The subtitle of Lin Weber’s “Under the Vine and the Fig Tree” is “The Jews of the Napa Valley.” And, for better or worse, it feels as if the award-winning historian has penned an account of all the Jews who have called Napa Valley home, ever.
This book is the fruit borne of what were obviously countless hours spent in library reference rooms, attic archives and sitting crouched, bleary-eyed, in front of whirring microfilm machines. And, just as the discovery of gold put Napa Valley on the map, Weber’s mining expedition has unearthed a few nuggets of its own.
Far from being a peripheral presence in early Napa, Jews helped transform the region from two-bit frontier outposts not unlike a less-dusty version of what you might see in a Clint Eastwood Western, to respectable little cities and towns. Jewish dry goods merchants, grocers, pharmacists, haberdashers and others were an early and important influence in the local economy and society, and, as Weber implies, bought a hell of a lot of ad space in the local papers she has gleaned.
In addition to the kind of information one would expect out of a 19th-century small-town newspaper — marriages, deaths, the outcome of the men’s club meeting — Weber sprinkles her text with a few humanizing details.
Early merchant Freedman Levinson knew his English was poor, so he attracted customers of all ages by keeping a singing canary on his porch. Future civic leader Joe Galewsky was a rapscallion in his elementary school days, tying a goat to the school bell and, somehow, hoisting a wagon onto the school’s roof. A Jewish family named Schwartz (or Schwarz or Swartz, depending upon who filled out the papers at Ellis Island) had so many stores in one neighborhood it was called “The Schwartz Block.” Yes, it was also called “The Schwarz Block” and “The Swartz Block.”
The first third of the book is largely devoted to the seemingly endless stream of Germanic Jewish merchants who sold early Napans their boots, coats and headache powders, and the promenade of Weinlanders and Cohens and Levinsons and Schwartzes and Swartzes stretches a long way. Suffice it to say, no one without a pre-existing interest in Napa’s early Jews or early Napa history will care to ride it out.
In the end, most of the early Jews and their descendants opted — perhaps wisely — to leave Napa after the region became less hospitable during the racist and xenophobic era during and after World War I. At this time, the Ku Klux Klan found Napa to be fertile ground for recruiting and rallies.
In reporting upon the next generation of Jewish Napans, Weber shifts from the hunting and gathering of advertisements and blurbs in yellowing small-town papers to first-hand interviews with subjects who are often still around, and the book explodes into colorful life.
She recounts future Napans leaping out of death trains or walking thousands of miles across Europe to safety or fleeing from building to building in the Polish ghetto. Eventually, most of these unintentional adventurers settled into Napa’s rural/suburban environs and helped the wine business meet and surpass its pre-Prohibition levels.
Napa is no longer a Klan haven, but, with only an estimated 1,400 Jews — a mere 1 percent of the population — it isn’t exactly Manhattan when it comes to acceptance. Weber notes the casual anti-Semitism and NIMBYism many of today’s successful Jews in the wine business have come across.
For anyone curious about the history of Napa’s Jews, Weber has put in long hours of research so you, for the most part, don’t have to. Members of Napa’s current Jewish community will also enjoy the anecdotes and life stories recounted in this book. “Under the Vine and the Fig Tree” has a fairly narrow scope, however.
And, as a result, readers not in the aforementioned two groups may not get much out of this book other than the recipe for Ellie Meyer’s kosher dill pickles on the last page.
Lin Weber will read from and sign copies of her book at 6 p.m. Wednesday at The Rosenbaum Mansion at St. Clement Vineyards, 2867 St. Helena Highway North, St. Helena. RSVP: (707) 967-3033. She will also appear at the 15th annual Jewish Book Festival at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16 at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center, 2071 Tice Valley Blvd., Walnut Creek. Admission is $10. Information: Riva Gambert, (510) 839-3900 x253.
“Under the Vine and the Fig Tree”
by Lin Weber
(198 pages, Wine Ventures Publishing, $19.95).