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Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 25.2 (2007) 225-233

Book Notes

American Jewish Life

Jewish Life in Small-Town America: A History, by Lee Shai Weissbach. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. 436 pp. $45.00. ISBN 0-300-10671-8.

Exploring the history of communities of 100 to 1000 Jews, this book focuses on the years from the mid-19th century to World War II. Weissbach examines the dynamics of 490 communities across the U.S. and finds that smaller Jewish centers were not simply miniature versions of larger communities but were instead alternative kinds of communities in many respects.

The Rabbi's Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life, by Shuly Rubin Schwartz. New York: New York University Press, 2006. 312 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0-8147-4016-2.

Tracing the careers of rebbetzins from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present, Shuly Rubin Schwartz chronicles the evolution of the role from a few individual rabbis' wives who emerged as leaders to a cohort who worked together on behalf of American Judaism, built leadership roles for themselves, and shaped Jewish life in America.

Ancient World and Archaeology

The Commerce of the Sacred: Mediation of the Divine among Jews in the Greco-Roman World, by Jack N. Lightstone. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 171 pp. $69.50 (c); $26.50 (p). ISBN 0-231-12856-8 (c); 0-231-12857-6 (p).

The author offers critical perspectives on the practices and beliefs of Greco-Roman Jews who lived outside of Palestine and beyond rabbinic control or influence. He challenges the view of Judaism as a single set of practices and beliefs and argues that Jews of the Greco-Roman diaspora believed multiple points of contact between God and man could be made [End Page 225] through particular rites. This edition contains a new foreword and an updated bibliography.

The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, by Carol A. Newsom. Leiden: Brill, 2004. 376 pp. $174.00. ISBN 90-04-13803-X.

This volume investigates practices by which the Qumran community reconstructed the identity of its members. Persons who came to experience themselves in light of the symbolic structures embedded in the community practices would have developed the dispositions of affinity and estrangement necessary for the constitution of a sectarian society.

Art and Music

Marc Chagall and the Lost Jewish World, by Benjamin Harshav. New York: Rizzoli, 2006. 256 pp. $75.00. ISBN 0-8478-2802-6.

Benjamin Harshav shows the complexity and richness of the Cubist, Expressionist, and Surrealist elements in the world Chagall imbued with his own cultural influences. These included allusions to Jewish language, imagery, and folklore, which he blended with Christian motifs to create a dialogue between the two cultures.

Biblical and Rabbinic Literature

The Ladder of Jacob: Ancient Interpretations of the Biblical Story of Jacob and His Children, by James L. Kugel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 262 pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-691-12122-2.

The stories in Genesis, especially those about Jacob and his family, have posed problems for biblical interpreters. James Kugel looks at this dysfunctional family which, as founders of the nation of Israel, ought to have been a model of virtue.

History and Politics

Hell in the Holy Land: World War I in the Middle East, by David R. Woodward. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. 253 pp. $29.95. ISBN 0-8131-2383-6.

The view that the Turkish theater during World War I was somehow less brutal than on the European battlefields is challenged by this book. David R. Woodward uses archival records of letters by British soldiers to describe [End Page 226] not only the horrors of combat but the daily struggles of soldiers who were stationed in an unfamiliar environment.

The Sephardic Frontier: The Reconquista and the Jewish Community in Medieval Iberia, by Jonathan Ray. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. 198 pp. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-8014-4401-2.

Jonathan Ray discusses the reconquista, the rapid expansion of the power of the Christian kingdoms...

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