Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars
"[Silverman] has offered a stimulating and original take on a topic that, when defined broadly, has been widely covered by scholars. Her selection of diffuse cultural products that, on the surface, differ widely from one another, and her gender studies-influenced approach to her readings of them, make this book a highly valuable contribution to scholarship... Overall, Lisa Silverman has crafted a quite successful first book, one that suggests a highly productive academic career lies ahead." --H-Net Reviews"It offers a bold and stimulating attempt to rethink the concept of Jewishness in the special years between the world wars... Silverman's book raises important questions and breaks new ground both empirically and conceptually... [S]cholars of the Jewish experience should look at Silverman's work for an imaginative example of how to rethink their discipline and methodology." --Central European History"A very provocative and tremendously valuable new work. It deserves to be read very widely by specialists of Habsburg-Austrian history and beyond." --HISTORY: Reviews of New Books"More importantly, beyond delivering what was promised at the outset, the questions that this book raises will be of use not only to historians of Vienna and its Jews, but to any scholar trying to make sense of urban Jewish life in the twentieth century, particularly in the turbulent aftermath of the First World War." --H-Net Reviews"An admirable book that deserves the attention of anyone interested in interwar Austria. It is based on extensive primary and secondary reading--including much relatively unfamiliar memoir literature--and considerable archival research. It is exciting in reaching beyond literary history to explore the cultural significance of murder trials and urban topography." --German Quarterly"Lisa Silverman'sBecoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Warsmay be the most important book on the history of Jewish identity formation in central Europe to appear this century." --Sander L. Gilman, Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences; Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University"Silverman brings together complicated material and frames it into one narrative that gives us fresh insight into Austrian Jewish culture and 'Jewishness' between 1918 and 1938. She closes an important gap in research on Austrian Jewish history and culture." --Raphael Gross, Director, Leo Baeck Institute, London; Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt; Jewish Museum, Frankfurt; Reader in History, Queen Mary, London University"There is much of interest in this work on the ever-fascinating topic of Vienna and its Jews, and at least some of that will be new even to those who fancy themselves experts." --Austrian History Yearbook"Silverman is very persuasive in her assertion that Jewish difference was central to self-understanding for Jews and non-Jews in interwar Austria, whether willingly or not... The examplesSilverman has chosen for her chapters are original and sometimes surprising." --American Historical Review