. They come together to study topics pertaining to Jewish culture and its relation to other cultures, in ''havurot,'' cultural associations, and secular synagogues, and they participate in public and political action co-ordinated by secular Jewish movements, such as the former movement to free Soviet Jews, and movements to combat pogroms, discrimination, and religious coercion. Jewish secular Humanistic education inculcates universal moral values through classic Jewish and world literature and through organizations for social change that aspire to ideals of justice and charity.Malkin, Y. "Humanistic and secular Judaisms." ''Modern Judaism An Oxford Guide'', p. 107. Today, in North America, the secular and cultural Jewish movements are divided into three umbrella organizations: the Society For Humanistic Judaism (SHJ), the Congress Of Secular Jewish Organizations (CSJO), and Workmen's Circle . Languages See main article Jewish Languages Literary and theatrical expressions of secular Jewish culture may be in specifically Jewish languages such as Hebrew , Yiddish or Ladino , or it may be in the language of the surrounding cultures, such as English or German . Secular literature and theater in Yiddish largely began in the 19th century and was in decline by the middle of the 20th century. The revival of Hebrew beyond its use in the liturgy is largely an early 20th-century phenomenon, and is closely associated with Zionism . Generally, whether a Jewish community will speak a Jewish or non-Jewish language as its main vehicle of Discourse is dependent on how isolated or assimilated that community is. For example, the Jews in the Shtetls of Poland and the Lower East Side of New York (during the early 20th Century ) spoke Yiddish at most times, while assimilated Jews in Germany during the 19th Century or the United States today would or do speak German or English in general. POLITICS AND MORALS demonstration, 1917]] See main article Jewish Political Movements Even in religious Judaism there is much room for a range of political or moral views; this is only more so for secular Jews. However, even Jewish secular culture is often strongly influenced by moral beliefs deriving from Jewish scripture and tradition. In recent centuries, Jews in Europe and the Americas have traditionally tended towards the , and as a result do not expect a single world-state, which differs from the beliefs of many religions, such as the Roman Catholic and Islam ic traditions; rather, since in Jewish theology the religions of most Nations are respected, there was never any perceived reason to convert others. This lack of a universalizing religion is combined with the fact that most Jews live as minorities in their countries, and that no central Jewish religious authority has existed for over 2,000 years. ''(See also List Of Jews In Politics , which illustrates the diversity of Jewish political thought and of the roles Jews have played in politics.)'' "JEWISH" PROFESSIONS Some professions have traditionally been considered particularly "Jewish," partially as a result of historical circumstances. These include banking and finance, law, medicine, science, and academia. ''See also Court Jew .'' Banking and finance In most of Europe up until the late 18th century, and in some places to an even later date, Jews were prohibited by Roman Catholic governments (and others) from owning land. On the other hand, the Church, because of a number of Bible verses forbidding Usury , declared that charging any Interest was against the divine law, and this prevented any mercantile use of Capital by pious Christians. As the Canon Law did not apply to Jews, they were not liable to the ecclesiastical punishments which were placed upon Usurers by the Pope s. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having a class of men like the Jews who could supply capital for their use without being liable to Excommunication , and the money trade of western Europe by this means fell into the hands of the Jews. However, in almost every instance where large amounts were acquired by Jews through banking transactions the property thus acquired fell either during their life or upon their death into the hands of the king. This happened to Aaron Of Lincoln in England , Ezmel De Ablitas in Navarre , Heliot de Vesoul in Provence , Benveniste De Porta in Aragon , etc. It was for this reason indeed that the kings supported the Jews, and even objected to their becoming Christians, because in that case they could not have forced from them money won by usury. Thus both in England and in France the kings demanded to be compensated for