In The Jewish Confederates, Robert N. Rosen introduces readers to the community of Southern Jews of the 1860s, revealing the remarkable breadth of Southern Jewry's participation in the war and their commitment to the Confederacy. Intrigued by the apparent irony of their story, Rosen weaves a complex chronicle that outlines how Southern Jews―many of them recently arrived immigrants from Bavaria, Prussia, Hungary, and Russia who had fled European revolutions and anti-Semitic governments―attempted to navigate the fraught landscape of the American Civil War.

This is a engrossing look at a little-known segment of Confederate society. Before reading this book, I had no idea that Jews other than Judah Benjamin played such a significant role both as soldiers and non-combatants in the South during the Civil War. ( )