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A Life in Letters, 1914-1982

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This book contains letters by and to Gershom Scholem, a great scholar of kabbalism. It covers an amazing amount of ground- beginning with Scholem's youth in World War I Germany, then his move to Israel in the 1920s, his Hitler-era correspondence with his family (most of whom escaped to Australia in 1938-9, at almost the last possible moment for Jews to leave Germany), and his postwar celebrity in Israel.

The most interesting part of the book is the letters to and from his family in Germany. As early as 1923, his mother complains about pervasive anti-Semitism. But despite this, she wrote in 1932 that if Hitler became chancellor, "he won't be any different from the others." But Scholem's letters from Israel make it clear that as early as 1933, German intellectuals were flooding Israel.