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224 <strong>American</strong> <strong>Jewish</strong> <strong>Archives</strong><br />
mentioned in the essay on "Orthodox Rabbinic Organizations in<br />
<strong>American</strong> <strong>Jewish</strong> Life"(225-50):<br />
Understandably, the length of the entries varies significantly due<br />
to the lack of material in some cases or the relatively low impact and<br />
contribution to <strong>American</strong> Judaism and Orthodoxy in others. How-<br />
ever, one cannot overlook a few striking differences that lead us to<br />
wonder why certain personalities received far more attention, and<br />
consequently space, than others, even though the wealth of sources<br />
on each person is equivalent. For example, the entries on Bernard<br />
Illowy (101-3) and Leo Jung (110-13) are more than twice the length<br />
of the entry on Jacob Joseph (log-lo). When coming to Rabbi<br />
Yoseph D. Soloveitchik, we find no less than five pages (202-7) that<br />
include close to two and a half pages of references - a privilege that<br />
several other prolific writers did not receive, such as Bondi (36) and<br />
Eisenstein (59).<br />
Acknowledging that this is the first attempt to draw biographical<br />
sketches of important contributors to <strong>American</strong> <strong>Jewish</strong> Orthodoxy,<br />
and granted that each entry is limited and therefore cannot include<br />
all the details, I still believe that numerous inaccuracies could have<br />
been avoided within the existing framework. As we shall see, this<br />
defect relates to the author's awareness of the problematic nature of<br />
the sources at hand and his attempt to present us with "a balanced<br />
judgment:' "based on a wide selection of sources"(ix). A few exam-<br />
ples will suffice.<br />
One of the most important tasks in writing a biography is to be<br />
as precise as possible about details. Rabbi Jacob Joseph is probably<br />
the one Orthodox rabbi any academic student in <strong>American</strong> <strong>Jewish</strong><br />
history would learn about at some stage. In presenting his biography,<br />
the author states that Joseph was born ca.1848 and "After attending<br />
the Volozhin yeshiva . . . , Joseph went to Kovno to study with Rabbi<br />
Israel Salantern(1og). Stating the year 1848 as Jacob Joseph's birth<br />
date is common in most academically oriented sources; however, a<br />
quick look at the facts proves it to be virtually impossible. All the<br />
sources agree that Joseph learned in Volozhin under Rabbis<br />
Soloveitchik and Berlin, which could not have been before 1853,<br />
and that he studied with Salanter in Kovno, which probably took<br />
place prior to 1857 when Salanter relocated to western Europe. Sev-<br />
eral sources teach us that Joseph served as a "clergyman" at the age
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