every Jew converted. The result was the stereotypical Jewish role as bankers and merchants. Medicine, science, and academia Also, the strong Jewish tradition of religious scholarship often left Jews well prepared for secular scholarship, although in some times and places this was countered by Jews being banned from studying at Universities , or admitted only in limited numbers (see Jewish Quota ). In medieval and early modern times, Jews were disproportionately represented among court physicians. Even into recent times Jews were little represented in the land-holding classes, but far better represented in academia, the learned professions, finance and commerce. The strong representation of Jews in science and academia is represented in the fact that at least 167 Jews and persons of Half-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize , accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2004. In addition, of '' TIME '' magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th century, fourteen persons listed are either of Jewish ancestry or have converted to Judaism. LITERARY AND ARTISTIC CULTURE In some places where there have been relatively high concentrations of Jews, distinct secular Jewish subcultures have arisen. For example, ethnic Jews formed an enormous proportion of the literary and artistic life of Vienna , Austria at the end of the 19th century, or of New York City 50 years later (and Los Angeles in the mid-late 20th century), and for the most part these were not particularly religious people. In general, however, Jewish artistic culture in various periods reflected the culture in which they lived. Literature See main articles Yiddish Literature , Ladino Literature , Hebrew Literature , Jewish American Literature , English Jewish Literature . Also see Jews In Literature And Journalism . Jewish authors have both created a unique Jewish literature and contributed to the national literatures of many of the countries in which they live. Though not strictly secular, the Yiddish works of authors like Sholom Aleichem (whose collected works amounted to 28 volumes) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize), form their own canon, focusing on the Jewish experience in both Eastern Europe, and in America. In the United States, Jewish writers like Philip Roth , Saul Bellow , and many others are considered among the greatest American authors, and incorporate a distinctly secular Jewish view into many of their works. The poetry of Allen Ginsberg often touches on Jewish themes (notably the early autobiographical works such as '' Howl '' and '' Kaddish ''). Other famous Jewish authors that made contributions to world literature include Heinrich Heine , German poet, Isaac Babel , Russian author, and Franz Kafka , of Prague. In "Modern Judaism An Oxford Guide," Yaakov Malkin , Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College for Judaism as Culture in Jerusalem, writes: Secular Jewish culture embraces literary works that have stood the test of time as sources of aesthetic pleasure and ideas shared by Jews and non-Jews, works that live on beyond the immediate socio-cultural context within which they were created. They include the writings of such Jewish authors as Sholem Aleichem , Itzik Manger , Isaac Bashevis Singer , Philip Roth , Saul Bellow , S.Y. Agnon , Isaac Babel , Martin Buber , Isaiah Berlin , Haim Nahman Bialik , Yehuda Amichai , Amos Oz , A.B. Yehoshua , and David Grossman . It boasts masterpieces that have had a considerable influence on all of western culture, Jewish culture included - works such as those of Heinrich Heine , Gustav Mahler , Leonard Bernstein , Marc Chagall , Jacob Epstein , Ben Shahn , Amedeo Modigliani , Franz Kafka , Max Reinhardt (Goldman) , Ernst Lubitsch , and Woody Allen .Malkin, Y. "Humanistic and secular Judaisms." ''Modern Judaism An Oxford Guide'', p. 107. Theatre Yiddish theatre See main article Yiddish Theatre . The Ukrainian Jew Abraham Goldfaden founded the first professional Yiddish-language theatre troupe in Iaşi , Romania in 1876. The next year, his troupe achieved enormous success in Bucharest . Within a decade, Goldfaden and others brought Yiddish theater to Ukraine , Russia , Poland , Germany , New York City , and other cities with significant Ashkenazic populations. Between 1890 and 1940, over a dozen Yiddish theatre groups existed in New York City alone, performing original Play s, Musicals , and Yiddish translations of theatrical works and Opera . Perhaps the most famous of Yiddish-language plays is '' The Dybbuk '' (1919) by S. Ansky . Yiddish theater in New York in the