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Goldstein-Goren Series in American Jewish History
Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition
Finalist, 2014 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature from the Jewish Book Council
Traces American Jews’ complicated relationship to alcohol through the years leading up to and after prohibition
From kosher wine to their ties to the liquor trade in Europe, Jews have a longstanding historical relationship with alcohol. But once prohibition hit America, American Jews were forced to choose between abandoning their historical connection to alcohol and remaining outside the American mainstream.
In Jews and Booze , Marni Davis examines American Jews’ long and complicated relationship to alcohol during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the years of the national prohibition movement’s rise and fall. Bringing to bear an extensive range of archival materials, Davis offers a novel perspective on a previously unstudied area of American Jewish economic activity―the making and selling of liquor, wine, and beer―and reveals that alcohol commerce played a crucial role in Jewish immigrant acculturation and the growth of Jewish communities in the United States. But prohibition’s triumph cast a pall on American Jews’ history in the alcohol trade, forcing them to revise, clarify, and defend their communal and civic identities, both to their fellow Americans and to themselves.
Traces American Jews’ complicated relationship to alcohol through the years leading up to and after prohibition
From kosher wine to their ties to the liquor trade in Europe, Jews have a longstanding historical relationship with alcohol. But once prohibition hit America, American Jews were forced to choose between abandoning their historical connection to alcohol and remaining outside the American mainstream.
In Jews and Booze , Marni Davis examines American Jews’ long and complicated relationship to alcohol during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the years of the national prohibition movement’s rise and fall. Bringing to bear an extensive range of archival materials, Davis offers a novel perspective on a previously unstudied area of American Jewish economic activity―the making and selling of liquor, wine, and beer―and reveals that alcohol commerce played a crucial role in Jewish immigrant acculturation and the growth of Jewish communities in the United States. But prohibition’s triumph cast a pall on American Jews’ history in the alcohol trade, forcing them to revise, clarify, and defend their communal and civic identities, both to their fellow Americans and to themselves.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
16 people are currently reading
171 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 27, 2020
An interesting and informative exploration of Jewish immigration and assimilation into the U.S. alcohol industry in the decades before Prohibition. It's an academic work, so it's a bit dry in places, but unflinching in its examination of how anti-Semitic attitudes, initially not part of the early temperance movement, grew as prohibitionist sentiment – and populist nativism – increasingly highlighted the ways immigrants were threatening "American" ways of life.
Perhaps surprisingly to modern ears, Jews were prominent in the whiskey business, and the anti-Semitic stereotype of the "Jew saloonkeeper" was prominent before Prohibition, which meant that as the Prohibition movement gained steam and increasingly focused on immigrants' roles in the alcohol industry, this nativism turned into darker anti-Semitic rhetoric. Another factor Marni Davis brings out is the role liberal Jewish attitudes toward race played in galvanizing prohibitionist sentiment in the South; Jewish saloonkeepers didn't see a problem serving Black patrons, which collided with racist stereotypes about drunk Black men raping White women; the racial panic led to a riot and eventually Georgia's first-in-the-nation blanket ban on selling alcohol.
Anyway, Davis presents a lot of new and fascinating information about a United States torn between its ideals and its fears, and the effects of what happened when its fears triumphed.
Perhaps surprisingly to modern ears, Jews were prominent in the whiskey business, and the anti-Semitic stereotype of the "Jew saloonkeeper" was prominent before Prohibition, which meant that as the Prohibition movement gained steam and increasingly focused on immigrants' roles in the alcohol industry, this nativism turned into darker anti-Semitic rhetoric. Another factor Marni Davis brings out is the role liberal Jewish attitudes toward race played in galvanizing prohibitionist sentiment in the South; Jewish saloonkeepers didn't see a problem serving Black patrons, which collided with racist stereotypes about drunk Black men raping White women; the racial panic led to a riot and eventually Georgia's first-in-the-nation blanket ban on selling alcohol.
Anyway, Davis presents a lot of new and fascinating information about a United States torn between its ideals and its fears, and the effects of what happened when its fears triumphed.
February 24, 2021
“[D]uring the years between the end of the Civil War and the repeal of prohibition, their relation to alcohol commerce typified, and even magnified, the challenges Jews faced in the process of becoming American.”
Interesting and concise study of the historic role of Jews in the American alcohol industry leading up to and during Prohibition. Excellent study of how Jews struggled to respond to nativist and anti-Semitic thought deployed by proponents of Prohibition, and how they responded to the adoption (and later repeal) of Prohibition.
Interesting and concise study of the historic role of Jews in the American alcohol industry leading up to and during Prohibition. Excellent study of how Jews struggled to respond to nativist and anti-Semitic thought deployed by proponents of Prohibition, and how they responded to the adoption (and later repeal) of Prohibition.
October 31, 2018
I first read about this book when it was released and I was freelance copy editing for Moment Magazine. I ultimately picked it up because it was a contender for the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize. Amidst reading it, the worst terrorist attack against American Jews took place, and now I'm looking at it through the prism of antisemitism.
