Kolel course addresses sitcom Judaism

Kolel course addresses sitcom Judaism
By FRANCES KRAFT, Staff Reporter
Thursday, 29 January 2009
TORONTO — Rosalin Krieger has always been fascinated by Jewish popular culture. “It’s such a part of my Jewish cultural experience. I think about it 24/7.”
A PhD candidate in sociology and equity studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Krieger – who has published academic papers and been a conference presenter on Jewishness in television shows – will teach a new course on contemporary constructions of Jewishness in popular sitcoms.
The six-week course, called “Post-Modern Jewishness from ‘Seinfeld’ to ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ ” will run on Thursday evenings at Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, beginning Feb. 5.
“I’ve always been interested in questions of Jewish identity,” Krieger, 42, told The CJN in a phone interview. Other issues she expects to address in the course include assimilation and continuity.
“These people in Hollywood want consciously or unconsciously to engage us in the discussion of what it means to be who we are,” she said. “I think as Jews we should be part of that.”
Closer to home, a trio of Canadian series – Billable Hours, Less than Kind, and most recently Being Erica – signal “what could be a new wave of Jewish-inflected comedy on our side of the border,” Krieger said.
The issue of “crypto-Jews” on television – such as the ostensibly non-Jewish, but “stereotypically very Jewish” Costanza family on Seinfeld – is particularly interesting to Krieger, who attended Jewish day school until she was 16. She said she would love to have a chat with Garry Shandling and find out why he never “came out” as Jewish in six seasons of his eponymous show.
For historical context on Jewishness in television, Krieger said, “you have to go back to Gertrude Berg,” who created, wrote and acted in a show called The Rise of the Goldbergs, and later just The Goldbergs. The show, originally a radio sitcom, ran from 1929 to the mid-1940s and moved to television a few years later. “Her contribution has been so overlooked,” said Krieger.
She said she hopes that participants in the course at Kolel will see the shows as “Jewish texts… beyond entertainment.
“This is a really exciting time for Jewish cultural expression.”