early 20th Century rivalled English-language theater in quantity and often surpassed it in quality. A 1925 '' New York Times '' article remarks, "…Yiddish theater… is now a stable American institution and no longer dependent on immigration from Eastern Europe. People who can neither speak nor write Yiddish attend Yiddish stage performances and pay Broadway prices on Second Avenue ." This article also mentions other aspects of a New York Jewish cultural life "in full flower" at that time, among them the fact that the extensive New York Yiddish-language press of the time included seven daily newspapers.Melamed, 1925. In fact, however, the next generation of American Jews spoke mainly English to the exclusion of Yiddish; they brought the artistic energy of Yiddish theater into the American theatrical mainstream, but usually in a less specifically Jewish form. Yiddish theater, most notably Moscow State Jewish Theater directed by Solomon Mikhoels , also played a prominent role in the arts scene of the Soviet Union until Stalin's 1948 reversal in government policy toward the Jews. ''(See Rootless Cosmopolitan , Night Of The Murdered Poets )'' Mentorship Yiddish theatre fed into the mainstream of American stage and film acting: the , Jill Clayburgh , James Dean , Robert DeNiro , Paul Newman , Jack Nicholson , Al Pacino , and Eva Marie Saint , to name just a few. Similarly, what Jewish composer John Kander calls an "interesting phenomenon that Broadway Musical composers like Jerome Kern , George Gershwin and Marc Blitzstein are Predominantly Jewish " comes from "the tradition established from New York's Yiddish theater."Keith D. Cohen, John Kander to be honored in KC concerts . ''The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle'', May 27, 2005. Accessed 11 February 2006. American English-language theatre See also List Of Jewish American Musicals Writers , List Of Jewish Americans In Theatre , List Of Jewish American Playwrights . of '' West Side Story '' by the team of Jewish writers consisting of Leonard Bernstein (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), Arthur Laurents (book) and Jerome Robbins (direction and choreography)]] Not only have ", but they were instrumental in the creation and development of Genre of Musical Theatre and earlier forms of theatrical entertainment, as well as contributing to non-musical theatre in the United States. According to University Of Toronto English professor Andrea Most, Almost all the American musicals in the 20th century were written by Jews and... the most compelling reason for this is that the musical offers a lot of strategies for exploring and performing new identities theatrically… the musical theater exists because of the unique historical situation of the Jews who created it" Broadway helped Jews gain acceptance, researcher says , 11-December-2002 on EurekaAlert.org. Summary Andrea Mostbook. Accessed 11 February 2006.Alan Gomberg, What's New on the Rialto? , book review of ''Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical'' by Andrea Most, February 2004. On Talkin' Broadway site. Accessed 11 February 2006. , gossip columnists, Songwriters , and singers that grew out of the Ghetto , whether it was on the Lower East Side , Harlem (a Jewish ghetto before it was a black one), Newark , or Washington, DC ."Charyn, Jerome. "Early Broadway's un-Jewish Jews." ''Midstream'' 50.1 (January 2004): 19(7). ''Expanded Academic ASAP''. Thomson Gale. UC Irvine (CDL). 09 March 2006 Likewise, in the analysis of Aaron Kula, director of The Klezmer Company, "…the Jewish experience has always been best expressed by music, and Broadway has always been an integral part of the Jewish-American experience… The difference is that one can expand the definition of "Jewish Broadway" to include an interdisciplinary roadway with a wide range of artistic activities packed onto one avenue--theatre, opera, symphony, ballet, publishing companies, choirs, synagogues and more. This vibrant landscape reflects the life, times and creative output of the Jewish-American artist". The Klezmer Company Breaks New Ground with Orchestral Klezmer Production "Jewish Broadway with Orchestra and Chorus" at FAU . Florida Atlantic University press release, February 8, 2005. Accessed 11 February 2006. