THE GRANDEES

by Stephen Birmingham ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1971

The author of Our Crowd pays enchanted respects to the elite American Sephardic Jews to whom the word ""crowd"" might seem not only alien but downright peculiar. Mr. Birmingham, who immensely enjoys personalities, old bloodlines and good, gossipy genealogy, leads off with a grateful appreciation of Mr. Malcolm Stem's recent Americans of Jewish Descent which traced families that arrived in America before 1840. Strange connections were disinterred and discovered among the Rockefellers, Tiffanys, Vanderbilts, etc. ""Thank you very much for telling me"" said one bemused descendant. The Sephardim trace their beginnings to medieval Spain and Portugal, where, unlike their unfortunate co-religionists elsewhere, they were honored professionals and royal advisers. Birmingham recounts the monstrous cruelties preceding and during the Inquisition, and details the arrival of the ""Jewish Mayflower"" in 1654, a French privateer directed by a surly captain who sailed into the harbor of an even surlier Peter Stuyvesant. The author then follows the careers of the outstanding traders, intellectuals, bankers, etc. the most flamboyant being perhaps Uriah Levy. Determined to reject anti-Semitic affronts in the early nineteenth century, Levy, a Captain in the Navy, was instrumental in abolishing corporal punishment on the seas, singlehandedly rescued and restored Monticello, and generally shook up the governmental establishments. There are portraits of Gomez's and Lopez's, Nathan's and Lazarus's etc. and the author untangles intermarriages as patiently as possible. An amiable, informative and responsible tribute for all that Crowd outside looking in.

Pub Date: March 15, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION