This "short history" of the synagogue in America is concise, fairly comprehensive, and the first of its kind. Marc Lee Raphael, a distinguished historian of American Judaism, has not only made use of much of the standard scholarly literature but has rummaged through countless boxes of materials of the kind seldom studied with care: synagogue bulletins, governing board minutes, and rabbis' sermons in 125 locations throughout the United States. San Francisco, Omaha, and St. Louis get their due along with the more frequently discussed synagogues of Brooklyn, Savannah, Philadelphia, and other major cities. Raphael's gracefully written book draws on all of these sources to offer a remarkably compact synoptic story, one that contributes a great deal to a full accounting of the American synagogue. (Some readers will regret the absence of footnotes in a work of such abundant scholarship.)

Other institutions have arisen over the years to make strong claims on this country's Jews. For example, from the late 19^th century through the early decades of the 20^th century, landsmanshaften, or hometown fraternal organizations, built communal relationships among Eastern . . .

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