This is a courageous book. The author,a rabbi, takes a critical look at how and why American Jews remained mysteriously silent during the Holocaust. In most crimes there are three participants: the victim, the perpetrator and the bystander. American Jews were, for the mostpart, bystanders to the Nazi evil prior to and during World War II. Why? In part,there was tremendous anti-immigrant and anti-Jewish sentiment during this time. Franklin Roosevelt was seen by many as a friend and protector of American Jews. To criticize his hands-off policy regarding European Jews might be betraying Roosevelts' paternalistic protection of the vulnerable community of American Jews. But these explanations do not fully satisfy. Haskel Lookstein probes deeply and honestly into an historically avoided subject.