Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities

By Emily Tamkin

You can be called a Bad Jew—by the community or even yourself—if you don’t keep kosher, don’t send your children to Hebrew school, or enjoy Christmas music; if your partner isn’t Jewish, or you don’t call your mother enough. But today, amid fears of rising antisemitism, what makes a Good or Bad Jew is a particularly fraught question.

There is no answer, argues Emily Tamkin. Several million now identify as American Jews; but they don’t all identify with one another. American Jewish history, like all Jewish history, has been about transformation—and full of discussions, debates and hand-wringing over who is Jewish, how to be Jewish, and what it means to be Jewish.

Bad Jews is a rich, absorbing reflection on 100 years of American Jewish identities and arguments. Tamkin’s fascinating, diverse interviews explore the complex story of American Jewishness, and its evolving, conflicting positions, from assimilation, race, and social justice; to politics, Zionism, and Israel. She pinpoints the one truth about Jewish identity: It’s always changing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hurst Publishers
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781787389809

Emily Tamkin

Emily Tamkin is a journalist based in Washington, D.C. and author of The Influence of Soros. She previously covered foreign affairs on staff at Foreign Policy and BuzzFeed News. She studied Russian literature and culture at Columbia University and Russian and East European studies at the University of Oxford. She earned a Fulbright Fellowship and a Heinrich Böll scholarship and was also a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in New Delhi, India.