“Assimilation, Nationalism, and ‘True Judaism’ in the ‘Jewish Manosphere’”

This paper looks at several popular Jewish conservative male influencers as case studies for understanding the online “Jewish manosphere” and how its ideologues navigate questions of assimilation, Jewish-versus-Christian masculinity, antisemitism, and American nationalism. These case studies are illustrative for understanding the “edges” of how (Christian) manospheres are usually understood: I argue that these Jewish manosphere influencers, by situating their masculinity and their Judaism as consonant with—at times helpful for—American Christian nationalism, frame their gender and religion as part of a lineage that is just as respectable as that of white Christian Americans. Notably, such influencers frame their masculine Judaism in a way that delegitimizes other forms of American Jewish life, in particular the other minority groups that comprise them. This move is in line with many more mainstream, Christian manosphere figures, and the approaches to them highlighted in this panel’s papers.