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REVIEWS AMERICAN JEWISH STUDIES AN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: ADELINE MOSES LOEB AND HER EARLY AMERICAN JEWISH ANCESTORS John L. Loeb, Jr., Kathy L. Plotkin, Margaret Loeb Kempner, Judith E. Endelman; Eli N. Evans, intro. Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, 2009. 350 pp. $49.95 ISBN: 978-0-9822032-0-0 If ever a physical book resembled its topics, this remarkable biography does. Elegantly presented, its coverage of its subject’s life and genealogical provenance are a revelation. Physical presentation almost overtakes the text’s uniqueness—portraits, maps, and many—6th cousins—genealogical charts. Oversize, it captures a world of atypical Americana—Jews. Adeline Moses Loeb fit two descriptions: “fine woman,” family-centered, respectable, modest beginnings, strong personality; and “fine lady,” beautifully gowned, charitable, proud of her heritage, with some rags (sort of)-to-riches tales. She was affectionately and realistically recalled by her daughter, Margaret Loeb Kempner, in “Mother’s Life with Father,” unpublished and written some years ago. Grandson John L. Loeb, Jr., the force behind the book, gives due credit to his grandmother’s outstanding, permanent philanthropy, as well as the paternal Loeb lineup of financial successes. While Adeline Loeb has only 33 discrete pages devoted to her, her name and background appear throughout, ranging from Jewish sea-farers, arriving here in the 17th century, to post- Civil War sagas of the South, iconic merchants, successful financiers, and highest-level friends. With a smooth, unchallenging style, it details membership in and publication by the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, to a not-in-your-face presentation of upper South/lower South dissensions, notably, discussion of Jewish ownership of “property-in-man.” Intermarriage—heavy, if surnames are an indicator—is not mentioned. A most unusual book, full of scholarly threads worth following. Appendices, bibliography, family charts and maps, general index, guide to family trees, name index. ABS Howard Megdal Collins, 2009. 320 pp. $22.99 ISBN: 978-0-06-155843-6 THE BASEBALL TALMUD: A DEFINI- TIVE POSITION-BY- POSITION RANKING OF BASEBALL’S CHOSEN PLAYERS The Baseball Talmud is a book for Jewish baseball statistic geeks. That said, it should be added that the book, like the Talmud, is sprinkled with lively anecdotes and wry observations worthy of a stand-up comic. Howard Megdal, baseball writer for the New York Observer and several baseball publications, uses sophisticated sabermetrics and other research to identify and rank all 160 Jewish major leaguers, less than 1 percent of 16,696 players who have made it to the bigs. Megdal’s definition of Jewish is, to use his word, expansive, but his standards are exacting and based on such measures as Baseball Prospectus’ WARP3 (wins above replacement player) and formulas that adjust for differences between baseball parks and eras. After selecting the greatest Jewish baseball player—Hank Greenberg or Sandy Koufax?— Megdal ranks the remaining top ten and fearlessly predicts the top ten years out. He then ranks all the Jewish players by position, noting a lack of good second basemen. And for the finale Megdal names the all-time Jewish team and classes it, adjusted for parks and eras, unbeatable. All in all The Baseball Talmud will make for endless arguments on off-season Shabbos afternoons. Although Megdal is serious about his stats, he has a light touch with language, and his asides and anecdotes provide a neat balance to his pursuit of statistical affirmation. Glossary, illustrations, index. MLW WE REMEMBER WITH REVERENCE AND LOVE: AMERICAN JEWS AND THE MYTH OF SILENCE AFTER THE HOLOCAUST, 1945–1962 Hasia R. Diner New York University Press, 2009. 527 pp. $29.95 ISBN: 978-0-8147-1993-0 In this well-researched and passionately argued book, Hasia Diner challenges the conventional view that postwar American Jewry showed little interest in the Holocaust until the 1960’s and, in fact, wanted to forget it rather than memorialize it. She maintains that nearly every historian, literary scholar, and cultural critic who has commented on American Jews in this period and their relationship to the Shoah, asserted with utter certainty that American Jews made little of the Holocaust, repressed it and did not make it an important part of their communal lives. Whether motivated by guilt, shame, fear, indifference, or the desire to assimilate, American Jews simply did not memorialize or focus on the Holocaust until the Eichmann trial in 1960–61 and Israel’s stunning victory in the Six Day War of 1967 made it socially and culturally acceptable to do so. Coming out of World War II, American Jews were too busy with the emergence of the State of Israel, the threats of the Cold War, moving to the suburbs, financing a synagoguebuilding boom and carving out their place in society to have room in their public culture for the tragedy of European Jewry. Diner rejects this conventional view and claims that it is categorically false and based on thin evidence and gleaned from few sources. Uncovering a rich and varied trove of documentation—in literature, song, liturgy, public display, and many other forms, We Remember with Reverence and Love shows that American Jews were deeply engaged in memorializing the Holocaust in a multiplicity of ways and that it was a powerful element of Jewish life in postwar America. Whether in liturgy or pedagogy, in staged ceremonies or in the deliberations of Jewish organizations and in the activities of their youth groups, the tragedy of European Jewry was central to Jew- 26 Jewish Book World Spring 5770/2010 www.jewishbookcouncil.org
New from Jewish Lights Publishing ISBN 978-1-58023-423-8 Quality PB Original, 6 x 9, 208 pp $16.99 Rabbi Joseph B. Meszler ISBN 978-1-58023-412-2 Quality PB Original, 6 x 9, 224 pp $18.99 Rabbi Elie Kaunfer Foreword by Prof. Jonathan Sarna ISBN 978-1-59473-275-1 ISBN 978-1-59473-272-0 Quality PB Original, 51 ⁄2 x 81 ⁄2, 240 pp $16.99 Trans. and Ann. by Rabbi Rami Shapiro Foreword by Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi (A SkyLight Paths Book) NEW IN PB Quality PB, 6 x 9, 160 pp $16.99 Rabbi Daniel F. Polish, PhD (A SkyLight Paths Book) ISBN 978-1-58023-424-5 ISBN 978-1-58023-422-1 ISBN 978-1-58023-426-9 ISBN 978-1-58023-425-2 Steve Sheinkin Quality PB Original w/ full-color illus., 6 x 9, 144 pp $16.99 Please call or e-mail sales@jewishlights.com for a complete catalog. JEWISH LIGHTS PUBLISHING Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4 • P.O. Box 237 • Woodstock, VT 05091 Tel: 802-457-4000 • Fax: 802-457-4004 • Orders: 800-962-4544 www.jewishlights.com HC, 6 x 9, 304 pp (est) $24.99 Ed. by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD HC, 6 x 9, 256 pp $24.99 Dr. Louis E. Newman Foreword by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Preface by Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar Quality PB, 6 x 9, 288 pp $16.99 Rabbi Jill Jacobs Foreword by Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, PhD Preface by Simon Greer ISBN 978-1-58023-413-9 ISBN 978-1-58023-428-3 ISBN 978-1-58023-419-1 HC, 6 x 9, 350 pp (est) $24.99 Ed. by Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, PhD HC, 6 x 9, 240 pp (est) $24.99 Ed. by Rabbi William Cutter, PhD ISBN 978-1-58023-402-3 HC, 6 x 9, 144 pp $19.99 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, MD NEW IN PB NEW IN PB Quality PB, 6 x 9, 160 pp $16.99 Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis
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Page 5 and 6: Now available from the Jewish Book
Page 7 and 8: JEWISHBOOKAWARDS The following syno
Page 9 and 10: ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS Winner:
Page 11 and 12: out whom they can trust. In additio
Page 13 and 14: 59 TH NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS P
Page 15 and 16: Finalists: THE WARSAW GHETTO: A GUI
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Page 19 and 20: SCHOLARSHIP Nahum M. Sarna Memorial
Page 21 and 22: WOMEN’S STUDIES Barbara Dobkin Aw
Page 23 and 24: JUDGING PANELISTS We wish to public
Page 25 and 26: O Israel... In a perfect—perhaps
Page 27: A Conversation with David Sax By La
Page 31 and 32: Save the Dates Jewish Book Authors
Page 33 and 34: Sutton presents a brief synopsis of
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Page 37 and 38: choice of which of their two daught
Page 39 and 40: funds and the stock markets in gene
Page 41 and 42: and imagined). This memoir could be
Page 43 and 44: JEWISH SLOW COOKER RECIPES Laura Fr
Page 45 and 46: JUDAISM: A WAY OF BEING David Geler
Page 47 and 48: TOOLBOX FOR TEACHERS AND MENTORS: M
Page 49 and 50: children, and the congregation he l
Page 51 and 52: Shushan “Shoeshine” Cats, a sel
Page 53 and 54: entourage. He pursues Hope, an aptl
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Page 63 and 64: Tobi Kahn for ritual and meditative
Page 65 and 66: Monika Schroder Front Street, 2009.
Page 67 and 68: efuge in Cuba. This book uses poetr
Page 69 and 70: A CHAT WITH ZACHARYSHAPIRO By Barba
Page 71 and 72: Please note that all book descripti
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Page 77 and 78: THE BOOK OF PSALMS: A TRANSLATION W
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SHELLY FEIT (SF) has an M.L.S. and
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