Review - American Jewish Archives

Book Reviews 221
Sherman, Moshe D.
Orthodox Judaism in America:
A Biographical Dictiona y and Sourcebook.
Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, 1996.291 pages.'
Moshe Sherman's interesting book is the last of three biographical
dictionaries about some of the most central people and organizations
that influenced the major religious denominations within American
Jewry: Conservative, Reform, and Orthodox (in the order they were
published). The significance of this series is that it is the first of its
kind and will probably remain a main source of reference for years
to come, particularly vis-5-vis Orthodox Judaism in America - the
denomination that has received the least scholarly attention among
the three. Furthermore, these volumes seem to lay the groundwork
for numerous issues relating to American Jewish religious history,
a topic that has yet to be adequately researched.
In line with the format of the previous volumes, this book consists
of a general historical introduction to American Jewish Orthodoxy,
followed by the biographies of what the author defines as "a repre-
sentative sample of some of the many rabbis, educators, and phi-
lanthropists who have made contributions to American Jewish life
in general and Orthodox Judaism in particular" during the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries (ix). The last section includes a useful
essay on the "Orthodox Rabbinic Organizations in American Jewish
Life: a listing of "American Orthodox Rabbinic Periodicals: a list of
the "Presidents of the Rabbinical Council of America: and several
bibliographies of "selected newspapers, periodicals, and primary
and secondary sources.
In his preface, the author focuses on a few of the central problems
in writing a work of this nature: whom to include or exclude, limi-
tations of space, questions of historical accuracy, periodization, and
transliteration. Gathering and thoroughly analyzing such a large
amount of material of diverse nature-often written by Orthodox
authors with ideological agendas-is a very taxing responsibility
and the outcome of this process should be well appreciated by any
scholar. This book provides us with a wealth of invaluable material