Chosen Capital

"Fascinating. While each of the essays is scholarly and carefully researched, they are also most engrossing, make for enjoyable reading, and shed new light on the Jewish experience in America." * Jewish Book World * "a helpful addition to the literature. Recommended." * Choice * "The essays in Chosen Capital break new ground in the study of Jews and their relationship to American capitalism. The ideas and information presented in this exciting volume greatly expand our knowledge of a highly important, yet understudied, subject." -- Tony Michels * University of Wisconsin, Madison * "...the essays of Chosen Capital do much to jump-start an emerging fieldmost importantly by identifying niche economies." * The Journal of American History * "Fascinating. While each of the essays is scholarly and carefully researched, they are also most engrossing, make for enjoyable reading, and shed new light on the Jewish experience in America." * Jewish Book World * "a helpful addition to the literature. Recommended." * Choice * "The essays in Chosen Capital break new ground in the study of Jews and their relationship to American capitalism. The ideas and information presented in this exciting volume greatly expand our knowledge of a highly important, yet understudied, subject." -- Tony Michels * University of Wisconsin, Madison * "...the essays of Chosen Capital do much to jump-start an emerging fieldmost importantly by identifying niche economies." * The Journal of American History *

REBECCA KOBRIN is the Russell and Bettina Knapp Assistant Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University. She has published widely on issues concerning American Jewish history and East European Jewish migration and is the author of Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.

The chosen people in the chosen land : some thoughts on the Jewish encounter with American capitalism / Rebecca Kobrin Exceptionalisms : points of departure for studies of capitalism and Jews in the United States / Ira Katznelson The evolution of the Jewish garment industry, 1840-1940 / Phyllis Dillon and Andrew Godley From the rag trade to riches : Abraham E. Lefcourt and the building of New York's garment district / Andrew Dolkart Success from scrap and second-hand goods : Jewish businessmen in the Midwest, 1890-1930 / Jonathan Z.S. Pollack Despised merchandise : American Jewish liquor entrepreneurs and their critics / Marni Davis Blacks, Jews, and the business of race music, 1945-1955 / Jonathan Karp Jews, Indian curios, and the westward expansion of American capitalism / David Koffman The multicultural front : a Yiddish-socialist response to sweatshop capitalism / Daniel Katz Making peace with capitalism? : Jewish Socialism enters the mainstream, 1933-1944 / Daniel Soyer A Jewish "third way" to American capitalism : Isaac Rivkind and the conservative-communitarian ideal / Eli Lederhendler Sanctification of the brand name : the marketing of cantor Yossele Rosenblatt / Jeffrey Shandler How matzah became square : Manischewitz and the development of machine-made matzah in the United States / Jonathan D. Sarna