Mashey Bernstein
Scholar of Mailer and of Jewish-American literature and film, and a close friend of Mailer until the writer's death. He wrote the "Judaism" chapter of Norman Mailer in Context (2021), and David Denby quotes him on Mailer's Jewishness in Eminent Jews (2025).
Mashey Bernstein holds a PhD in American literature and has written extensively on Norman Mailer, with articles in The Mailer Review, Studies in American Jewish Literature, The San Francisco Review of Books, and the London Jewish Chronicle; he also writes on film, especially Jewish aspects of the media, and maintained a close friendship with Mailer until the author’s death in 2007. He contributed the “Judaism” chapter to Norman Mailer in Context. In Eminent Jews, David Denby quotes Bernstein on the limits of Mailer’s Jewishness — “If you want a menorah-and-gefilte-fish Judaism … you won’t get it from Mailer” (Denby 2025, ch. 3).