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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