Dana Evan Kaplan, ED. to Judaism. New York: University Press, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 462.Jeffrey S. Gurock. Judaum'j Encounter with Sporte. Modern Experience. Bloommgton: Indiana University Press, 2005. Pp. ? + 234.Shuly Rubin Schwartz. Rabbi'a Wife: Rebbetzin in Life. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 312.Elliot B. Gertel, ED. Jewidh Belief and Practice in Nineteenth Century America: Seminal Eajayj by Outstanding Pulpa Rabbi) of Era. Jefferson, N. C: McFarland & Company, 2006. Pp. viii + 210.Dana Evan Kaplan's to is a worthy addition to Cambridge Companion series that has made scholarly topics accessible to scholars and layman alike. this volume, Kaplan, a visiting research scholar at University of Miami and a rabbi in Albany, Georgia, presents essays on a wide variety of topics by an impressive array of scholars. volume is divided into two parts, first titled Historical Overviews and second Themes and Concepts. second part includes sections on religious culture, identity and community, living in America, art, and a final one titled The Future. Kaplan has successfully blended more traditional topics - for example, Lloyd Gartner on American Judaism, 1880-1945 and Nathan Glazer, a pioneer in field of studies, on The Urban Experience - with such less conventional topics as David Biale on The Body and Sexuality in Culture and Biale 's fellow CaIifornian Murray Baumgarten on American Midrash: Urban Writing and Reclaiming of Judaism.In his introduction, Kaplan explains his decision to use term American Judaism in volume's title. In popular usage today, usually implies a broad sociological approach to subject of life and culture, while term Jew'uh Religion suggests a more specific concern with beliefs and practices that are somehow associated with a supernatural reality, he writes. Understanding subject in such broad terms, one can see that religion in America means much more than just religious rituals or belief (p. 1).The choice of American Judaism as his subject reflects an important recent trend in studies. While term American Judaism was used decades ago by Nathan Glazer as a title in his eponymous pioneering work of 1957, term was most recently given popular expression by Jonathan Sarna in his monumental volume published in 2004. introduction to Judautm: A Hiatory, Sarna writes: The very term 'American Judaism' defies meaningful definition, for Jews as a people cannot be disentangled from as a faith. Sarna explains further in this vein that social, economic, political, cultural, and psychological factors affecting religious life must be borne in mind.This effort to frame discussion of history in America as including religion as a part of total experience represents, to my mind, a coming of age. No longer is experience portrayed such that Jews are merely an assimilated subset of society. Today, Jews as well as those who study their experience in America feel comfortable structuring discussion around very religion that has stood for millennia as foundation of people. This necessarily allows for a broadening of definition of that includes all of aspects of life.Given Kaplan's decision to enlarge picture of Jews in America, it is noteworthy that he avoids dividing into denominational components. Without underestimating differences between streams, he writes, the scholars writing in this collection look at totality of rather than at its constituent parts (p. 11). While volume includes essay Jewish Religious Denominations, its author, Lawrence Grossman, coeditor of Jewiah Year Book, believes that denominational structure, while important historically, plays a far less significant role today as many Jews explore nondenominational religious settings. …