Arts & Humanities

Millennial Jewish Stars

Editorial: NYU Press

ISBN: 9781479820795

Pub: 2024-06-06

Jewish stars have longed faced pressure to downplay Jewish identity for fear of alienating wider audiences. But unexpectedly, since the 2000s, many millennial Jewish stars have won stellar success while spotlighting (rather than muting) Jewish identity. In Millennial Jewish Stars, Jonathan Branfman asks: what makes these explicitly Jewish stars so unexpectedly appealing? And what can their surprising success tell us about race, gender, and antisemitism in America? To answer these questions, Branfman offers case studies on six top millennial Jewish stars: the biracial rap superstar Drake, comedic rapper Lil Dicky, TV comedy duo Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, “man-baby” film star Seth Rogen, and chiseled film star Zac Efron