SOURCE: "Marginality Revisited," in The Writer in the Jewish Community: An Israeli-North American Dialogue, edited by Richard Siegel and Tamar Sofer, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993, pp. 59-66.

In the following essay, Solotaroff maintains that Jewish writers still occupy a marginal position in American culture, and that they could achieve renewed appeal by focusing on the subject of Israel.

Twenty-five years ago, when American Jewish writing was in its heyday, much of the discussion of its prominence turned upon the issues of marginality.

Not the most precise concept, marginality had the implication of standing apart, as the American Jewish writer was perceived to do with respect to both sides of the hyphen. Being an outsider in both the American and Jewish communities, he was enabled to see what more accustomed eyes would miss at a faculty meeting in Oregon or on the screen of a western or in the...