I'm not alone. Davis's main thesis is that Jews were scapegoated as pernicious outsiders as "dry" movements swept America. Some groups, like the Women's Temperance Movement, may have held genuine concerns (and even tried to reach out to Jewish women sometimes.) This book primarily focused on the 18th Amendment to prohibit alcohol and the 21st Amendment to repeal that, but the 19th Amendment loomed large. "Wet" movements, including some Jews, tried to belittle and silence women in this, one of their last political movements before national suffrage.
But most prohibitionists that Davis profiled were grasping onto something far darker than concern over men who squander their family money and become drunkenly violent. They're branching into nationalism. The enemy isn't liquor but those "un-American" immigrants, like recently arrived Russian Jews, who are trying to force their culture onto us. Nevermind that some prohibitionists used their movement to foist the narrative that America was meant to be a Protestant state.
In the beginning, prohibitionists tried to co-opt Judaism to their cause, since Jews in general weren't known for alcoholism, by claiming they were teetotalers. Later, during the Volstead act, Jews became the enemy when it was difficult to manage their allotment of wine for religious purposes. Unlike with Christians, most Jewish rituals with wine take place in the home, which makes it more difficult to regulate and certainly some bootleggers took advantage of that. But before the Volstead Act, Christians also demonized Jews who got their footing in America by opening saloons that catered to African American clientele. (Making Jews responsible for--popular WASP fear--drunken Black boys raping white women!) Indeed, like all books on Jewish American history that I've read, racism against Black people is so ingrained into US culture that it always crops up in serious academia, even when they're not the direct subject.
With regards to American Jews, Davis did make sure to draw a distinction between the middle European sort that arrived in the 19th century and were generally more acculturated to American society (particularly since, as merchants, they opened "respectable" businesses for white people) vs the early 20th century Russian Jews, who gravitated to poorer areas with other non-Nordic ethnic groups in the north, or African Americans in the south. She pointed out examples of Jewish brewery and saloon owners, and also the religious and social figures who tried to navigate American society as prohibition and nationalism became more popular. Some tried to toe the party line and preach assimilation in the face of rising American antisemitism. Others wanted to maintain their distinctive difference. Still others became bootleggers and other mafia sort, though Davis doesn't focus much on them (or on anyone--the biography part of this study felt a little fleeting.) In her conclusion, she posited recent fascination with Jewish mobsters as a sort of pre-assimilationist desire to be loud and proud Jews.
With regards to that antisemitism, she tied prohibitionists blaming Jews for so-called African American violence, and later for controlling national and international economic concerns, to rising violence. She'd leave the alcohol scene entirely to profile, say, Leo Frank, who was likely wrongly accused of raping and killing a young girl in Georgia, and was taken and lynched by militia men. His real crime might've been that he was seen as a northern, Jewish outsider. And so, Davis claims, prohibition wasn't about alcohol at all. For Jews, it was more of an excuse for bigots to cast them as a nefarious "other," as people whose interests could never be "American." Given the recent violence at the Tree of Life Synagogue, baruch dayan emet, it's harrowing how hatred doesn't change.
I'm not alone. Davis's main thesis is that Jews were scapegoated as pernicious outsiders as "dry" movements swept America. Some groups, like the Women's Temperance Movement, may have held genuine concerns (and even tried to reach out to Jewish women sometimes.) This book primarily focused on the 18th Amendment to prohibit alcohol and the 21st Amendment to repeal that, but the 19th Amendment loomed large. "Wet" movements, including some Jews, tried to belittle and silence women in this, one of their last political movements before national suffrage.
But most prohibitionists that Davis profiled were grasping onto something far darker than concern over men who squander their family money and become drunkenly violent. They're branching into nationalism. The enemy isn't liquor but those "un-American" immigrants, like recently arrived Russian Jews, who are trying to force their culture onto us. Nevermind that some prohibitionists used their movement to foist the narrative that America was meant to be a Protestant state.
In the beginning, prohibitionists tried to co-opt Judaism to their cause, since Jews in general weren't known for alcoholism, by claiming they were teetotalers. Later, during the Volstead act, Jews became the enemy when it was difficult to manage their allotment of wine for religious purposes. Unlike with Christians, most Jewish rituals with wine take place in the home, which makes it more difficult to regulate and certainly some bootleggers took advantage of that. But before the Volstead Act, Christians also demonized Jews who got their footing in America by opening saloons that catered to African American clientele. (Making Jews responsible for--popular WASP fear--drunken Black boys raping white women!) Indeed, like all books on Jewish American history that I've read, racism against Black people is so ingrained into US culture that it always crops up in serious academia, even when they're not the direct subject.
