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Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition. By Marni Davis. Goldstein-Goren Series in American Jewish History. (New York and London: New York University Press, c. 2012. Pp. x, 262. $32.00, ISBN 978-0-8147-2028-8.)
As Jewish immigrants negotiated their place in nineteenth- and twentiethcentury America, liquor, wine, and beer were never far from their lips (pun intended). True, Jews were known for their abstemious drinking habits, but the production and sale of alcoholic beverages offered economic opportunity in the United States as it had in Europe, where some Jews were vintners, brewers, liquor distributors, and taverners. However, if alcoholic drink brought prosperity, it also cast on Jews a suspicion of fostering vice, an obstacle to integration into American life.
Marni Davis offers readers a well-researched and insightful study addressing Jewish immigrant acculturation. Data on Jews, booze, and Prohibition is familiar to...