By the 1920s, Jews were - by all economic, political and cultural measures of the day - making it in America. Yet many deliberately identified with groups that remained excluded. The stories of Al Jolson, Felix Frankfurter and Arnold Rothstein are told together to explore this paradox in the psychology of American Jewry. All three became heroes to the American Jewish community for their association with events that galvanized the country and defined the Jazz Age. Rothstein allegedly fixed the 1919 World Series - an accustaion this book disputes. Frankfurter defended the Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Jolson brought jazz music to Hollywood for the first talking film, The Jazz Singer. and regularly impersonated African Americans in blackface. Each of these men represented a version of the American outsider, and American Jews celebrated them for it.

MICHAEL ALEXANDER is Assistant Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

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