Catholic Latin America is home to about a million Jews, known mostly for their role in the commercial world. Being Jewish and being Latin American are not mutually exclusive categories, as Foster (Spanish, women and gender studies, Arizona State U.) maintains in introducing this enlightening collection of 11 essays examining the contributions of contemporary Latin American Jews to the arts. Topics include Jewish mysticism in the works of Chilean-Mexican writer/filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky; Brazilian writing on, and design of memorials to, the Holocaust; Jewish identity in the fiction of Clarice Lispector (died: Brazil, 1977); and the portrayal of Jews in Mexican cinema. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)