"Sounds Like Jew Talk to Me": Assimilation and Alienation in Bernard Malamud's "The People"

This essay aims at reading Malamud’s The People as a particularly keen reflection on the historical situation of first- and second-generation Jewish American writers in the second half of the twentieth century. The protagonist, Yozip, is caught between three different traditions, cultures, and languages: the millennial Jewish heritage of Eastern Europe from which he comes, the striving confidence in progress and expansion proper to the young nation where he hopes to make his fortune; and the ancient traditions of the Native American tribe he joins in order to guarantee its survival. The case can be made that, in the same way, Jewish American writers were constantly negotiating between their Jewish, American, and Jewish American identities.