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

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 the cultural diversity of their Oakland youth for setting them on a path of personal freedom and intellectual honesty. A patrician businessman who championed the poor, women's suffrage and an improved fire department, San Francisco's Adolph Sutro became the first Jewish mayor of a major American city in 1894. Rose Pesotta, Elaine Black and Samuel Adams Darcy were militant union organizers; and Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, became the first openly gay office holder in America. This is an absorbing and colorfully detailed story of a minority's outsized impact on its society, particularly in the spheres of the arts, business and politics. 38 b&w photos. (Dec.)