Robert A. Rockaway

Michael Alexander. Jazz Age Jews . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. viii, 239 pp.

The 1920s witnessed great changes in the American Jewish community. Jews moved out of their areas of first settlement and became increasingly assimilated into mainstream American life, and many became prominent figures in the world of popular music, film, the law, and organized crime. Paradoxically, as they strove to be fully integrated into American society, they also desired to maintain their separate Jewish identity. The tension this created has remained a central theme of the American Jewish experience. Michael Alexander has constructed an elegantly written and compelling interpretation of how that second generation of American Jews sought to resolve this conflict. In so doing, he offers fresh insights into the sources of American Jewish liberalism.