Early life
Kaufmann was raised inCritical reception of "Remember Me to God"
Kaufmann's novel is set at Harvard. It deals with identity, assimilation, and the struggle of the son of Jewish immigrants to enter American society. At the time of his 25th Harvard reunion, he wrote:"The existence of a vigorous orthodox Jewish community on the Harvard campus was inconceivable in our time. About two years ago I walked in on a group of Harvard students on an ordinary sabbath eve. As soon as ten were present, a service began. There followed a kosher dinner until someone began the grace-after-meals. After that psalms were sung in the original tongue. ... For the past few years Kosher TV dinners have been available in the House dining halls upon a surcharge of fifty cents ... how impossible it was twenty-five years ago for all this to exist—how impossible it was to believe it ever could exist. We had not the skill, we had not the knowledge. We had not the will."Critic
"The second generation found a much more complex situation. Many of them believed they heard the siren call of welcome to the social cliques, clubs, and institutions of white Protestant America. After all, it was simply a matter of learning American ways, was it not, and had they not grown up as Americans and were they not culturally different from their parents, the greenhorns? Or perhaps an especially eager one reasoned, like the Jewish protagonist of Myron Kaufmann's novel, ''Remember Me to God'', bucking for membership in the prestigious club system of Harvard undergraduate social life: If only I can go the last few steps inIvy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schoo ...manners and behavior, they will surely recognize that I am one of them and take me in. But,Brooks Brothers Brooks Brothers, founded in Manhattan, New York, in 1818, is the oldest apparel brand in continuous operation in America. Originally a family business, Brooks Brothers produces clothing for men, women and children, as well as home furnishings. B ...suit notwithstanding, the doors of the fraternity house, the city men's club, and the country club were slammed in the face of the immigrant's offspring ... And so the rebuffed one returned to the homelier but dependable comfort of the communal institutions of his ancestral group. There he found his fellows of the same generation who had never stirred from the home fires at all.""On the sociological significance of the American Jewish experience: boundary blurring, assimilation, and pluralism Sociology of Religion," Winter, 2006 by Richard Alba
Published works
*''Remember Me to God'' (Lippincott, 1957) *''Thy Daughter's Nakedness'' (Lippincott, 1968) *''The Coming Destruction of Israel'' (Signet, 1970) *''The Love of Elspeth Baker'' (Arbor House, 1982)References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaufmann, Myron Jewish American writers Harvard University alumni Jewish novelists 2010 deaths 1921 births 20th-century American novelists Belmont High School (Massachusetts) alumni 21st-century American Jews