Jewish Communities on the Ohio River: A History by Amy Hill Shevitz (review)

BOOK REVIEWS the assertion that the war ended with Lee' s is best understood as distinctly urban. surrender on April 9,1865 ( 204). Because New York in particular has often These minor quibbles aside, the IHS dominated JewishAmerican historiograhas produced a very handsome volume phy,the story of American Jews is largely that highlights items in the incredible col- one of that city writ 1===.= 1 lection that Jack Smith built up over the large. Even though half r -i course of nearly fifty years. The acquisition of them lived in three of 5 of this collection by the IHS ensures that America's largest pre- 1. 1 iT .it will be carefully preserved and accessi- World War II cities, 6 · i rjE1337 1 '' 1 1' 1' ble to the public for many years to come. half the population lived -- I Ihough the book will be of primarv inter- elsewhere, in smaller est to Lincoln specialists and collectors,the cities, towns, and even 69:IHS has performed a great service by mak- iii rural agricultural communities. ing scanned images of the entire Smith Until ven'recently the history of these Collection, fifty items from the Weinberg small communities was the provenance Collection, and the G: irdner negative of the amateur historian, genealogist, available online ( http:// www.indianahis- or atitiqu·ariati. ' Ihis picture underwent tory.org/ library/ digital image/ digitalpics. a fundamental change with Lee Shai html# lincoln smith). One can browse the Weissbach' s fee,ish Life in Small To·zoi; collections as a whole, or specific images Anterie1 2005), which provides historians can easily be found by using a variety with an insightful · aggregate of the small of search options. Educators, students, town experience across America. In this and anyone else with an interest in how regional study, Amy Hill Shevitz builds Lincoln' s image has been depicted over the on Weissbach's general model, using the years cannot afford to ignore this valuable Jewish communities of the Ohio River resource. As we approach the bicentennial Valley as the focal point for her studv. of Lincoln' s birth.it seems only fitting that In the earlb' nineteenth century,as the one of the world' s most comprehensive col- U.S. expanded into the Ohio Territory,citlections of Lincoln images is located in the ies such as Cincinnati served as anchors state where he spent much of his boyhood. for a developing trading network. Despite the significance of the Qpeen City Matthew Norman as a focal point for the development of Gettysburg College a distinct American Judaism, Shevits is careful not to make this simply a story of Amy Hill Shevitz. Jewish Commlinities Cincinnati.Instead, she demonstrates how 011 tbe Obio River.A History. Lexington: the Cincinnati Jewish experience was inteUniversity Press of Kentucky,2007. grated with those of places as diverse as 266 pp. ISBN 9780813124308 ( cloth), Portsmouth,Ohio,and Paducah,Kentucky, 50.00. where the region' s Jews resided as well. In 1939, approximately half of the Shevitz' s study provides both corroboAmerican Jewish population lived in r· ation,and corrective,to the stand·ard histoChicago ,Baltimore,and New York City,a riography ofAmerican Jewry. For example, statistic that has often convinced histori- the first decades of the nineteenth century ans that the American Jewish experience are regarded as the « German period"in WINTER 2007 77 BOOK REVIEWS American Jewish history,so called because of the influx of the Germanspeaking Jews of Central Europe who started life on the frontier as peddlers and evolved into settled entrepreneurs. Shevitz finds this pattern is largely accurate, although even during the socalled Germ·an period the Ohio River communities assimilated a great number of Alsatian Jews. In addition, Shevitz is one of a cadre of historians to challenge the conventional wisdom that these early Jewish immigrants were anxious to shed their Jewish identities and assimilate into the American mainstream.What emerges from these pages is an extensive network of communication and familial ties that provided such things as business partnerships , suitable marriage partners, and religious support across the region. Shevitz asserts that although the secular organizations, such as the fraternal order of B'nai B' rith, tended to dominate Jewish life...