Cosmopolitans

by Rosenbaum, Fred

• ISBN13: 9780520259133
• ISBN10: 0520259130
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-05
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

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,Cosmopolitansilluminates 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.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Boomtown: Tumult and Triumph in Gold Rush San Francisco	p. 1
Pride of Place	p. 2
The Journey	p. 4
Turmoil and Temptation	p. 7
"A Man Got One Misfortune...after the Other"	p. 9
Hope	p. 12
The Search for Spiritual Leadership	p. 18
Civic Duty	p. 24
More Than Mere Tolerance	p. 29
United in the Face of Crisis	p. 32
An Emergent Jewish Identity	p. 34
Woven into the Fabric: The Confident Community of the Gilded Age	p. 36
War in the East, Embarrassment at Home	p. 37
"Mucho Dinero"	p. 40
A Web of Institutions	p. 45
Victorians	p. 52
"That Lurking Prejudice"	p. 55
A Volcanic Press	p. 59
Court Jester	p. 65
Athens of the Pacific	p. 65
Rooted Cosmopolitans: The Cultural Creativity, of the Second Generation	p. 69
A Daring Theater	p. 72
"The Stein Corporation"	p. 81
Paris of the West	p. 87
The Creative Frontier	p. 90
Gump's and the Bridge to Asia	p. 95
People of the Body	p. 97
Eden on the Pacific: The Challenges to Judaism at the Turn of the Century	p. 101
Religion of Reason	p. 103
One Synagogue's Struggles	p. 110
A Fading Jewish Identity	p. 115
Jewish Girls and "Spiritual Trials"	p. 119
Alternative Beliefs	p. 123
Reorientation and Revival	p. 126
Healing California: Jewish Reformers and Revolutionaries in the Progressive Era	p. 132
Free Enterprise	p. 133
Adolph Sutro and the Common Good	p. 137
Fighting for Farmers	p. 139
"Champion of the Migrants"	p. 146
Women and Progress	p. 149
Public Morals, Public Health	p. 154
Prison Reform	p. 156
Mysterious Neighbors	p. 158
Revolutionary Goals	p. 161
Trials: Firestorms and Corruption, Terrorism and World War	p. 167
Destruction	p. 168
Rebirth	p. 172
Disgrace	p. 175
"Dynamiters"	p. 183
Red Scare	p. 192
Hyper-Patriotism	p. 193
With a Yiddish Accent: East European Jewish Neighborhoods	p. 197
"An Invasion from the East"	p. 200
South of the Slot	p. 204
Out the Road	p. 207
The Fabulous Fillmore	p. 210
A Variety of Ideologies	p. 216
Farmer-Intellectuals	p. 220
Across the Bay	p. 222
Musical Genius	p. 225
Moving out and Moving Up	p. 229
Good Times: The Jewish Elite between, the Wars	p. 233
A Golden Dome	p. 235
Sacred Service	p. 237
The Third Generation	p. 240
Walter Haas and Dan Koshland	p. 245
The Public Good	p. 247
Taking Care of One's Own	p. 251
Social Quotas, Evangelical Pressures	p. 254
"Unhappy Publicity"	p. 257
In the Political Arena	p. 259
With an Irish Accent	p. 263
Both Sides of the Barricades: Jews and Class Conflict during the Depression	p. 266
"Drive the Smugness out of the Strong"	p. 268
Art and Protest	p. 274
1934	p. 278
Tar and Feather Justice	p. 285
Reds	p. 288
A Time to Build	p. 292
Cataclysms: Responses to the Holocaust and Zionism	p. 298
The White Jew	p. 299
Facing the Uprooted	p. 302
Seeking a Low Profile	p. 304
Double Bind	p. 306
A Rabbi's Wrath	p. 309
"Deep Breach"	p. 311
"Where Do You Stand" on Zionism?	p. 314
Common Ground	p. 321
Cosmopolitans	p. 327
Epilogue: Legacies of the First Century	p. 333
The Demographic Transformation	p. 334
From Laggard to Leader	p. 337
The Cosmopolitan Constant	p. 341
Notes	p. 359
Index	p. 415
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