The Temple Bombing [Paperback]

Melissa Fay Greene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2006

At 3:37 in the morning of Sunday, October 12, 1958, a bundle of dynamite blew out the side wall of the Temple, Atlanta's oldest and richest synagogue. The devastation to the building was vast-but even greater were the changes those 50 sticks of dynamite made to Atlanta, the South, and ultimately, all of the United States (Detroit Free Press). Finalist for the National Book Award, The Temple Bombing is the brilliant and moving examination of one town that came together in the face of hatred, a book that rescues a slice of the civil rights era whose lessons still resonate nearly fifty years after that fateful fall day.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When the United States South went into an uproar over the 1954 Supreme Court decision in favor of integration, Jacob Rothschild--rabbi of the Temple, Atlanta's oldest and richest synagogue--responded with an outspoken defense of civil rights. "He was aware that he lived in strange times, when the pronouncement of elemental moral observations stirred political havoc." The bombing of the Temple by neo-Nazi extremists in 1958 was but one climactic moment in a progression of conflicting messages and class struggles experienced by Jews in the post-war South. Melissa Fay Greene is a fine storyteller with a rich, literary style: she portrays the social setting, as well as the crime itself and its aftermath, with a plethora of compelling details. By the end of the book, when Rabbi Rothschild is hosting a dinner for Martin Luther King in honor of his Nobel Peace Prize, the reader has gained a solid sense of a pivotal time and place in Southern history. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1958, anti-Semitic white supremacists dynamited Atlanta's oldest Jewish synagogue, whose rabbi, Pittsburgh-born Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration. A trial of the accused terrorists ended in a hung jury, and a second trial in acquittal. The Reform Jewish Temple became a rallying point uniting blacks and Jews in efforts for racial justice, and Rabbi Rothschild (who died in 1974 at the age of 62) befriended Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1960 moved home to Atlanta, the scene of many critical confrontations in the early civil rights movement. Greene recreates these events in a spellbinding narrative written with fierce moral passion and a great sense of historic drama. By delving into the exclusionary policies and attitudes of Atlanta's white Protestant elite, tensions within the city's Jewish community, related terrorist incidents and links among right-wing extremist, racist and anti-Semitic organizations, she has reclaimed a forgotten chapter of the civil rights era.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 514 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306815184
• ISBN-13: 978-0306815188
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #215,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent book about race relations, October 25, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The Temple Bombing (Hardcover)

In her tantalizing, conversational style, Melissa Faye Greene manages to bring to life one of the most painful episodes in the history of both race relations and American Judaism. Impeccably researched, Ms. Greene manages to get inside the mindset of Atlanta in the 1950's: its German Jewish community, its black community, the white power structure and the poor white society that historians largely ignore. Fortunately, Ms. Greene pays attention to the tentative steps towards civil rights taken by Atlanta's Jewish community -- and especially by its titular head, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild. For Rabbi Rothschild, and for many Reform Jewish Rabbis of his generation, social activism in the form of civil rights was modern-day equivalent of prophetic Judaism. And it was because of his activism that a group of white supremicists bombed the Temple, inflicting far more psychological and spiritual harm on the Jewish community of Atlanta than they did physical damage. All in all, Melissa Faye Greene brings her outstanding literary and research talents to bear on a formative event in the civil rights movement, an event that needed exploration and elucidation, and now an event whose definitive story has at last been put to paper.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great surprise, August 22, 1997

By 

Gary Delsohn (Corona del Mar CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Temple Bombing (Hardcover)

I didnt think i would want to read an entire book about an incident that happened in atlanta years ago and was not even one of the great watershed moments of the civil rights era. but this work goes to show that even a so-called little story in the hands of a skiled writer can become a large story about america and how we live. It is a cliche found in too many reviews, but in this case it is true: Greene tells a story with the skills of a great novelist and without realizing it we are being told an awful lot of very important history and information here. This books says so much about america and particularly the relationship betweens blacks and jews that it is a truly remarkable and valuable piece of work. its the kind of book you wish you could write and would recommend to friends of all persuasions

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, Wrong Title, January 16, 2008

By 

charles murphy "cyberchuck" (Athens, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Temple Bombing (Paperback)

I found this book to be good background reading regarding the history of Atlanta's passage through some of the important events in the civil rights turmoil of the 1950s and 1960s. However, it's not really the story of the temple bombing on October 12th, 1958. I think a better title for the book would be "A Biography of Rabbi Jack Rothschild." Rothschild was rabbi of The Temple for 28 years, including the time of the bombing. The book tracks his entire life, starting with the details of his childhood in Pittsburgh, through the story of his army service, the whole history of his leadership of The Temple, and the details of his death and funeral service. He had a great career with many important achievements, and this book describes all of them.
Rothschild was in the vanguard of those working for civil rights reform in the 1950s, and his social activism may well have led to the bombing of The Temple. However, if the goal were really to write a book focusing on the bombing of The Temple, including events leading to the event itself and the trials of the alleged bombers, it would be a very different (and shorter) book. A book truly about the temple bombing would have included a lot less biographical material about Jack Rothschild and more about other bombings and possible perpetrators of the bombing of The Temple.

It's a good book, particularly for those interested in Jack Rothschild's life, and I'm glad I read it. For those of us who were not firsthand witnesses of the overturning of legal segregation in the South, the book provides a rich and detailed timeline of some of the key events of the times. I do think a good editor could have cut the length of the book by a third, which would have given the book more impact in fewer pages.