Book Notes

174 American Jewish Life SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 Book Notes Facing the New World: Jewish Portraits in Colonial andFederal America, by Richard Brilliant. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1999. 128 pp. $49.95. ISBN 3-7913-1863-2. Richard Brilliant identifies particular modes of representation of early American Jews and traces the evolution of Jewish self-portrayal from the Colonial to the Federal period. A Second Exodus: The American Movement to Free Soviet Jews, edited by Murray Friedman and Albert D. Chemin. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999. 256 pp. $45.00 (c); $17.95 (p). ISBN 0-87451-912-8 (c); 0-87451-913-6 (p). Since the early 1960s, some 1.3 million Jews from the Soviet Union and its successor states have immigrated to the West, primarily to Israel and the United States. Largely because ofthe imaginative and skillful mobilization efforts ofJews and their friends throughout the world, this great exodus had important ramifications for U.S. relations with the Soviet Union/Russia and Israel. This book chronicles this movement. Art, Music, and Film Anselm Kiefer and Art After Auschwitz, by Lisa Saltzman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 173 pp. $40.00. ISBN 0-521-63033-9. This book examines the legacy of German-Jewish culture in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Positioning Kiefer as a deeply learned artist who encounters and represents history in painted rather than written form, Lisa Saltzman contends that his work is unique among postwar German artists in his persistent exploration of the legacy of fascism. Kabbalah and Art, by Leo Bronstein. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998. 129 pp. $49.95 (c). ISBN 1-56000-353-7. Told as a series of reflections, this book traces the common ground between cultures as diverse as pre-Vedic India, medieval Central Europe, and late nineteenth-century France. An array ofseemingly unrelated artists is encountered and woven together. At once separating and connection them is the presence ofthe Kabbalah and the correlation between art and this mystic Jewish thought. Book Notes 175 Mutual Reflections: Jews andBlacks in American Art, by Milly Heyd. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. 272 pp. 112 b&w illustrations. $50.00 (c); $24.00 (p). ISBN 0-8135-2617-5 (c); 0-8135-2618-3 (p). Milly Heyd investigates how artists of both Jewish American and African American backgrounds have viewed each other during the last hundred years by exploring painting, sculpture, cartoons, comics, and installations. Synagogues, by Samuel D. Gruber. New York: FriedmanlFairfax Publishers, 1999. 120 pp. $16.98 (c). ISBN 1-56799-742-2. This illustrated volume traces the history of the synagogue as an institution and follows the development of synagogue art and architecture through the ages and across continents. Biblical and Rabbinic Literature David: BiblicalPortraits o/Power, by Marti 1. Steussy. Columbia: University ofSouth Carolina Press, 1998. 251 pp. $34.95. ISBN 1-57003-250-5. This volume, written for the nonspecialist, explores the Hebrew Bible's three major portraits ofDavid-found in 1and 2 Samuel, 1Chronicles, and Psalms-and what each implies about the relation between divine and worldly power. David: Power, Lust and Betrayal in Biblical Times, by Jerry M. Landay. Berkeley: Seastone, 1998. 192 pp. $19.00. ISBN 1-56975-159-5. A recounting ofthe fate ofIsrael's most famous king, David is the story of a man of ambition, complexity, talent, and human frailty. This sketch of David emphasizes his humanity, rather than being either a political chronicle or a testimony to a mythic figure. Ethics and the Old Testament, by John Barton. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998. 112 pp. $12.00 (p). ISBN 1-56338-234-2. John Barton shows that Old Testament ethical ideas are complex but unified to some extent. He uses the specifics of laws and rules and precepts, as well as narratives and stories, as illustrative ofthe Old Testament's moral program. Eve andAdam: Jewish, Christian, andMuslim Readings onGenesis andGender, edited by Kristen E. Kvam, Linda S. Schearing, and Valarie H. Ziegler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. 536 pp. $49.95 (c); $24.95 (p). ISBN 0-253-33490-X (c); 0253 -21271-5 (p). These chapters offer a history of the interpretation...