Book Notes

166 American Jewish Life Book Notes SHOFAR Fa111997 Vol. 16, No.1 Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, by Elliott Abrams. New York: Free Press, 1997. 242 pp. $25.00 (c). ISBN 0-684-82511-2. Elliott Abrams contends that too many American Jews today feel that being a "good Jew" has more to do with shared political views or ethnic interests than it does with shared religious faith. He traces the development of this idea, but argues that this kind of sense of "Judaism" is no longer grounded in Judaism itself and cannot be passed across generations. Abrams takes the position that Jews must understand their communities as religious communities. Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival ofan American Jewish Community, edited by Dan Rottenberg. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 184 pp. $19.95. ISBN 0-253-33243-5. In Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937) Robert and Helen Lynd set out to study a typical American community. Their reports run to nearly 1,200 pages, and virtually nothing in the typically American town of Muncie, Indiana, escaped their notice, including a few references to a minuscule and virtually anonymous Jewish community. This book addresses the Jewish experience in this Middletown and many sirnilar communities across the Midwest. Ancient World and Archaeology Cities of the Biblical World: An Introduction to the Archaeology, Geography, and History of Biblical Sites, by LaMoine F. DeVries. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997. 400 pp. $34.95.. ISBN 1-56563-145-5. The author details the evolution ofsignificant sites from villages and towns to cities which became centers for trade, religious activities; defense, cultural groups, industry, and government. This study concentrates on the cities in Mesopotamia, Aram/Syria and Phoenicia, Anatolia, Egypt, and Palestine during the Old Testament period, and Palestine and the provinces of the P,oman world during the New Testament period. The volume includes maps, line art, and photographs. Gods, Goddesses, and Images ofGod in Ancient Israel, by Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997. 512 pp. $45.00 (c). ISBN 0-8006-2789- Book Notes x. 167 How were male and female deities understood i~ ancient Canaan and Israel? Did Yahweh, the God of Israel, ever have a divine consort or partner? How was the Yahweh cult affected by religious and political features of Egypt, Assyria, and Canaan? Vindicating the use of symbols and visual remains to investigate ancient religion, the authors reconstruct the emergence and development of the Yahweh cult in relation to its immediate neighbors and competitors. Jahwe und die andered Gotter: Studien zur Religionsgeschichte des antiken Israel in ihrem syrisch-paliistinischen Kontext (Yahweh and the Other Gods: Essays on the History ofthe Religion ofAncient Israel in its Syrian-Palestinian Context), by Manfred Weippert. Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997. 280 pp. DM 190.00 (c). ISBN 3-16146592 -X. This volume contains a selection ofnine essays written by the author between 1961 and 1991, all of which deal either exclusively or to a large extent with deities who played an important part in the religion ofancient Israel and Judah. The focal point of the essays is Yahweh, "the God of Israel." The author examines the numerous attestations to his existence in the Old Testament and in non-biblical texts and does a precise study of how he can be visualized and of his relationship to war and to sleep. (in German) Rabbinic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collection: The New Series ofthe Taylor-Schechter Collection, edited by Robert Brody and E. 1. Weisenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 320 pp. $145.00 (c). ISBN 0-521-58400-0. This volume contains descriptions, including in many cases precise identifications, of approxiInately 6,000 manuscript fragments from the Taylor-Schechter New Series originating in the Genizah of Cairo, and now at Cambridge University Library. The emphasis is on classical and medieval rabbinic literature, but many fragments belonging to other gemes, which were placed in boxes dedicated to Talmudic and rabbinic literature, are also described. Art, Music, and Film The Art ofPassover, compiled and edited by Stephan O. Parnes. Southport, CT: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1997. 128 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0-88363-483-X. This collection...