Shul with a Pool: The "Synagogue-Center" in American Jewish History (review)

156 SHOFAR Fall 2000 Vol. 19, No.1 course, the fact that race, class, gender, and the nature ofthe economic system sharply defme the paths that most people take in their lifetimes. Repetition ofthis observation, however, is unnecessary. Who disputes these contentions? It is important, though, for a scholar to show how other factors, such as religion, defense organizations, and governmental policies, have also affected change and development. The author often notes that opportunities for Jews, especially males, expanded after World War II, but never once does she acknowledge the influence and activities of groups like the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the AntiDefamation League of B'nai B'rith, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Japanese American Citizens League, et aI., which helped bring about these changes. Nor does she connect in any way the decline ofbigoted behavior with specific legislation passed by cities, states, and the federal government. It took a great deal ofeffort to move society in a more democratic direction after World War II; changes did not take place simply because ofthe economy and the move to the suburbs. Brodkin's final sentence states: "The challenge for American Jews today is to confront that whiteness as part ofdeveloping an American Jewishness that helps build an explicitly multiracial democracy in the United States" (p. 187). Let me suggest to her that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American Jews who think neither about "multiracial democracy" nor about "American Jewishness." They lead their lives as they see fit, incorporating or eliminating those aspects oftheir heritage that suit their needs. They are rarely troubled by the problems ofothers. An outrnarriage rate ofover 50 percent indicates that most Jews have more pressing issues in their lives. And while few Jews oppose "multiracial democracy," even fewer are now on the front lines of the battle. Leonard Dinnerstein Judaic Studies University of Arizona Shul with a Pool: The "Synagogue-Center" in American Jewish History, by David Kaufman. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England and Brandeis University Press, 1999. 329 pp. $50.00 (c); $24.95 (p). From "open temples," "peoples' synagogues," and JCC's to the Celibates, a Jewish singles society of the early twentieth century, American Jews over the years have repeatedly tried their hand at rendering Jewishness fresh, appealing, and timeless. Finding just the right balance between the weight oftradition and the pull ofmodemity has not been easy, especially when, as Rabbi Leo Franklin observed in 1902, "it is the curse ofour day that the club and not the synagogue has become the centre ofour life." Some American Jews, seeking to attract the "unsynagogued," believed that shifting the Sabbath to Sunday might do the trick. Placing more of a premium on the sermon Book Reviews 157 than on worship, advocates of the Sunday Sabbath eagerly likened the sanctuary to a university auditorium and the rabbi to an educator. Others sought salvation in the "bowling alleys, athletic grounds, fashionable bathrooms" and gymnasiums of the Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA) where young men-and later still, young women as well-might enjoy the company of their own kind. By the 1920s, growing numbers of American Jews began to place their faith in a brand new venture: the synagogue-center or, as it was more widely known, the "shul with a pool." As historian David Kaufman writes in his exceedingly detailed account of its origins, the synagogue-center fired the collective imagination of postwar American Jewry. Spearheaded by the laity and sanctionedby its rabbis, shuls with pools spread like wildfire throughout the country, prompting one eyewitness to observe that it had become a "daily occurrence" to read in the Jewish press of yet another synagogue-center in the works. With a young, energetic staff, a dazzling array of programs-lectures, clubs, classes, anddances-and a beautiful complex ofarchitecturally distinguished buildings, the "shul with a pool" had a lot going for it. More to the point, it had an ideology. Fashioned in large measure by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, who would subsequently draw on his experiences as founder of Manhattan's Jewish Center to develop the Reconstructionistmovement, the synagogue-center was designed...