Jews
and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition, M. Davis (New York,
New York University Press: 2012) x + 261.[1]
Religion performs, not just in sacred space, but in public
space. Marni DavisՊbook, Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition,
illustrates this with depth, skill, and grace.
When Jesus offered drink to his disciples at the Last
Supper, did he offer wine or raisin juice? And when he turned water into wine
in Cana, was it the despised fermented brew or the blessed unfermented
concoction? If you were a Christian temperance activist or a religious Jew, the
answer was important.
More significantly, oneճ
attitude to the following questions, as a Jew and, more importantly, as a
member of a formal Jewish organization, formed the basis of oneճ
Jewish religious / secular identity: Does one approve of Jews who work in the
alcohol industry? What if they are working when it is illegal? What if they are
exploiters, maybe even criminals? What is oneճ
attitude toward Դhe law of the landՠwhen
it forbids the use of alcohol: must the law be enforced even if one disagrees
with it in principle or, must one defy the law since it restricts oneճ religious freedom? And, what is to be oneճ attitude, as a Jew, toward Christian temperance
movements, and later toward the Christian-dominated prohibition movement? Are
they trying to Christianize America? What does one do about this, if anything?
Christian religion is also performing during this period:
What does a roperՠChristian think about the Irish
and the Lutherans who drink liquor? Does prohibition forbid the use of wine in
communion? Are the Jews, who are active in the alcohol trade, the embodiment of
the anti-Christ?
Then there is the overlap of such issues as: race and
religion especially in the South, anti-Semitism, Germanism especially as the
United States enters into World War I, and ҦoreignersӠwho
are muscling their way into ҁmericanӠsociety. The exchanges got pretty
intense, with references to ҷhiskey AmazonsӠand Үigger gin.Ӽ/p>
Marni Davis has done a very good job of presenting this
performance of religion, patriotism, bigotry, free trade, and immigrant
anxiety. She distinguishes three periods in the history of Jews and the alcohol
trade. The first, the early and mid-nineteenth century, is the period of
growth. The American population drinks a lot and the Jews see the
entrepreneurial opportunity and seize it, helping to create the production,
distribution, and retail of liquor and beer (wine was not popular until later).
This moment in history also allowed Jews to provide in-group, economic and
social assistance to one another.
The second period, the latter part of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, is the period of the growth of the anti-alcohol /
temperance movement. Motivated by a Christian puritanical view of America as
well as by a fear of the influx of German, Jewish, Irish, and Italian
immigrants, the temperance movement took a strong stance against the production
and consumption of alcohol. The attack of ҭodern
amusements, mass production, and cosmopolitanism economically undermined the
middle class, subverted gender roles, and encouraged youth to embrace a
pleasure-seeking ethosӠ(160).
Matters become very complex: East European Jews, with long
backgrounds as taverners, are streaming into the country,
as are more Irish and Italians. In the South, the issue is deepened by beliefs
about Negro drunkenness and sexual appetite, and the role of the Jew in the
production, distribution, and retail sale of alcohol to Negroes. World War I adds to the complexity. So does
consideration of such constitutional issues as the restriction of free trade
and property rights. So does the fact that prohibition
will deprive the government of the excise tax on alcohol that amounts to one
third of the revenue of the federal government. The Great Depression is also
part of this picture. But nothing deters the prohibitionist forces who
intensify their work, envisioning it as a life-and-death struggle in which the
purity of American Christian values and women does battle with the evil of
alcohol.
The third period is that of prohibition: the passage of laws
forbidding the production and sale of alcohol of any kind: Georgia is the first
(1907) and the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution concludes the process
with ratification in 1919 and enforcement in 1920. Two problems arose
immediately: Those interested in continuing to ply their trade and those
interested in continuing to drink, simply went illegal, which led to Ңootlegging,ӊa
phenomenon so widespread that, during the thirteen years that prohibition was
in effect, it encouraged widespread contempt of the law and the formation of
organized crime. Second, the Volstead Act that enabled enforcement of
prohibition provided two exceptions: alcohol could be used for ҭedicinalӊpurposes and also for ҳacramentalӠpurposes.
While completely legitimate, one can envisage what an imaginative producer,
dealer, or seller could do. For the Jews, this meant a series of scandals
involving rabbis and false rabbis who sold ҳacramentalӠwine
illegally and, in so doing, besmirched the established and the newly immigrant
Jewish communities.
Davis clearly analyzes the end of prohibition: Alcohol
proved not to be such a dangerous substance. Defiance of the law turned out to
be worse. The ҦoreignersӠintegrated. Jews left the alcohol
business and took up other entrepreneurial opportunities. Their children moved
up into the middle class. The government legalized alcohol and re-imposed the
excise tax. Racism and anti-Semitism got worse, but they no longer were
connected with temperance and its teachings.
This book is a very good demonstration of the deep link
between religious identity and social history. It is well researched and, thankfully
for the non-professional reader, all the learned footnotes are at a good
distance from the text. It should be read by all interested in this issue. [2]
David R. Blumenthal
Jay and Leslie Cohen Professor of Judaic Studies
Emory University