reviews - Jewish Book Council

Please note that all book descriptions have been
taken from information provided by the publisher.
AMERICAN JEWISH STUDIES
AMERICAN SKETCHES: GREAT LEADERS,
CREATIVE THINKERS, AND HEROES OF
A HURRICANE
Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster, 2009. $25.99
ISBN: 978-1-4391-8064-8
Thirty-seven individual pieces, selected
from among the articles, op-ed pieces, book
reviews, and commentaries that Isaacson has
written, encompass such subjects as Henry
Kissinger, Albert Einstein, and Woody Allen.
BECOMING AMERICAN JEWS:
TEMPLE ISRAEL OF BOSTON
Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, Susan L. Porter,
and Lisa Fagin Davis
Brandeis University Press, 2009. $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-58465-790-3
From its beginning in 1854 as a traditional
German shul to its current status as the
largest Reform synagogue in New England,
Temple Israel has been an important force in
Boston and American Jewish life. Based on
hundreds of archival documents, demographic
data, and oral histories, and illustrated with
more than 200 images, bringing to life a community
of over 150 years.
CHARITABLE CHOICES: PHILANTHROPIC
DECISIONS OF DONORS IN THE
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY
Arnold Dashefsky and Bernard Lazerwitz
Lexington Books, 2009. $65.00
ISBN: 978-0-7391-0987-8
Examining the incentives and barriers to
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charitable behavior, this book discusses the
motivations for charitable giving.
THE MAKING OF A REFORM JEWISH
CANTOR: MUSICAL AUTHORITY,
CULTURAL INVESTMENT
Judah M. Cohen
Indiana University Press, 2009. $39.95
ISBN: 978-0-253-35365-8
Provides an unprecedented look into the
meaning of attaining musical authority
among American Reform Jews at the turn of
the 21 st century.
RED BLACKAND JEW: NEW FRONTIERS
IN HEBREW LITERATURE
Stephen Katz
University of Texas Press, 2009. $60.00
ISBN: 978-0-292-71926-2
Between 1890 and 1924, more than two
million Jewish immigrants landed on America’s
shores. The story of their integration into
American society, as they traversed the difficult
path between assimilation and retention
of a unique cultural identity, is recorded in
many works by American Hebrew writers.
This book charts the ways in which the
Native American and African American creative
cultures served as a model for works produced
within the Jewish community.
BIOGRAPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY
& MEMOIR
GABY BRIMMER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
IN THREE VOICES
Gaby Brimmer and Elena Poniatowska
Brandeis University Press, 2009. $26.00
ISBN: 978-1-58465-758-3
Born with cerebral palsy, Brimmer was a
BOOKS OF NOTE
writer, poet, and one of Mexico’s first disability
rights activist. An account of a woman who witnessed
and participated in a tumultuous period
in Mexico’s cultural and political history.
LEV SHTERNBERG: ANTHROPOLOGIST,
RUSSIAN SOCIALIST, JEWISH ACTIVIST
Sergei Kan
University of Nebraska Press, 2009. $ 65.00
ISBN: 978-0-8032-1603-7
Biography of Lev Shternberg (1861–1927)
illuminating the development of professional
anthropology in late imperial and early Soviet
Russia. Shternberg was a political exile during
the late tsarist period and was one of the
anthropologists who played a major role in
influencing the professionalization of anthropology
in the Soviet Union.
MAIMONIDES IN HIS WORLD: PORTRAIT
OF A MEDITERRANEAN THINKER
Sarah Stroumsa
Princeton University Press, 2009. $39.50
ISBN: 978-0-691-13763-6
This book challenges prevailing views of
Maimonides by revealing him to have wholeheartedly
lived, breathed, and espoused the rich
Mediterranean culture of his time.
WHAT I THOUGHT I KNEW
Alice Eve Cohen
Viking, 2009. $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-670-02095-9
At age forty-four, Alice starts experiencing
mysterious symptoms. After years of hormone
replacement therapy and months of Xrays
she is diagnosed with an abdominal
tumor. One CAT scan later reveals that she is
in fact six months pregnant.
Spring 5770/2010 Jewish Book World 69