In Jews on the Frontier, Shari Rabin closely examines the development of American Judaism in the nineteenth century as Jews migrated across the nation. Directing her lens away from the usual study of organized religious and communal institutions, such as synagogues and charitable organizations, she focuses primarily on the pivotal role Jewish mobility played in creating diverse patterns of Jewish life. Indeed, Rabin argues that the unprecedented mobility in the United States during the era was central to the unfolding of not only Jewish life but also American religion in general. Although many historians have noted the impact of American mobility for Jews, Rabin places the phenomenon at the very center of her study.

According to Rabin, leaving the more developed urban centers of the East Coast and taking to the road provided Jews who moved to the South and the American West with both new and unprecedented economic and social opportunities, as well as challenges centering on maintaining Jewish life and Jewish identity. Without the more robust Jewish communal life connected to congregations and charitable institutions that had been created in the East, Jews on the frontier frequently had to be creative in establishing new modes of Jewish life. Since Americans generally viewed Jews as white, as opposed to their experiences in Europe, Jews in the United States “enjoyed unfettered movement” (25), and were generally welcomed to new settlements as contributors to the economic and political life of burgeoning towns.

Rabin maintains, “On the road, criteria for determining authentic Jewish practice and thought expanded well beyond the received canon of Jewish law and theology, resulting in the creation of new Jewish ideologies” (80). New congregations, Jewish fraternal orders, and charitable groups organized on the frontier were instrumental in creating the needed resources for Jewish life, but at the same time, mobility often brought contradictions and lack of Jewish religious unity into stark relief. Synagogues often took a backseat to more informal structures and social ties that seemed more suited to Jews on the move.

Far from parents and established Jewish centers, according to Rabin, Jews on the frontier often made pragmatic adaptations in their Jewish affiliations and practice, many relying on state jurisdictions to oversee marriage, divorce, and education of children. She observes that “in the United States both Jews’ freedom and the threat of Judaism's destruction were rooted in the ability to move ceaselessly and settle indiscriminately throughout a vast piece of physical space” (139). After many centuries of Jewish life in Europe, Jewish mobility in the United States offered the exciting novelty of bringing Judaism to new places. The fundamental challenge would be how to reorganize and reorder successfully in America.

The strength of Rabin's book and her greatest contribution to the study of American Judaism is her emphasis on the ease of mobility that nineteenth-century American Jewish immigrants found in the United States, a phenomenon that has often been overlooked or minimized by historians. Indeed, the Jews who migrated to the American South and West were genuinely surprised and even astounded by the fact that, unlike in European states, they needed no passports or other official papers to move freely across the country. That particular aspect of American culture encouraged a significant Jewish migration to the hinterlands.

Rabin's discussion of major changes in Jewish observance in the developing regions of the country is less convincing. While it is true, as Rabin points out, that “American life would allow Jews to deviate considerably from [the traditional] halakhic model” (58), not all nineteenth-century frontier Jewish became Reform Jews. Historians in general have given inadequate attention to those Orthodox Jews who lived in far-flung sites across the United States before the arrival of the major wave of eastern European Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although it is true that, largely motivated by a sense of pragmatism and practicality, many Jews on the frontier adapted, improvised, and adjusted their Jewish ritual practices, including looser interpretations of the laws of kashrut and higher rates of intermarriage, Rabin doesn't focus much on those Jews who were determined to retain their traditional practices and adherence to Halakhah, or strict Jewish law, even in the face of significant challenges.

For example, although they were in the minority, some frontier Jews refused to eat any meat that did not meet their kosher standards and became vegetarians instead. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in the 1870s, several families “would eat only kosher chicken,” so they often had to wait for prolonged periods of time for an itinerant schochet. As early as 1875, a small Orthodox congregation in North Beach, California, featured a mikvah, or ritual bath. Similarly, other frontier Jews went to great lengths to observe the Sabbath scrupulously, like Polish-born Abraham Rachofsky, who arrived in the mining town of Central City, Colorado, around 1867, began as a peddler and then ran a successful dry goods store, and brought a sefer Torah to the community, where he conducted Orthodox services.

Rabin has written a nuanced and thought-provoking book that demonstrates that unprecedented mobility and emphasis on individualism on the American frontier allowed for significant autonomy for Jews. Mobility translated not only into new robust economic and social opportunities, but also into the ability to shape and adapt American Judaism to individual needs. Access to new online Jewish newspaper sources has proven to be a valuable resource for many historians in recent years. Rabin has deeply and creatively mined those newspapers to illuminate the stories of Jewish individuals who made the trek across the United States, which adds engaging color and detail to her monograph. Although Rabin tends to overreach in continually bringing her underlying theme of Jewish mobility to the fore and seeing that mobility as the underpinning of all aspects of Jewish life, she makes important points that add insight into the development of American religion, in general, and the contours of American Judaism, in particular.