Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History (review)

356Southwestern Historical QuarterlyJanuary (p. 2-3) . Like Michele Accolti in San Franciscojesuits moved between western communities , interactingwith Indians, Hispanics, and European immigrants in schools, parishes, and districts. McKevitt shows howJesuits' foreign nationalities helped them win the trust ofmarginalized groups mistrustful ofProtestantAmerica. At the same time,Jesuits' unfamiliarity with the West's religious plurality tended to make them "polemical and adversarial" toward Protestants (p. 239). In the Southwest,Jesuits mediated between Anglo culture and californio, tejano, and nuevomexicano cultures even as diey propagated a proudly Old World Catholicism. With its important themes of transnationalism and religious accommodation , Brokers of Culture deserves a wider reading audience than it will likely find. Its abundance of detail and slow start—ninety pages pass before McKevitt turns his attention to the actual West—may hinder its attractiveness to nonspecialists of Catholic history. However, the book's coundess stories of individualJesuits, placed as they are widiin a broader international context, reward the patient reader with a new understanding ofa largely misunderstood and ignored religious subculture that left an enduring mark on die American West. University ofCalifornia, Los AngelesJoshua Paddison Jewish Roots in Southern Soil:A NewHistory. Edited by Marcie Cohen Ferris and Mark I. Greenberg. (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2006. Pp. 384. Illustrations , notes, index. ISBN 1584655887. $65.00, cloth. ISBN 1584655895. $29.95, paper.) Because the firstJews came to America in 1 654, a "stream ofbooks and essays" (p. xi) has been published in recent years to commemorate die 250dl anniversary of that event. Among these have been anthologies focusing on specific states and regions, such as Lone Stars ofDavid: TL·Jews of Texas (2007), edited by Hollace Ava Weiner and Kenneth D. Roseman, andJewish Life in tL· American West (2002), edited by Ava F. Kahn.Jewish Roots in Southern Soil (2006) is a "timely contribution" (p. xi) to that genre. Composed ofthirteen carefully researched essays by noted scholars,Jewish Roots offers "a rich gumbo ofideas and observations" (p. x). The introduction provides a concise overview ofJews in Southern history. Chapters one through eight are organized chronologically, beginning with "One Religion, Different Worlds: Sephardic and Ashkenazic Immigrants in Eighteenth-Century Savannah" and concluding with "A Tangled Web: Blackjewish Relations in the Twentieth-Century South." Topics as diverse asJewish women writers andJewish Confederates are included. The remaining five analytical essays cover broader themes, such as "sacred and profane" food (p. 226), material culture, and demographic information. According to the editors, "all AmericanJews . . . have two things in common" (p. 19). One is "dieirJewish heritage" (p. 19). The other is the strong influence of "the places they call home" (p. 19). The authors ofthe essays agree that historically there has been "a distinctive SoudiernJewish history and identity" (back cover) . That identity is "compounded ofrural and small towns, soudiern mores—especially racial 2??8Book Reviews357 practices—andjewish traditions" (back cover) . Motivated by economic opportunity, SouthernJews inhabited "a region not famous for cherishing pluralism" (p. 309). They often made a number ofaccommodations "to fit into dieir surroundings" (p. 2gg). For some, these adaptations included abandoning traditional religious practices in favor ofthe Reform movement "with its English prayers and Christian-based elements" (p. 299) and also accepting the necessity of doing business on the Sabbath (Saturdays). Others intermarried with gentiles and began to attend Christian churches. By assimilating to a greater or lesser degree,Jews in the South once again proved "thatJudaism can endure in die most ominous conditions" (p. 2). The authors disagree as to whether a distinctive Southern Jewish identity still exists, because die "mercantile and village way of life is dying" (p. 326). Despite diis debate, diey argue that SoudiernJewry is alive and well. Adanta, for example, has become a "center ofAmericanJewish life" (p. 294) and has experienced an increase in die number of Orthodox congregations. Even more significandy, despite the stagnatingJewish population in die United States overall, the number ofJews in the Soudi has doubled in the lastseventyyears. These newcomers to the Sunbelt are urban professionals lured by economic opportunities and senior citizens seeking to retire. As one author hypothesized, these new SouthernJews will adapt but in different ways than earlier generations. They "will find dieirAmerican,Jewish and Soudiern identities becoming intertwined like a challah [braided...