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Over the course of the twentieth century, the central themes in Jewish American literature changed in accordance with the changes that Jews experienced in American society. As the late 1960s saw several changes in Jewish American life, authors started to write about what it meant to be Jewish. Allegra Goodman, Tova Mirvis, and Pearl Abraham write in the line of these post-acculturated fiction writers. This paper focuses on their novels Kaaterskill Falls (1998), The Outside World (2004) and The Romance Reader (1995), in which they portray female Jewish Orthodox protagonists who experience difficulties with their Orthodox identities. Their main characters wish to experience life in the outside world and therefore adopt certain aspects of that world in their lives, most notably secular novels, secular education, and feminism. Moreover, once they decide to incorporate part of the outside world in their lives, they no longer belong to their communities the way they used to. This gives them the perspective of outsiders as well as insiders.

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Gwendolyn Makkink-Grootenboer studied Musicology and American Studies at Utrecht University. After working as an information specialist for a few years, she now studies to become a teacher.

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