Jacob Jay Lindenthal, Abi Gezunt: Explorations into the Role of Health and the American Jewish Dream. Brighton, Mass.: Academic Studies Press, 2017. xxix + 187 pp; together with The Lindex: A Companion to Abi Gezunt. xi + 341 pp.
Is there a causal relationship between the remarkable economic success and rapid upward mobility of American Jews and behavioral patterns on their part that promoted health and the prevention of disease? Jacob Jay Lindenthal offers what he terms “a conjectural analysis” (p. xiii) to suggest such a causality, and he supports his argument with an impressive array of medical sources that scholars of American Jewry have rarely utilized. Lindenthal maintains that Jewish “values, beliefs, traditions, attitudes, and behavioral patterns” have all had a crucial effect on Jewish health (p. xv). He highlights such cultural factors among the Jews as awareness of and concern for health; an emphasis on cleanliness as mandated by Jewish law (halakhah); a cohesive family life; the promotion of education; specific childrearing practices (among them, circumcision, breastfeeding, and maintaining longer time intervals between births); a low rate of alcoholism; and communal charitable institutions and solidarity as playing a decisive role in keeping East European Jewish immigrants in America in relative good health. As he notes, Jewish immigrants in early 20...