Richard Hatch was searching the card catalog of the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale, hunting for intriguing titles under the subject heading “Magic.” It was 1979, and Hatch was a young graduate student in physics, but he’d long nurtured an amateur’s passion for the conjuring arts and, on this day at least, he preferred to read about sleight of hand than quantum mechanics. His rummaging stopped when he spotted a title called “Die Juden in der Zauberkunst.” Hatch had spent four years of his youth in Germany so he translated it instantly: “Jews in Magic.” The card said the book...