The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait [Paperback]

Ms. Ruth Gay (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300060521 | ISBN-13: 978-0300060522 | Publication Date: September 28, 1994

This book provides a panoramic overview of a now extinct culture: the 1500-year history of the Jews in Germany. Through texts, pictures and contemporary accounts, it follows the German Jews from their first settlements on the Rhine in the fourth century to the destruction of the community in World War II. Using both voices and images of the past the book reveals how the German Jews looked, how they lived, what they thought about, and what others thought of them. Ruth Gay's text, interwoven with passages from memoirs, letters, newspapers and other contemporary sources, shows how the German Jews organized their communities, created a new language (Yiddish), and built their special culture - all this under circumstances sometimes friendly but often hostile. The book explores the internal debates that agitated the community from medieval to modern times and analyzes how German Jewry emerged into the modern world. The earliest document in the book is a fourth-century decree by the Roman Emperor Constantine permitting Jews to hold office in Cologne. Among the last are letters from Betty Scholem in Berlin, writing during the Nazi years to her son in Gershom in Palestine. In between are accounts of a ninth-century Jewish merchant appointed by Charlemagne to a diplomatic mission to Baghdad, a 13th-century Jewish minnesinger, a 17th-century pogrom in Frankfurt in which gentiles helped to save their Jewish neighbours and the 19th-century innovation of department stores.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A rich, often-forgotten culture springs to life in this panoramic, popularly written history. The first German Jewish settlement occurred in the fourth century A.D. in the Rhine valley, where Jews became winegrowers and craftspeople. Over the next 1500 years, German Jews struggled against endemic anti-Semitism; confined in ghettos until their emancipation in 1871, they created self-governing communities. Gay ( Jews in America ) illuminates her subjects' robust daily lives, their religious institutions and their activities as cattle traders, manufacturers, artists, scientists and railroad builders. German Jewry's hope of integration into the larger society ended when the short-lived dream of the Weimar Republic turned into the nightmare of Nazi genocide. Today, Gay writes, the remaining Jews of Germany live "on an edge, in exile." Some 300 superb illustrations and excerpts from period writings amplify this moving narrative. History Book Club selection.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Gay has produced a highly readable and most informative popular history of Germany's Jews. The narrative extends from the emperor Constantine's decree in 321 C.E. that Jews could be called to the Curia of Cologne to the last shipment of Jewish armament workers from Berlin to Auschwitz on February 27, 1943. While the book does not neglect the devastation of the Holocaust nor the abuse German Jews endured from medieval times, it is more a celebration than a lamentation. Gay assumes very little knowledge of Judaism on the reader's part, explaining both the Sabbath and Passover, but she also delineates in some detail the differences between the rabbinical seminaries in 19th-century Germany. Scholars may find small errors (e.g., Germany was no longer divided into more than 300 states after 1815), but the well-balanced text accompanied by lavish illustrations and passages from a wide variety of highly pertinent documents will appeal to virtually anyone with an interest in the European past. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.
- Robert W. Frizzell, Hendrix Coll. Lib., Conway, Ark.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 28, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300060521
• ISBN-13: 978-0300060522
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #836,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely well illustrated, well and fairly told history, May 5, 2011

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Simul - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait (Paperback)

This is a fascinating book illustrating the history of Jews in Germany. The illustrations are lavish and very helpful. The story of Judaism and anti-Semitism really needs to be told in this kind of detail and with this kind of long-term historical perspective. I think a documentary series should be made of it.