Missionary Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, by Winter Jade Werner

Chapter 3 maps Jewish settlement patterns within the three largest cities under consideration. Evidence gathered from Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham shows that Jews tended to settle in specific areas of town adjacent to synagogues and communal centers. Levene surmises that they saw some advantages in living among themselves. Chapter 4 retains the focus on Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, exploring occupations and incomes. Levene finds less poverty among Jews than among other minority groups, such as the Irish. Jews also gravitated toward certain occupations, particularly the provision and sale of small goods. Levene points to evidence of the existence of networks of knowledge about job opportunities among provincial Jews. Despite the differences among these communities, Levene draws similar conclusions about each of them, revealing evidence of community networks. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with issues of poverty and philanthropy. Chapter 5 looks at charity from 1840 to 1865 and argues that Jews relied more upon the Jewish community for support than on public welfare. Community leaders felt responsible for helping the Jewish poor, and Levene finds that synagogues spent more on poor relief than did the government. Judging from synagogue charity logs, relief often included Passover groceries and free matzah. Levene surmises that Jews of this period saw Judaism’s emphasis on charity as both a mitzvah and an expectation. Chapter 6, which focuses on communal charity from 1865 to 1880, presents the challenges brought about by increasing immigration from Europe. Finally, chapter 7 proffers one of many interesting conclusions: traditional observance remained important to Victorian Jews, as evidenced by synagogue records. Most scholars claim that religious observance had already waned by this point in Anglo-Jewish history, so Levene’s analysis of these records would be of interest to someone studying religious and orthodox history and practices. Overall, the book does not overturn most previously held assumptions about Victorian Jewry, but it provides clarity and insight into details of everyday life. It also challenges assumptions about British communities generally, especially in relation to the Industrial Revolution. And while the book excels at extrapolating meaning from data and using data to reconstruct the provincial Jewish populations of the era, Levene does not present a compelling narrative about that data until the end of the book, a missed opportunity to situate some of the data in its historical context. What is new and novel is Levene’s focus on life outside of London, and that is the book’s critical importance. Lindsay Katzir Langston University