Book Notes

144 SHOFAR Summer 1995 Vol. 13, No.4 BOOK NOTES Annotations of books written by Walter Hirsch of Purdue University and Nina Haberer of West Lafayette, Indiana, are identified by their initials. American Jewish Life The Americanjew: Voices from an Americanjewish Community, by Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. 369 pp. $19.99 (P). ISBN 0-8028-4138-4. The authors spent four months in a typical American city and interviewed more than one hundred individuals from a broad spectrum ofJewish life, in order to examine the question of how and why the Jewish community is more influential than ever before. A Gay Synagogue in New York, by Moshe Shokeid. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. 270 pp. $49.50 (c); $15.50 (p). ISBN 0-231-084609 (c); 0-231-08461-7 (P). Moshe Shokeid spent thirteen months with the congregation of Beth Simchat Torah in Greenwich Village, the largest gay synagogue in the United States. Here he recounts the personal experiences and life histories of many of the congregants, illustrating the communal issues and personal dilemmas involved in being both Jewish and gay or lesbian. jewish Farmers of the Catskills: A Century of Survival, by Abraham D. Lavender and Clarence B. Steinberg. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995. 271 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0-8130-1343-7. For almost a century, the largest concentration of Jewish farmers outside of Russia or Israel survived as a community in upstate New York, on land that others in the area essentially had abandoned. Using archival records and extensive interviews with the farm families and others, the authors tell of the immigrants from Eastern Europe and NewYork's Lower East Side who established cooperative organizations to market milk, mill feed, and provide fire insurance, overcoming antisemitism and economic hardship. Book Notes 145 1be Wonders ofAmerica: ReinventingJewish Culture 1880-1950, byJenna Weissman Joselit. New York: Hill & Wang, 1995. 349 pp. $25.00. ISBN 0-8090-2757-7. The author examines how the everyday choice of Jews in America reinforced and reaffirmed their identity as a group in the years prior to 1950. She traces the process by which the cohesive structure and system of beliefs of the Jewish ghetto came undone in the New World and were reassembled to form a new Jewish identity. Ancient World and Archaeology Sage, Priest, Prophet: Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel, by Joseph Blenkinsopp. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995. 208 pp. $19.00 (c). ISBN 0-664-21954-3. Joseph Blenkinsopp investigates the three forms of biblical Israel's intellectual and religious leadership: the sage, the priest, and the prophet. The people who occupied these roles were directly responsible for what has appeared in the Old Testament texts. Blenkinsopp looks at the development and character of these roles and how they functioned in their particular time and place. Using sociological insights regarding role theory and audience expectations, the book demonstrates how Israel's prophets, priests, and sages represented their own traditions while responding to the political and professional pressures of their unique situations. 1be Sea of Galilee Boat: An Extraordinary 2,000 Year Old Discovery, by Shelley Wachsmann. New York: Plenum Press, 1995. 399 pp. $24.95 (c). ISBN 0-306-44950-1. In 1986 two amateur archaeologists discovered the hull of a boat embedded in the exposed mud of the Sea of Galilee. Nautical archaeologist Shelley Wachsmann led the team that unearthed the boat, believed to be from the first century C.E. The author tells the story of the recovery of the boat and discusses several theories of its past. 146 SHOFAR Summer 1995 Vol. 13, No.4 Biblical and Rabbinic Literature The Bible, Violence, and tbe Sacred: Liberation from tbe Myth of . Sanctioned Violence, by James c. Williams. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1995. 304 pp. $16.00 (P). ISBN 1-56338-116-8. In this book James Williams applies Rene Girard's theories on violence, civilization, and religion to the whole Bible, arriving at a proposal for a biblical theology of the nonviolent God. The Classic Midrasb: Tannaitic Commentaries on tbe Bible, translation, introduction and commentaries by Reuven Hammer. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1995. 528 pp...