From Mensch to Macho?

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore the construction of a new masculinity by investigating the relationship between the Jewish identity and that of the biker. Using data from participant observation and in-depth interviewing, the author investigates the ways in which identity is constructed and maintained for a group of Jewish Harley-Davidson riders. The author pays particular attention to the role of symbols in legitimizing claims to place and the parts played by ritual and myth in boundary and identity construction. She examines how one symbolic system (American masculinity in general, and Harley-Davidson culture specifically) is understood in relation to a Jewish American symbolic model of world. The themes that emerged in the author's research suggest that what has occurred is not only a reformulation of what it means to be a Jew and Jewish in America but what it means to be a Jewish man.