Chai Noon

Jonathan L. Friedmann is a scholar of Jewish music history and the president of the Western States Jewish History Association. He serves as vice president, academic dean, and director of programs at Ezzree Institute; admissions director and associate professor at the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism; director of the Jewish Museum of the American West; and cohost of Amusing Jews, an interview show celebrating Jewish contributors and contributions to American popular culture. He is the author or editor of numerous books and articles, most recently Jewish Historical Societies: Navigating the Professional-Amateur Divide, coedited with Joel Gereboff.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction1 How the West Was Made2 Pre-Code Westerns3 Code-Era Westerns4 Television Westerns5 Post-Code Westerns6 Comedic Sensibility7 Revisionist SensibilityConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

“Prodigiously researched and written with verve, Chai Noon casts a long-overdue Jewish lens on the Western. Contrary to the conventional notion that Jews and Westerns are like oil and water, the book shows how Jewish characters, themes, and filmmakers played a prominent role in the origins and development of this most American of genres.” - Vincent Brook, author of Driven to Darkness: Jewish Émigré Directors and the Rise of Film Noir