American Jewish Archives Journal

of discerning the path ahead or of knowing which course of action best served
national and Jewish interests. They show, moreover, the preacher’s struggle to
interpret questions of slavery, colonial rebellion, or of Jew fighting against Jew
in opposing armies, in light of Jewish principles and in a manner that would
offer comfort, courage, or guidance to his or her congregation.
In reading though this provocative collection of British and American
sermons there are times when one wishes for more. What, for example, did
French Jewish preachers have to say about Napoleon and his wars? How did
Prussian Jews interpret the events of the Franco-Prussian War? How did Russian
rabbis address the events of World War I? Saperstein reasonably argues that,
given the immense volume of possible source material available, he chose to
survey Jewish preaching in English-speaking lands rather than to investigate
different Jewish perspectives on any one conflict. That, he claims, would be
work for a different book and further explorations of Jewish preaching in the
modern era. Given the value of the material Saperstein presents here, one can
only hope that other such studies will follow.
Jessica Cooperman is the Posen Foundation Teaching Fellow in Jewish Studies at
Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She is currently working on a book
examining the impact of World War I Jewish military service and the work of the Jewish
Welfare Board on American conceptions of Jewishness.
84 • American Jewish Archives Journal