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American Jewish Archives Journal

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Place of Birth<br />

iv • <strong>American</strong> <strong>Jewish</strong> <strong>Archives</strong> <strong>Journal</strong><br />

Rudolf B. Schmerl<br />

pp. 49–67<br />

An old correspondence file in the New York Public Library, dated from 1 January<br />

1940 to 28 July 1941, reveals an ambiguity of identity not uncommon among<br />

Diaspora Jews. The correspondence was between a young David Riesman,<br />

who went on to become one of America’s most famous sociologists, and the<br />

author’s uncle, then an impoverished and desperate refugee from Nazi Germany<br />

trying to fit into assumptions about refugees worth helping. But in this case,<br />

the author’s uncle, born in Mexico and educated in Germany in Roman law,<br />

found that in the United States the one was almost tantamount to salvation,<br />

the other totally irrelevant.<br />

Book Reviews<br />

Jeanne E. Abrams, Dr. Charles David Spivak: A <strong>Jewish</strong> Immigrant and<br />

the <strong>American</strong> Tuberculosis Movement<br />

reviewed by Ava F. Kahn<br />

pp. 69–70<br />

Lila Corwin Berman, Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the<br />

Creation of an <strong>American</strong> Public Identity<br />

reviewed by Marni Davis<br />

pp. 71–72<br />

Ellen M. Eisenberg, The First to Cry Down Injustice? Western Jews and<br />

Japanese Removal During World War II<br />

reviewed by Greg Robinson<br />

pp. 72–74<br />

Ellen Eisenberg, Ava F. Kahn, and William Toll, Jews of the Pacific<br />

Coast: Reinventing Community on America’s Edge<br />

reviewed by Hasia R. Diner<br />

pp. 74–76<br />

Dana Evan Kaplan, Contemporary <strong>American</strong> Judaism: Transformation<br />

and Renewal<br />

reviewed by Valerie Thaler<br />

pp. 76–77

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