Customer Reviews

A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

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I read this book about a year ago after coming across it in an airport bookstore. It is one of the most interesting books I have ever read, on any subject. I highly recommend the book for anyone that enjoys reading (I consider it one of the most enlightening and enjoyable books I've ever read), but especially for readers that are interested in European history or contemporary Europe, in current events, or in the Holocaust and the history and future of Jewish religion and culture. This is Mark Kurlansky's second published book; he went on to write insanely entertaining books on diverse subjects, including the history of salt (not a joke), the history of cod (also not a joke) and a history of the Basque people.

"A Chosen Few" was especially instructive to me as a primer on how people experienced antisemitism in the 20th Century. I grew up in a place where there were no Jews, and hardly any Catholics. I met my first Jew and first Catholic in college when I was 18 years old. I did not learn about the typical cultural prejudices regarding Jews until I was an adult, and had no opportunity to internalize them. Consequently, the persistent antisemitism of European culture has always been puzzling to me. The more I have learned about the periodic bouts of antisemitism in history -- from the expulsion of Jews from the Rhineland in 11th Century, the plague-related persecution of Jews in the 14th Century, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, to the Holocaust -- the more imponderable the whole subject becomes (though I understand the religious/historical/cultural explanations).

"A Chosen Few" helped me understand the persistence of antisemitism for the first time, in a way that a more typical historical or sociological study could not have done. The author's approach is to recount the experiences of particular people and families in European cities, from Paris to Moscow, from the 1930's to the 1990's. His aim is to explain why some Jews decided to stay on in Europe, either in their prewar towns or elsewhere, and why others emigrated (especially to Israel and North America, or to the Soviet Union). Kurlansky explains who these families were, where and how they lived and what their economic and social situations were in the 1930's as antisemitism was on the rise and Nazi Germany began its invasions and annexations.

This use of anecdote, oral and family history is what makes the book so unique and compelling (an earlier reviewer who described this as a weakness misses the point, in my opinion). These moving personal accounts give poignant insight into the experience of ordinary people whose lives were made extraordinary because of the unspeakable atrocities they endured. The narratives made the mystery of antisemitism more accessible and personal to me -- exactly what I needed to give depth to my knowledge of antisemitism, its roots and its "apotheosis" in the Holocaust (excuse the use of a word with generally positive and religious connotations in other contexts).

I have wondered how any Jew could have decided to stay in Europe after the war, especially in Germany (if he/she had any choice). The book makes these personal decisions understandable in the context of individuals and families, their religion and traditions, and most importantly, what Jewish families lost in the war and what they had left to reclaim afterward. One learns how the few survivors of once-large, assimilated and prosperous German, Belgian and French Jewish families survived the deprivations after the war in refugee camps or on their own, and how relatives found each other in the camps and across the post-war diaspora. The author also recounts the stories of many Jewish families living in Prague, Budapest, Moscow and other places where assimilation was perhaps less possible than in pre-war Germany. Though backgrounds and experience are diverse, consistent themes emerge from the accounts: the (relatively) enlightened policies of many European governments towards Jews in the late 19th and early 20th Century, the persistence(nonetheless)of cultural antisemitism, the intense disruption to generations of Jewish memory and tradition caused by the Shoah, and the difficulty, despite the Holocaust, of leaving ancestral homes forever. The book illuminates the initial attraction of Soviet communism to many Jews, who saw the underlying egalitarian Marxist theory as an alternative to centuries of European and Catholic despotic antisemitism. (On this point, I also differ somewhat with an earlier reviewer who felt that the book does not adequately explain this phenomenon. Kurlansky does not set out to answer this complex question. Rather, he simply recounts faithfully what attracted some Jews to live in Moscow before and after World War II).

Kurlansky, without making the connection explicitly, illuminates how many Polish people relate to Jews much in the same way white Americans relate to blacks. While there is an ugly history (and recurrent threat) of antisemitism in modern Poland, Jewish music and traditions also are very popular, and a part of Polish cultural identity. While thinking about these contradictions, I realized that they are amazingly similar to the schizophrenic relationship of white Americans with black Americans: racism lives on in our society alongside our exaltation of the art and culture of black people. Many of us know Americans who harbor fundamental prejudices against blacks at the same time they enjoy jazz, rap, hip-hop and other uniquely black art forms as essentially American and revere black athletes, actors and entertainers, and hold out these arts and personalities as essentially American. This is one of many insights that can be gained from reading "A Chosen Few," and why I thought it was such a successful concept for a book.

Finally, the book chronicles (ominously) how antisemitism is reappearing across Europe. All educated people should be aware of this phenomenon. As someone who grew up and was educated in the 1960's and 1970's, I learned to believe that the extremity of the Holocaust could never be repeated, that the world community would never again allow organized, state-sponsored persecution of Jews (or of any ethnic, religious or racial group). I lost the latter illusion a long time ago, but still believed until recently that Jews would be specially protected by law and policy, because of how they had been singled out in the Holocaust. "A Chosen Few" helped disabuse me of that final hopeful notion.

Sadly, one realizes from reading "A Chosen Few" that there is something endemic about antisemitism to European culture. Antisemitism reappears despite what has happened to the Jews, and even because of it. It is impossible to be complacent about it, or to be optimistic that antisemitism is a thing of the past. All the more reason for people to read this book. I am amazed that there are not more reviews of "A Chosen Few" on Amazon.com. I attribute this to the fact that it was first published pre-Amazon. This is a remarkable book; it is as enjoyable to read as it is enlightening. From an avid reader, I rank it in my top 30 most memorable books.

I would love to know what happened to these families since 1994 (when the book was first published). Mr. Kurlansky just finished a translation of Zola's "The Belly of Paris." Wouldn it not be a great time to revisit and update these accounts and publish a new version of the book?

More than typing a review , I want to deeply congratulate the author. I am 40 and it is the best book in the subject I have ever read. Eventhough English is not my native language I can feel the passion the writter used in describing us a real life movie in written words I should say BRAVO for his book.... ...I wish I can get in contact with the author and ask thousands of questions.......

This is a wonderful book by a great author. It reads like a novel, from character to character from country to country surveying Europe from 1945 to present and the lives of the Jews who remained after the Nazi horror. Looking deeply into the lives of Jewish communities in the eastern block the author illuminates the still struggling Polish community, who suffered anti-Semitism either because they were communists or because they were not, usually simply as an excuse. The author deals with specific individuals and this is probably the greatest flaw of the text. Jews came to the very pinnacles of government in Poland and Czechslovakia(Slansky) and yet these pivotal government officials are all but ignored, because the author concentrates on the everyday lives of Jews who chose to either immigrate to or remain in Europe. So one is found wishing they could read more about Bruno Kriesky the Jew who led Austria in the 70s and was noted for being anti-Israel.

The book is broken up into neat sections detailing the growth out of the rubble of the holocaust, 1968 and the rebirth of European anti-Semitism among other subjects. Good portions are devoted to large Jewish communities in France and Italy. One overlooked community are the Spanish Jews who supported Franco, but otherwise this book is a must read for anyone interested in modern Judaism or post WWII Europe.

Seth J. Frantzman

A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry is proving to be a very interesting book. It is not just a case study of the resurgence of Jewish life in Europe, post-WWI, but of the political histories of many Eastern European countries, as well. I am learning more about this time period that was ever taught in public schools in the late `60's.

My main problem with this Kindle version of the book is the extremely poor editing of the electronic version. It appears as though the pages were scanned with OCR readers, and the discrepancies were either not caught or were ignored by human proofreaders. Many of the Eastern European names of people and places were absolutely butchered - and not even in the same way from page to page. Luckily, most were repeated often enough in the same chapter that I could generally figure out these mis-spellings well enough to make sense of the text.

I want to continue reading Mr. Kurlansky's books as Kindle editions ( I read Salt in trade paperback format and thoroughly enjoyed it), and can only hope that the conversion to electronic format is better done.

There are many people who view Jews they way they view lawyers: they are all the same. Mark Kurlansky has written a book on the resurrection of Jewry in Europe after the holocaust. One thing you will learn from this book is Jews are not all the same.

Kurlansky along with Spence and Schama are my three favorite writers currently, and all of them are historians. I did not care for history as a topic in school, but then even the Catholic schools were ladeling out tripe when they decided to drink the kool-aid and accept government oversight of Catholic schools. School got boring for Catholics too.

Elsewhere Schama recounts that at a seminar at Balliol College circa 1968 a don suggested to write history about people and not so much events. It has occurred to me that this is the case with all three writers. In A Chosen Few, Kurlansky traces familes in Antwerp, Budapest, Cracow, Paris and North Africa, and at various points in time: prewar, war, post war, and a few points until the 1990s.

Of particular interest to me is how people survive a disaster, what are the best moves, since we too have experienced a disaster, that is the economic boom of the 2000s in USA, when all of that damage was done to our economy. Since we are in the phase where we pay for it, blame is set, and scapegoats are "sacrificed" (a goat is killed ... just who made a sacrifice here?) it is interesting to me the best way to navigate these well trodden paths. Some important points: people generally did not see what was coming. What we think of as a swift disaster in the holocaust unfolded rather slowly. Kurlansky relates frankly how some Jewish elites cooperated with the Nazis, but it did them no good. After the war, escape to Israel was for many worse than staying in Europe since Israel had no economy. Being a Jew in Germany had more opportunites than a Jew in Israel. This is of particular interest to me: for all the vaunted Jewish entrepreneurialism, how come Israel could not survive without massive financial intervention of the communist states (it is undebatable that Israel was a socialist state, certainly at the start.) Is it simply impossible to have a productive economy under socialism? Would Israel have thrived if it had free markets, something it does not have to this day?

For those who wish to believe all Jews are alike, this book shows a distressing range of thoughts and actions by Jews. First there is the argument as to who is a Jew. Is Jewry a race, a nation, a culture? All of the above? Next, is assimilation a good idea, or the maintenance of Jewish identity. If so, what is the Jewish identity? From this uncertain foundation, there is a dizzying array of ideas, actions and even outright antipathy, such as Ashkenazim vs Sephardim.

