OCTOBER 31 • 2024 | 57
her activities made her seem like
Robin Hood. She did not condone
violence as her group of men and
women stole from the rich and in
ways benefitted the poor by resell-
ing property at a deep discount.
“Here we have a big, zaftig,
immigrant Jewish mother of four
who came here in steerage in 1850
with little more than the clothes
on her back,” Fox said. “By the
end of the 1860s, she had risen to
become the head of the most noto-
rious crime syndicate in America.”
Fox describes three causes of
Mandelbaum’s entry into crime,
and they amounted to reasons for
her lack of access in a new coun-
try. Being a woman, an immigrant
and a Jew became forces that
diminished her opportunities.
“When she died in 1894, her
death was covered in the news-
papers as far away as London,”
Fox said. “If you said the name
Mandelbaum, a lot of people
would know who that was.”
Fox said that Mrs. Mandelbaum
left no personal papers because
committing anything to paper
would be professional suicide.
Instead, the author had to recon-
struct her life in part through
19th-century newspaper clippings
and court records.
“I have tried to show the
unfortunate but present knee-
jerk antisemitism that a lot of
19th-century press coverage had of
her,” Fox said. “There are unflat-
tering cartoons that portray her
in very stereotypical, anti-Jewish
ways. At least one is reproduced in
the book.”
Fox was raised in a secular
Jewish household.
“My parents were bilingual in
English and Yiddish,” she said.
“They were the first generation
of my family to be born in this
country. My husband, George
Robinson, was film and music
critic of The Jewish Week. He is
very involved in a small Reform
shul.”
Unlike the other two authors,
Nimoy has some very personal
stories to relate with the goal of
helping other families get through
difficult times.
Although Adam Nimoy even-
tually wound up in the entertain-
ment field as a director of tele-
vision shows, including Gilmore
Girls and NYDP Blue, he went
to law school and practiced law
before sharing an interest in audi-
ence attractions with his father,
Leonard Nimoy.
“I had years and years of peri-
odic conflict with him coupled
with many great experiences,”
Nimoy said. “I had a lot of
opportunities and privileges,
but there was just constant
periodic conflict with him
that we could not find any res-
olution for. It was through the
process of 12-step recovery that I
was able to find a way to reach my
dad and repair a relationship that
had been severely damaged.”
While dad had issues with alco-
hol, the son was dealing with pot.
While Nimoy discusses his late
father’s financial problems as a
youngster growing up in Boston,
he further discusses the reasons
Leonard Nimoy had for prioritiz-
ing his career and how that affect-
ed the family.
“I’ll be talking about the evolu-
tion of my relationship with him,”
said Nimoy, who picked up on
some of the Jewish ritual practiced
by his father. “It’s a combination
of Judaism, recovery and Star Trek
and how those intertwined in the
trajectory of the relationship with
my dad.”
In writing the book, Nimoy
found benefits that affected him
psychologically.
“I had much more empathy for
my father because of the fact of
what he had to overcome to suc-
ceed,” Nimoy said. “He came out
here to California with nothing.
His parents refused to support him
or help him. The odds against him
were tremendous, and yet he man-
aged to survive, support himself
and support his family.”
Because of his upbringing,
Nimoy can explain his reasons for
giving much more attention to
his own children in their school
requirements and activities after
school.
Other Authors at the Fair
1 p.m. Nov. 10: David S. Tatels, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and
Justice
7 p.m. Nov. 10: Alex J. Sinclair, Perfect Enemy
1 p.m. Nov. 12: Rusty Rosman, Two Envelopes: What You Want
Your Loved Ones to Know When You Die
7 p.m. Nov. 13: Julie Satow, When Women Ran Fifth Avenue
Noon Nov. 14: Mimi Zieman, Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young
Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure and Rachel Beanland’s The House is
on Fire
11 a.m. Nov. 17: Michigan Authors Spotlight
1 p.m. Nov. 17: Abigail Pogrebin and Dov Linzer, It Takes Two to
Torah
Details
The 2024 Detroit Jewish
Book Fair takes place Nov.
6-17 at The J. To find out about
additional special programs, includ-
ing a film and a program before and
a program after the fair, as well as
which have a price because of
special features, go to thejdetroit.
org/culture-education/detroit-
jewish-book-fair.
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