Carol Zemel, Looking Jewish: Visual Culture and Modern Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. 198 pp.

This chapter reviews the book Looking Jewish: Visual Culture and Modern Diaspora (2012), by Carol Zemel. In Looking Jewish, Zemel explores normative historical accounts of “Jewish art.” She probes a “diasporic position” between the Scylla and Charybdis of the nation and the modern, offering a detailed analysis of an array of visual artifacts and their creators. The book features “pictures by Jewish artists that deal with the status and character of Jews in modern diasporic communities.” The art and artists are characterized by the notion of standing on a threshold—at the edge of place, on the cusp of time. Through her meticulous and engaging readings of images in their historical context, Zemel examines the notion of diaspora as an analytical term and its particular meaning for Jewish studies.