Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area.(Brief article)(Book review)

Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area

Fred Rosenbaum. Univ. of California, $39.95 (480p) ISBN 978-0-520-25913-3

According to educator and historian Rosenbaum, Bay Area Jews have encountered relatively little anti-Semitism and have been deeply enmeshed in virtually every phase of local history since the Gold Rush. While Levi Strauss is arguably the city's standout entrepreneur and Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern its most celebrated musical prodigies, other Jews are also prominent. Both Judah Magnes, founder and first chancellor of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, and influential writer Gertrude Stein credited …