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Reviews
| Jewish Communities on the Ohio River: A History, by Amy Hill Shevitz. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007. 288 pages. $50.00 cloth.
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| In her book, Jewish Communities on the Ohio River, religious studies scholar Amy Hill Shevitz provides a detailed look at German Jewish immigrant communities on the Ohio River during the period 1830–1914. About 200,000 Jews migrated from Germany to the United States during this time period (p. 32). Shevitz discusses Jewish contributions to small towns along the river, from West Virginia to Indiana, and analyzes the way that the immigrants responded to assimilationist social pressures and the attraction of middle-class life in the United States. Special emphasis is given to developments in the cities of Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. |
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Shevitz reviews barriers to assimilation on both non-Jewish and Jewish sides. She discusses the "social anti-Semitism" (p. 171) that was part of the Civil War experience and the way that "Gentile reconceptualizing" (p. 109) allowed Jews to eventually (beginning in the nineteenth century) become part of the larger "Judeo-Christian" cultural center. Some of these ideas are found in Israel Zangwill's 1907 play, "The Melting Pot." The latter broader definition of Eurocentrism (incorporating Jews as well as Christians) did not actually become the majority ideological position in the United States until the World War II-era and thereafter, especially because of the Cold War, but its beginnings are found in the period emphasized in Shevitz's book. |
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Shevitz capably describes differences between American urban life and European village existence, such as the movement from occupations such as peddling to storekeeping. She also discusses the impact of Jewish women, and the way that American society changed them. As Shevitz puts it, "Generally speaking, the more quickly the family ascended to the middle class, the sooner the women became disengaged from the day-to-day aspects of business" (p. 57). Shevitz also explains the strong attraction of Reform Judaism to many Jews as "a concern to keep Jews Jewish" (p. 66). |
3
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The book does have a somewhat rough beginning. We do not always know exactly where the writer is going with the introductory narrative. Words like "I" and "my" are overused as she describes her operative style. In addition, the book contains some repetition as the assimilationist process is discussed in similar ways with regard to different communities. Furthermore, Shevitz often uses the ambiguous word "communal" to define a variety of different kinds of organizational structures and folkways. |
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Still, this work is an important and in-depth study of a large German-Jewish immigrant group whose members tried to maintain cultural and religious uniqueness, as a ethno-religious minority group, while simultaneously trying to fit in to mainstream American life on American's Midwestern urban frontier. |
5
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| Fresno Pacific University, California |
Rod Janzen |
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