Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West

Only a few Westerns contain explicitly Jewish stories or themes, and very rarely do Old West tales involve identifiably Jewish characters. Yet Jewish contributors have shaped the Western--once Hollywood's most popular genre--ever since the silent era, both onscreen and offscreen, and some filmmakers have sought to infuse the genre with a distinctly Jewish sensibility. In Chai Noon, Jonathan L. Friedmann applies some of the central questions of Jewish film studies to the Western: What makes a movie "Jewish"? What counts as a "Jewish image" onscreen? What types of Jewish representation are appropriate? How much of a film's "Jewishness" is owed to the filmmakers and how much to the viewer's interpretation?

This volume joins other reconsiderations of outsider and minority representations in Westerns to offer a more nuanced view of the genre. Friedmann engages with larger themes of Jewish identity in popular film, including depictions of race, ethnicity, and foreignness. He also identifies similar concerns within the invention and creation of the imaginary West writ large in American culture. The juxtapositions prove to be both unexpected and intuitively understandable.

Author: Jonathan L. Friedmann
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 06/03/2025
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780299352103


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2025

About the Author
Jonathan L. Friedmann is the president of the Western States Jewish History Association; vice president, academic dean, and director of programs at Ezzree Institute; admissions director and associate professor at the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism; and director of the Jewish Museum of the American West. He is the author or editor of numerous books, most recently Jewish Historical Societies: Navigating the Professional-Amateur Divide, coedited with Joel Gereboff.