Book Notes

ISBN 978-0-520-25913-3. Since the Gold Rush, Bay Area Jews have countered stereotypes, working as farmers and miners, boxers and mountaineers. Told through a range of characters and events, Cosmopolitans illuminates many aspects of Jewish life in the area: the high profile of Jewish women, achievements in the business world, the cultural creativity of the second generation, the bitter debate about the proper response to the Holocaust and Zionism, and much more. Berman investigates a wide range of sources - radio and television broadcasts, bestselling books, sociological studies, debates about Jewish marriage and intermarriage, Jewish missionary work, and more - to reveal how rabbis, intellectuals, and others created a seemingly endless array of explanations about why Jews were indispensable to American life.