Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries (The Modern Jewish Experience)
An abridgement of editor Richarz's original three-volume German edition, this collection of 51 memoirs, diaries, and family chronicles of German Jews weaves a fascinating social tapestry of German Jewry from 1780 to 1945. The editor, Director of Germania Judaica at the Cologne Library for the History of Jews in Central Europe, selected broadly representative Jewish voices--males and females, traditionalists and reformers, urbanites and villagers, middle class and underclass--who reveal much about the inner dynamics of German Jewish life during the various historical periods, as well as about Jews' relations to the external environment. Richarz's introduction furnishes a probing analytic overview of German Jewish social history, highlighting the demographic, social, economic, and cultural patterns of German Jews who gradually entered German society only to be summarily expelled from it in the Nazi era. Highly recommended for scholars and serious students of German Jewish history.- Benny Kraut, Univ. of CincinnatiCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.