| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1 | The History Cooperative

Judith Tydor Baumel. The "Bergson Boys" and the Origins of Contemporary Zionist Militancy. Translated by Dena Ordan. Foreword by Moshe Arens. (Modern Jewish History.) Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. 2005. Pp. xxx, 331. $45.00.
Public participation in ethnic causes has become a standard part of the American social landscape. One does not have to be Jewish, Italian, Irish, Polish, Native American, Black, Asian, or Latino to join hands. According to Judith Tydor Baumel, the practice of making mass appeals, deeply human, interdenominational, and interethnic, welcoming diplomats, ministers, and non-Jewish public officials to the podium, was popularized more than six decades ago by a tiny delegation of media-sensitive, politically savvy Jews named the "Bergson Boys." For Baumel, the issue is not whether they won or lost during the Holocaust: their legacy for the United States was how they played the media game.	1
Baumel's monograph is a translation of her previously published (1999) work. It should have a wider readership now as a study of how a marginal political lobbying group shaped its environment to suit its needs. Historiographically speaking, scholars have acknowledged this process but minimize its impact or are negatively disposed to its ultimate contribution, with the exceptions of David Wyman and Rafael Medoff. Baumel's approach relies on an examination of the group's dynamic and psychology, which are analytic rather than judgmental categories.	. . .

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