With regards to American Jews, Davis did make sure to draw a distinction between the middle European sort that arrived in the 19th century and were generally more acculturated to American society (particularly since, as merchants, they opened "respectable" businesses for white people) vs the early 20th century Russian Jews, who gravitated to poorer areas with other non-Nordic ethnic groups in the north, or African Americans in the south. She pointed out examples of Jewish brewery and saloon owners, and also the religious and social figures who tried to navigate American society as prohibition and nationalism became more popular. Some tried to toe the party line and preach assimilation in the face of rising American antisemitism. Others wanted to maintain their distinctive difference. Still others became bootleggers and other mafia sort, though Davis doesn't focus much on them (or on anyone--the biography part of this study felt a little fleeting.) In her conclusion, she posited recent fascination with Jewish mobsters as a sort of pre-assimilationist desire to be loud and proud Jews.
With regards to that antisemitism, she tied prohibitionists blaming Jews for so-called African American violence, and later for controlling national and international economic concerns, to rising violence. She'd leave the alcohol scene entirely to profile, say, Leo Frank, who was likely wrongly accused of raping and killing a young girl in Georgia, and was taken and lynched by militia men. His real crime might've been that he was seen as a northern, Jewish outsider. And so, Davis claims, prohibition wasn't about alcohol at all. For Jews, it was more of an excuse for bigots to cast them as a nefarious "other," as people whose interests could never be "American." Given the recent violence at the Tree of Life Synagogue, baruch dayan emet, it's harrowing how hatred doesn't change.
February 6, 2023
Good point to start off, the cover design is great. I love how the text has been worked into the old photo and its what caught my eye on a wander through the library. Now content wise, I know it is a non-fiction and academic but this is one of the driest books I have read in a long time. The information is very interesting and covers a genre of prohibition that is very much not commonly discussed. But I just wish it was easier to get through. Good writing, but overall I would only recomend this book if you are searching for academic references in the subject.
September 16, 2024
Actually SOOO boring, I am falling asleep writing about it. Jake I think you would like this book.
September 29, 2024
Well researched and a good read
December 5, 2025
Insightful telling of the subject.
January 22, 2013
Marni Davis' book offers a glimpse into the dynamics of an ethnic group that, for a long time, was 'not quite white' through the lens of the booze trade. It's a consuming and interesting history, and it shows clearly that assimilation was a fluid dynamic among Jews in the United States until after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. Over the course of just over 200 pages Davis contextualizes the role of Jews in the booze trades and takes us through their changing (and in many respects unchanging) relationship to them as immigrants and entrepreneurial capitalists, and the role of tradition and religion in those relationships. Davis does well to illustrate how It is through these configurations that Jews are both accepted and reviled by Progressive, white, Protestant America. Highly recommended.
March 22, 2014
An interesting chapter in American Jewish history with which I was unfamiliar. Davis explores Jewish involvement in the alcohol trade in nineteenth and early twentieth century America, focusing on how working in this field both helped connect Jews to the larger culture and, at the same time, worked to define a subculture. Then, with the rise of the Temperance Movement, American Jews had the experience of being on the losing side of a contentious issue that split the nation. How Prohibition influenced American Jewry - before, during, and after that "Noble Experiment" is much of the focus of the book.
The story is a compelling one, but you do have to have some investment in it to get through the book, which is written in a somewhat dry (ha ha) academic style. I enjoyed it anyway, but I wouldn't recommend it as bedtime reading.
The story is a compelling one, but you do have to have some investment in it to get through the book, which is written in a somewhat dry (ha ha) academic style. I enjoyed it anyway, but I wouldn't recommend it as bedtime reading.
August 28, 2014
I do hope the irony isn't lost on anyone when I say this is the most DRY book I have ever read on the subject of alcohol. Lists and tangents and citations even in the conclusion, I had such high hopes based on the title of the book. I knew it could be purchased as academic reading for schools which should have given me pause, but the catchy title convinced me to proceed without caution. Well played on that front, Marni Davis. I'm sorry to say that was the best trick of the book: the inside was just letters strung together in endless repetition.
February 17, 2013
Very engaging. Tells an important story and describes it well. I particularly appreciated learning that Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise opposed prohibition on the basis of Church-State separation, arguing that prohibition was the brainchild of religious groups wanting to impose their personal faith restrictions on an entire nation.
March 12, 2015
I purchased this book as part of my research dealing with the history of beverage alcohol consumption in Atlanta. I’ve since read it multiple times. Only a portion of the book deals with Atlanta history, however it focuses on rarely discussed topics within the city’s history.
A well researched book. Yes it’s academic in nature, but it also reads well.
A well researched book. Yes it’s academic in nature, but it also reads well.
April 17, 2014
This is a well researched and very interesting overview of the role of Jewish immigrants, especially in the years after the Civil War, in the liquor business. What was really fascinating was he history of Jewish immigration to the south, the growth of a southern Jewish community, commerce and anti-semitism.
January 27, 2013
Very interesting, well-researched book. The author does a great job of discussing the many sects of Jewish life in the US. I would highly recommend this for anyone interested in Jewish assimilation or prohibition era history.
February 6, 2012
This is such a well researched book!
May 7, 2015
Loved it!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews