Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area [Hardcover]

Fred Rosenbaum (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520259130 | ISBN-13: 978-0520259133 | Publication Date: November 5, 2009 | Edition: 1

Levi Strauss, A.L. Gump, Yehudi Menuhin, Gertrude Stein, Adolph Sutro, Congresswoman Florence Prag Kahn--Jewish people have been so enmeshed in life in and around San Francisco that their story is a chronicle of the metropolis itself. Since the Gold Rush, Bay Area Jews have countered stereotypes, working as farmers and miners, boxers and mountaineers. They were Gold Rush pioneers, Gilded Age tycoons, and Progressive Era reformers. Told through an astonishing range of characters and events, Cosmopolitans illuminates many aspects of Jewish life in the area: the high profile of Jewish women, extraordinary 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. Focusing in rich detail on the first hundred years after the Gold Rush, the book also takes the story up to the present day, demonstrating how unusually strong affinities for the arts and for the struggle for social justice have characterized this community even as it has changed over time. Cosmopolitans, set in the uncommonly diverse Bay Area, is a truly unique chapter of the Jewish experience in America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

According to educator and historian Rosenbaum, Bay Area Jews have encountered relatively little anti-Semitism and have been deeply enmeshed in virtually every phase of local history since the Gold Rush. While Levi Strauss is arguably the city's standout entrepreneur and Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern its most celebrated musical prodigies, other Jews are also prominent. Both Judah Magnes, founder and first chancellor of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, and influential writer Gertrude Stein credited the cultural diversity of their Oakland youth for setting them on a path of personal freedom and intellectual honesty. A patrician businessman who championed the poor, women's suffrage and an improved fire department, San Francisco's Adolph Sutro became the first Jewish mayor of a major American city in 1894. Rose Pesotta, Elaine Black and Samuel Adams Darcy were militant union organizers; and Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, became the first openly gay office holder in America. This is an absorbing and colorfully detailed story of a minority's outsized impact on its society, particularly in the spheres of the arts, business and politics. 38 b&w photos. (Dec.)
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Review

"Will significantly enhance our knowledge of Jews in the Bay Area, especially their uniqueness among America's Jewry."--American Jewish History

"An absorbing and colorfully detailed story of a minority's outsized impact on its society."--Publishers Weekly

"Excellent and thorough."--The Buffalo Jewish Review

"Excellent and thorough narrative."--Jewish Jrnl of S.florida

"Rosenbaum has written a vibrant historical narrative."--Western Historical Qtly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 462 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (November 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520259130
• ISBN-13: 978-0520259133
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,054,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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