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the European , and during the early 20th century the form was explored and expanded by Jewish comedians and actors such as Jack Benny , Fanny Brice , Eddie Cantor , The Marx Brothers , Anna Held , Al Jolson , Molly Picon , Sophie Tucker and Ed Wynn . During the period when Broadway was monopolized by Revues and similar entertainments, Jewish producer Florenz Ziegfeld dominated the theatrical scene with his Follies . By 1910 Jews (the vast majority of them immigrants from , Frank Loesser , Lerner And Loewe , Stephen Sondheim , Leonard Bernstein , Stephen Schwartz , Kander And Ebb and dozens of others during the "Golden Age" of musical theatre were Jewish. Since the Tony Award For Best Original Score was instituted in 1947, approximately 70% of nominated scores and 60% of winning scores were by Jewish composers. Of successful British and French musical writers both in the West End and Broadway, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Lionel Bart are Jewish, among others. One explanation of the affinity of Jewish composers and playwrights to the musical is that "traditional Jewish Religious Music was most often led by a single singer, a Cantor while Christians emphasize choral singing."Jacob Baron, Jewish Composers , ''Machar, The Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism'', June 2, 2005. Accessed 15 February 2006. Many of these writers used the musical to explore issues relating to assimilation, the acceptance of the outsider in society, the racial situation in the United States, the overcoming of obstacles through perseverance, and other topics pertinent to Jewish Americans and Western Jews in general, often using subtle and disguised stories to get this point across.Alan Gomberg, ''op. cit.'' For example, Kern, Rodgers, Hammerstein, the Gershwins, '', August 4, 1957. Reproduced on leonardbernstein.com. Accessed 12 February 2006. The ranks of prominent Jewish producers, directors, designers and performers include Boris Aronson , David Belasco , Joel Grey , the Minskoff family, Zero Mostel , Joseph Papp , Mandy Patinkin , the Nederlander family, Harold Prince , Max Reinhardt , Jerome Robbins , the Shubert Family and Julie Taymor . Jewish playwrights have also contributed to non-musical drama and theatre, both Broadway and regional. Edna Ferber , Moss Hart , Lillian Hellman , Arthur Miller and Neil Simon are only some of the prominent Jewish playwrights in American theatrical history. Approximately 21% of the plays and musicals that have won the Pulitzer Prize For Drama were written and composed by Jewish Americans. European-language theatre From their , commenting on Jewish contributions to European culture at the Fin De Siècle , writes that The area where Jewish influence was strongest was the theatre, especially in Berlin. Playwrights like Carl Sternheim , Arthur Schnitzler , Ernst Toller , Erwin Piscator , Walter Hasenclever , Ferenc Molnar and Carl Zuckmayer , and influential producers like Max Reinhardt , appeared at times to dominate the stage, which tended to be modishly Left-wing , Pro-republican , experimental and sexually daring. But it was certainly not revolutionary, and it was cosmopolitan rather than Jewish.Johnson, Paul (1987). ''A History of the Jews'', pg. 479. New York: Harper Perennial. Jews also made similar, if not as massive, contributions to theatre and drama in Austria, Britain, France, and Russia (in the national languages of those countries). Jews in Vienna, Paris and German cities found or the United States and continued working there. Hebrew and Israeli theatre The earliest known ''. ''Could not access 12 February 2006.'' All of these early Hebrew plays were about Biblical or mystical subjects, often in the form of Talmudic Parable s. During the post-Emancipation period in 19th century Europe, many Jews translated great European Plays such as those by Shakespeare , Molière and Schiller , giving the characters Jewish names and transplanting the plot and setting to within a Jewish context. Modern Hebrew theatre and drama, however, began with the development of site, credits www.habima.org.il and www.cameri.co.il . Film '' (1931), starring Ludwig Satz ]] In the era when Yiddish theatre was still a major force in the world of theatre, over 100 films were made in Yiddish. Many are now lost. Prominent films included '' Shulamith '' (1931), the first Yiddish musical on film '' His Wife's Lover '' (1931), '' A Daughter Of Her People '' (1932), the anti-Nazi film '' The Wandering Jew '' (1933), ''The Yiddish King Lear '' (1934), '' Shir Hashirim '' (1935), the biggest Yiddish film hit of all time '' Yidl Mitn Fidl '' (1936), '' Where Is My Child? '' (1937), '' Green Fields '' (1937), '' Dybuk '' (1937), '' The Singing Blacksmith '' (1938), '' Tevye '' (1939), '' Mirele Efros '' (1939), '' Lang Ist Der Weg '' (1948), and '' God, Man And Devil '' (1950). The roster of Jewish entrepreneurs in the English-language