A Review of Marlene Booths Documentary Yidl in the Middle: Growing Up Jewish in Iowa
In this paper, we will review the Marlene Booth’s Documentary “Yidl in the Middle: Growing Up Jewish in Iowa” As we know, the title of Booth’s film is a pun on the title of a 1936 Yiddish film, “Yidl Mitn Fidl” (“Yidl With a Fiddle” – “Yidl” is the main character’s name and also means “Little Jew” in Yiddish). In our paper, we will try to understand what booth means by describing herself as a “Jew in the Middle”. We will examine what the film tell us about her – i.e., how her Jewish identity changed over the years? And we will try to understand if it tells us anything about changes in American Jewish life in general.