Jews of Germany; A Historical Portrait

Gay, Ruth

ISBN 10: 0300051557 / ISBN 13: 9780300051551

Editore: Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1992

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xiii, [1], 297, [1] pages. Oversize--measures 11-1/2 by 8-3/4 inches. Contains an introduction by Peter Gay. Illustrations. Maps. Topics covered include origins, the institutions of Jewish life, from the Middle Ages to the court Jews, the return to history (The Age of Moses Mendelssohn), The Struggle for Emancipation, and The Nazi Period, Emigration, Palestine, and the End. Also includes further reading, acknowledgments, credits, and an index. Ruth Gay (née Slotkin; October 19, 1922 - May 9, 2006) was a Jewish writer who wrote about Jewish life and won the 1997 National Jewish Book Award for non-fiction for Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America (1996). Peter Joachim Gay (June 20, 1923 - May 12, 2015) was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University. This unique book provides a panoramic overview of 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. The book reveals how the German Jews looked, how they lived, what they thought about, and what others thought of them. The author shows how the German Jews organized their communities, created a new language (Yiddish), and built their special culture. Derived from a Kirkus review: The history of Jews in Germany begins with the third century A.D., when a settlement at Cologne was paying taxes to the Emperor Constantine. It ends in 1943, the year Hitler declared the country ``Judenrein''-free of Jews. By then, 170,000-out of a community of half a million-had perished in the camps. The rest had emigrated. This fascinating account by Gay covers not only the tragedies leading up to the ultimate one, but the triumphs of nearly two millennia. Gay describes the strategies of day-to-day survival for rich and for poor, Prussians and Alsatians, city and country folk, men and women-making dozens of useful distinctions overlooked in our standard simple notion of what it meant to be a German Jew. The Lateran Council in 1215 required that Jews wear distinctive headgear. A few Jews were financial advisers to dukes and princes and, later, stunningly successful capitalists. But most lived in rural poverty as late as the 19th century, when 120,000 emigrated to the US. Gay's text is easy to follow, and the copious illustrations include woodcuts, engravings, photographs of forgotten ancestors, and facsimile pages of historic documents. Almost every page offers some intriguing tidbit. A Jewish envoy of Charlemagne brought a white elephant back to Aachen from the Baghdad court of Caliph Haroun el Rashid. Twelve thousand Jewish soldiers fought and died for the Kaiser during WW I. Gay's book rescues a long and variegated history from the dark shadow of recent events.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Jews of Germany; A Historical Portrait
• Editore: Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
• Data di pubblicazione: 1992
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0300051557
• ISBN 13: 9780300051551
• Rilegatura: Hardcover
• Edizione: First Printing [Stated].
• Condizione: Very good
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: Very good (in Brodart sleeve)
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • Holocaust
  • Zionism
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Germany
  • Palestine

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Traces the history of the Jews in Germany from their first settlements on the Rhine in the fourth century to the Holocaust

Product Description

Book by Ruth Gay