American film industry is legendary: Samuel Goldwyn , Louis B. Mayer , The Warner Brothers , David O. Selznick , Marcus Loew , and Adolph Zukor , to name just a few, and continuing into recent times with such industry giants as super-agent Michael Ovitz , Michael Eisner , Lew Wasserman , Jeffrey Katzenberg , Steven Spielberg , and David Geffen . However, few of these brought a specifically Jewish sensibility either to the art of film or, with the sometime exception of Spielberg, to their choice of subject matter. A much more specifically Jewish sensibility can be seen in the films of the Marx Brothers , Mel Brooks , or Woody Allen ; other examples of specifically Jewish films from the Hollywood film industry are the Barbra Streisand vehicle '' Yentl '' (1983), or John Frankenheimer's '' The Fixer '' (1968). Jewish Film Composers have also written scores to a large amount of the great films of the 20th Century . Among the most prolific have been Elmer Bernstein , Danny Elfman , Elliot Goldenthal , Jerry Goldsmith , Bernard Herrmann , James Horner , Alan Menken , Alfred Newman , Lalo Schifrin , the Sherman Brothers , Howard Shore , Max Steiner , and Dimitri Tiomkin . Another notable Jewish music composer for entertainment media, specifically television, is the award winning [Stewart Levin http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0505725/] Radio and television The first radio chains, the Radio Corporation Of America and the Columbia Broadcasting System , were created by the Jewish-American David Sarnoff and William S. Paley , respectively. These Jewish innovators were also among the first producers of Television s, both black-and-white and Color .Johnson, ''op. cit.' p. 462-463. Among the Jewish immigrant communities of America there was also a thriving Yiddish Language radio, with its "golden age" from the 1930s to the 1950s . Although there is little specifically Jewish television in the United States ( National Jewish Television , largely religious, broadcasts only three hours a week), Jews have been involved in American television from its earliest days. From Sid Caesar and Milton Berle to Joan Rivers , Gilda Radner , and Andy Kaufman to Billy Crystal to Jerry Seinfeld to Jeff Orlick, Jewish stand-up comedians have been icons of American television. Other Jews that held a prominent role in early radio and television were Eddie Cantor , Al Jolson , Jack Benny , Walter Winchell and David Susskind . In the analysis of Paul Johnson , The Broadway musical, radio and TV were all examples of a fundamental principle in '' on which to set their mark, before other interests had a chance to take possession, erect Guild or Professional fortifications and deny them entry.Johnson, ''op. cit.'' p. 462-463. One of the first televised , Mel Brooks , Selma Diamond , Larry Gelbart , Carl Reiner , and Neil Simon all wrote for Sid Caesar; Reiner's son Rob Reiner worked with Norman Lear on '' All In The Family '' (which often engaged Anti-semitism and other issues of Prejudice ); Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld created the hit sitcom '' Seinfeld '', Lorne Michaels , Al Franken , Rosie Shuster , and Alan Zweibel of '' Saturday Night Live '' breathed new life into the Variety Show in the 1970s. Music See Also: Secular Jewish music Jewish musical contributions also tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live, the most notable examples being and Jews In Mainstream And Jazz )''. Some music, however, is unique to particular Jewish communities, such as Israeli Music , Israeli Folk Music , Klezmer , Sephardic And Ladino Music , and Mizrahi Music . Dance See Also: Jewish dance Deriving from Biblical traditions, Jewish dance has long been used by Jews as a medium for the expression of joy and other communal emotions. Each Jewish Diasporic community developed its own dance traditions for wedding celebrations and other distinguished events. For Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe , for example, dances, whose names corresponded to the different forms of Klezmer music that were played, were an obvious staple of the wedding ceremony of the Shtetl . Jewish dances both were influenced by surrounding Gentile traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time. "Nevertheless the Jews practiced a corporeal expressive language that was highly differentiated from that of the non-Jewish peoples of their neighborhood, mainly through motions of the hands and arms, with more intricate legwork by the younger men." Yiddish, Klezmer, Ashkenazic or 'shtetl' dances , Le Site Genevois de la Musique Klezmer. Accessed 12 Feb 