Although Kurlansky is a Jew himself, he excels at not letting his personal views get in the way of his storytellers. A Jewish informant for the Stasi, who explains she was just building a socialist paradise in East Germany, gets as fair a shake as the Jew who escaped a concentration camp and went on to fight the nazis. Just the facts in this book. Kurlansky is even fair to politicians who have a tin ear to Jewish sensibilities, such as some French polticians.

There may be something unique about Jewish experience, and it is not about Jewish experience per se, but that is about non-Jew reporting thereof. Much is made of gas ovens in concentration camps, but apparently disease was the big killer. This is extremely important information, if true. Another Jewish scholar was looking at the number of six million dead, and comes up with a number of four million, with two million escaped East. The Soviet Union set up a Jewish Autonomous Region in 1934. It still exists... how come we haven't heard anything on this? It leaves it up to Jews to write about Jews, but why? Good scholarship is not something peculiar to Jews. The fact is especially in academia, people are afraid to touch the topic.

The stories that Kurlansky tells, within the narrow bounds of the time and location of his subject, about Jews is so very true about any people at any time. The range of personalities, the ideas, the options, the actions, the motivations.

Something Kurlansky alludes to in this history like Speilberg in Schindler's List, is Jews sell Jews down the river. Perhaps this topic is simply too clear to Jews to bear stating, given that in their bible Cain kills Abel and Joseph's brothers actually do sell Joseph down the river. Perhaps it is too painful, and for a people feeling beset, an obvious lack of unity is too dangerous a notion to allow abroad. When your enemy thinks you are all alike, it is dangerous to let them know that divisions run deep in your ranks. But it seems it is exactly awareness of Jewish divisions that Nazis used so effectively.

Yet people selling their own down the river is nothing new. Japanese sell Japanses down the river, American Americans, Congolese Congolese, Argentinians Argentines, Romans Romans... there is no story to tell in history unless someone sells someone down the river. Jesus and Judas.

Kurlansky is adept enough to flesh out what differences there are, and when people kill over tennis shoes, I suppose these differences can have lethal consequences. So Carmelite nuns put up a convent at Oswiecim, and American Jews (fascinating politics this story) object. American Jews want this killing place left forever a desolate reminder. Christians build a convent on the grounds. Sort of a ground zero mosque story, circa 1995. Yes, Jews tend toward "l'chaim," and Christians tend towards "pray for me." The difference may be religious views, but the fight is politics.

I do recognize the "the Jews" are a favorite topic of wacko-americans, indeed wackos worldwide, and much junk and libel is written about them. But why cede any ground to them? We'll be better off when reticence on certain topics is relieved.

This book includes chapters on Jewish life in Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, France, Belgium, Holland, etc. It freely intermixes historical events and personal experiences. The genre of this book conforms to the lachrymose view of Jewish history, in which persecutions are emphasized. For a different, more objective Jewish view of life in Poland, see The Old Country: The Lost World of East European Jews.

Kurlansky freely uses the label of anti-Semitism, as against the British historian Norman Davies. (p. 395). [For what? For suggesting that Jews must assume some--not all but some--responsibility for the negative aspects of Jewish-Polish relations?] He also accuses Cardinal Glemp of using traditional anti-Semitic language in suggesting that Jews thought themselves "a nation above all others." (p. 271). Might not the less-than-tactful manner in which Jewish individuals had come to Poland, to dictate what was to be done and not done at Auschwitz, have something to do with Glemp's attitude? Ironically, the quotation from Polish Jew Konstanty Gebert, who said: "However, on the pinnacle of suffering, there is room for just one" (p. 287), could only reinforce Glemp's reasoning. Why not appreciate both Polish and Jewish sufferings without getting caught up in suffering-supremacist thinking?

The author also exhibits a Judeocentric bias in that he fails to put events in proper context and scale. Consider, for example, the postwar killings of returning Jews by Poles. They did not happen in a vacuum. Poland had been brutalized by six years of war and occupation. Life, whether Jewish or Polish, had been cheap. There was a desperate housing shortage in Poland, and many current Polish owners were understandably not thrilled when the original Jewish owners turned up alive to reclaim their properties. Still, the vast majority of such property reclamations took place without incident. The total number of Jews killed by Poles, 600, however tragic, was miniscule compared with the 300,000 surviving Jews.

Also, Kurlansky is less than candid when he discusses what he calls the Zydokomuna (bolshevized Judaism). It was much broader than he admits (see the link above), and, far from being a protection from Nazism, it had existed long before Nazism and continued well after the Nazi defeat. For instance, the leadership of Stalin's early-postwar Communist security forces (the UB, or Bezpieka), responsible for torturing and murdering tens of thousands of Poles, was 37% Jewish, even though Jews constituted only 1% of Poland's postwar population.

Much more could be said, but space limitations prevent it. In conclusion, the reader who wants a person-centered overview of Jewish life in post-WWII Europe will probably like this book. The knowledgeable reader accustomed to greater depth and objectivity will be disappointed.