Book Notes

Book Notes BOOK NOTES 179 American Jewish Life Amerlcanjewish Year Book, edited by the American Jewish Committee. New York: American Jewish Committee, 1996. 644 pp. $35.00. ISBN 087495 -110-0. This year's compendium includes "Jewish Experience on Film-An American Overview," by Joel Rosenberg, and "Israelis in the United States," by Steven J. Gold and Bruce Phillips, plus Jewish population estimates, reports on Jewish communities around the world, updates on the American Jewish community, directories of Jewish national organizations, obituaries, Hebrew calendars, etc. Our Parents' Lives: jewish Assimilation and Everyday Life, by Neil Cowan and Ruth Schwanz Cowan. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996. 336 pp. $26.95. ISBN 0-8135-2296-X. The Cowans interviewed 100 Eastern European Jews, born 'either in the United States or abroad between 1895 and 1915, and obtained stories of their experiences of assimilation into American life. Unfinished People: Eastern European jews Encounter America, by Ruth Gay. New York: Nonon, 1996. 301 pp. $27.50. ISBN 0-383-03991-9. Between 1880 and the outbreak of the First World War, nearly three million Eastern European Jews came to America. Ruth Gay describes the cultural spirit that enabled them to resist assimilation while seeking their fottunes.in a new world. Ancient World and Archaeology Sacred Realm: The Emergence 'of the Synagogue in the' Ancient World, edited by Steven Fine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 203 pp. $25.00. ISBN 0-19-510225-8. This book offers an overview of the historical, archaeological, and literary development of the synagogue from the third century B.C.E. to ca. 700 C:E. by an international team of scholars. In describing more than 200 ancient synagogues in the Greco-Roman world and their place in the history of Judaism and Western civilization, this book shows how the synagogue came to be the most imponant institution in Jewish life. 180 SHOFAR Winter 1997 Vol. 15, No.2 Art and Music The Landscape of Belief Encountering tbe Holy Land in NineteenthCentury American Art and Culture, by John Davis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. 264 pp. $65.00. ISBN 0-691-04373-6. This book tells of the nineteenth-century American painters who, along with photographers, archaeologists, writers, evangelists, and tourists, flocked to the biblical Holy Land, a world of landscape vistas that reflected, in their eyes, a powerful image of the United States. Through close readings ofpanoramas, photographs, and conventional easel paintings, John Davis examines the ways in nineteenth-century Americans looked to the actual landscape of the Holy Land as an extension of their national identity. Moments inJewisb Life: The Folk Art ofMalcab Zeldis, text by Yona Zeldis McDonough. New York: Friedman/Fairfax, 1996. 96 pp. $22.50. ISBN . 1-56799-368-0. The vibrantly colored, emotionally rich paintings of artist Malcah Zeldis present a visual journey through the significant moments in Jewish life, with an accompanying text by Zeldis' daughter. Biblical and Rabbinic literature Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature ofthe Old Testament, by William P. Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996. 184 pp. $17.00. ISBN 0-8028-4135-X. In this study William P. Brown demonstrates that the aim of the Bible's wisdom literature is the formation of the moral character of both individuals and the believing community. Brown traces the theme of moral identity through Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes and concludes with a reflection on the Epistle of James in the New Testament, which he claims brings the insights in the Old Testament into a Christian context. The Genesis ofEthics: How the Tormented Family of Genesis Leads Us to Moral Development, by Burton L Visotzky. New York: Crown Publishers, 1996. 224 pp. $20.00. ISBN 0-517-70299-1. Visotzky points out that Genesis can be read as "an ugly little soap opera about a dysfunctional family." The dilemmas that face the characters in the story resonate with such themes as murder, rape, infidelity, and incest, and mirror such contemporary social issues as racism, sexual politicS, and gender relations. Visotzky claims, however, that this story, and not secular works, provides an appropriate basis Book Notes 181 to consider contemporary moral issues, and argues...