2006. In general, however, in most religiosly traditional communities, members of the opposite sex dancing together or dancing at times other than at these events was frowned upon. Humor See Also: Jewish humor Jewish humor is the long tradition of humor in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash , but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, self-deprecating and often anecdotal humor originating in Eastern Europe and which took root in the United States over the last hundred years. Beginning with Vaudeville , and continuing through radio, stand-up, film, and television, a significant number of American comedians have been Jewish. Visual arts See also List Of Jews In The Visual Arts . Children's Book ''Yingl Tzingl Khvat'' (The Mischievous Boy) by El Lissitzky , c.1918.]] Compared to music or theater, there is less of a specifically Jewish tradition in the Rabbinical and Kabbalistic literature also contain textual and graphic art. However, in the Ghettos Of Europe it was even illegal for Jews to create art.Roza Bieliauskiene and Felix Tarm, Brief History of Jewish Art , Jewish Art Network. Archived October 23, 2004. Johnson again summarizes this sudden change from small amount of participation of Jews in visual art (as in many other arts) to a large entry of them into this branch of European cultural life: Again, the arrival of the Jewish artist was a strange phenomenon. It is true that, over the centuries, there had been many animals (though few humans) in Jewish art: lions on Torah curtains, owls on Judaic coins, animals on the Capernaum capitals, birds on the rim of the fountain-basis in the Fifth-century Naro Synagogue in Tunis ; there were carved animals, too, on timber synagogues in Eastern Europe - indeed the Jewish Wood-carver was the prototype of the modern Jewish Plastic Artist . A book of Yiddish folk- Ornament , printed at Vitebsk in 1920 , was similar to Chagall's own Bestiary . But the resistance of pious Jews to portraying the living image was still strong at the beginning of the twentieth century.Johnson, ''op.cit.'', p. 411. ]] There were few Jewish ''secular'' artists in Europe prior to the ( Tamara De Lempicka ), Bauhaus ( Mordecai Ardon , László Moholy-Nagy ), Constructivism ( Boris Aronson , El Lissitzky ), Cubism ( Nathan Altman , Jacques Lipchitz , Louis Marcoussis , Max Weber , Ossip Zadkine ), Expressionism ( Erich Kahn , Jack Levine , Jules Pascin , Chaim Soutine ), Impressionism ( Max Liebermann , Leonid Pasternak , Camille Pissarro ), Minimalism ( Richard Serra ), Orphism ( Sonia Delaunay ), Realism ( Raphael Soyer ), Social Realism ( Leon Bibel , Ben Shahn , Raphael Soyer ), Surrealism ( Victor Brauner , Marc Chagall , Méret Oppenheim and Man Ray ), the Vienna School Of Fantastic Realism ( Arik Brauer , Ernst Fuchs ) and Vorticism ( David Bomberg , Jacob Epstein ), as well as some not necessarily affiliated with a single movement ( Balthus , Eduard Bendemann , Mark Gertler , Maurycy Gottlieb , Nahum Gutman , Menashe Kadishman , Moise Kisling , R. B. Kitaj , Mane-Katz , Isidor Kaufman , Michel Kikoine , Pinchus Kremegne , Amedeo Modigliani , Elie Nadelman , Felix Nussbaum , Charlotte Salomon , Boris Schatz , George Segal , Anna Ticho , William Rothenstein )— and have been particularly prominent in the post-World War II United States and UK— Lucian Freud , Frank Auerbach , the Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein , and Judy Chicago . During the early 20th century Jews figured particularly prominently in the and Jerry Siegel , creators of '' Superman '', were Jewish, as were Bob Kane (''né'' Robert Cohen), Will Eisner , Martin Goodman , Joe Simon , Jack Kirby , and Stan Lee of Marvel Comics ; and William Gaines and Harvey Kurtzman , founders of '' Mad '', to name only a small sample. Many of those involved in the later ages of comics are also Jewish, such as Julius Schwartz , Jenette Kahn , Len Wein , Peter David , Neil Gaiman , and Brian Michael Bendis . FOOD See Also: Jewish cuisine , Paris )]] Jewish Cooking combines the food of many cultures in which Jews have traveled, including Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Spanish, German and Eastern European styles of cooking, all influenced by the need for food to be Kosher . Thus, "Jewish" foods like Hummus , Stuffed Cabbage , and Blintz es all come from various other cultures. The amalgam of these foods, plus uniquely Jewish contributions like Bagels , Tzimmis , Cholent , Gefilte Fish and Matzah Balls , make up Jewish cuisine. SEE ALSO NOTES AND REFERENCES REFERENCES
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