Nazis in Newark
"Well researched, readable, and very interesting"—Choice"Nazis in Newarkis a model local history that reaches well beyond the border of Essex County, New Jersey, to the national and international arenas. By recounting so many sides of the complicated encounter between Nazis and Jews in Newark, Warren Grover has fashioned a world of street politics, boycotts, Nazi louts and Jewish bruisers that is as compelling and telling in its detail as any grand tome on the supposed failures and successes of American Jewish resistence to the Holocaust... I recommendNazis in Newark.I intend to use it as a cornerstone of my teaching for some time to come."—Professor Michael AlexanderThe Jewish Quarterly Review"Very few people today realize that the U.S. mainland was the scene of battles against the Nazis. Warren Grover has produced an outstanding work on this subject. The writing is incisive, the ideas are both original and insightful and the thesis masterfully developed and executed. Must reading for anyone interested in American history and ethnic studies."—William B. Helmreich, CUNY Graduate Center and author ofThe Enduring Community"Thanks to tenacious research and deft story-telling, Warren Grover has put the politics of extremism in one city in the shadow of Fascism, Nazism and Communism, and has thus illuminated the terrible dilemmas of the 1930s. His book also compels the reader to consider an historical anomaly: champions of the Third Reich come across as victims whose civil liberties were infringed, and the gangs of Newark responsible for these violations tended to be Jewish. Such ironies makeNazis in Newarkworth the interest of anyone intrigued by ethnic conflict and politcal violence in urban America."—Stephen Whitfield, Max Richter Professor of American Civilization, Brandeis University"In this fast-paced, thorough study of anti-Nazism in Newark, scholar Warren Grover tells the compelling story of how that city's Jews battled their Nazi enemies in the streets and in the marketplace. With meticulous research, Grover adds an important new chapter to our understanding of Jewish reaction. He chronicles how tough, blue collar Jews physically intimidated home-grown Nazis in such groups as the German-American Bund, while a mild-mannered Jewish physician organized an economic boycott against German goods being sold in some of Newark's finest stores. Grover amply demonstrates that Newark's Jews were neither oblivious nor passive toward the enemy in their midst."—Alan M. Kraut, American University"Warren Grover tells a fascinating story inNazis in Newark. He is a prominent local historian who knows the demography and history of Newark and its environs like the back of his hand. His analysis of the attitude of various groups in Newark toward the threat to Jews posed by Nazism is especially insightful."—Bennett Muraskin,Jewish Currents