The paper analyzes the complex relationship between becoming American and keeping up ethnic and religious traditions in immigrant  families as portrayed in the works of leading American Jewish novelists who entered the literary scene after the Second World War when the back-to-the-roots sentiment was on the rise driven by the expanding multiculturalist discourse. The writings of Saul Bellow, Alan Lelchuk and Philip Roth are discussed to illustrate the different stages in the reassessment of Jewish identity.