The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881


Book Description

In the nineteenth century, the largest Jewish community the modern world had known lived in hundreds of towns and shtetls in the territory between the Prussian border of Poland and the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea. The period had started with the partition of Poland and the absorption of its territories into the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires; it would end with the first large-scale outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence and the imposition in Russia of strong anti-Semitic legislation. In the years between, a traditional society accustomed to an autonomous way of life would be transformed into one much more open to its surrounding cultures, yet much more confident of its own nationalist identity. In The Jews of Eastern Europe, Israel Bartal traces this transformation and finds in it the roots of Jewish modernity.




Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe


Book Description

For many centuries Jews and Germans were economically and culturally of significant importance in East-Central and Eastern Europe. Since both groups had a very similar background of origin (Central Europe) and spoke languages which are related to each other (German/Yiddish), the question arises to what extent Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe share common historical developments and experiences. This volume aims to explore not only entanglements and interdependences of Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe from the late middle ages to the 20th century, but also comparative aspects of these two communities. Moreover, the perception of Jews as Germans in this region is also discussed in detail.




The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 2, The Hellenistic Age


Book Description

Vol. 4 covers the late Roman period to the rise of Islam. Focuses especially on the growth and development of rabbinic Judaism and of the major classical rabbinic sources such as the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud and various Midrashic collections.




The Extermination of the European Jews


Book Description

A major new interpretation of the Holocaust, contextualizing the destruction of the Jews within Nazi violence against other groups.




Gentile New York


Book Description

The very question of “what do Jews think about the goyim” has fascinated Jews and Gentiles, anti-Semites and philo-Semites alike. Much has been written about immigrant Jews in nineteenth- and twentieth-century New York City, but Gil Ribak’s critical look at the origins of Jewish liberalism in America provides a more complicated and nuanced picture of the Americanization process. Gentile New York examines these newcomers’ evolving feelings toward non-Jews through four critical decades in the American Jewish experience. Ribak considers how they perceived Gentiles in general as well as such different groups as “Yankees” (a common term for WASPs in many Yiddish sources), Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, and African Americans. As they discovered the complexity of America’s racial relations, the immigrants found themselves at odds with “white” American values or behavior and were drawn instead into cooperative relationships with other minorities. Sparked with many previously unknown anecdotes, quotations, and events, Ribak’s research relies on an impressive number of memoirs, autobiographies, novels, newspapers, and journals culled from both sides of the Atlantic.




The Holocaust Sites of Europe


Book Description

The Holocaust – the murder of approximately six million Jewish men, women and children by Nazi Germany and its collaborators in the Second World War – was a crime of unprecedented and unparalleled proportions, perpetrated in innumerable locations across the European continent. Now in its third edition, The Holocaust Sites of Europe is the most comprehensive and accessible guide to these sites, serving as both a work of historical reference and a practical resource for visitors to them today. It includes all major Holocaust sites in Europe, covering more than 20 countries and encompassing not only iconic locations such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen, but also lesser known yet similarly significant sites like Maly Trostenets and Sajmište. It addresses extermination, forced labour and concentration camps, massacre sites, and cities which were homes to major Jewish populations and – often – ghettos, as well as Nazi 'euthanasia' centres and locations associated with the genocide of Roma and Sinti. In so doing, the book also covers the many museums and memorials which commemorate the Holocaust. This new edition has been fully updated to reflect developments which have affected sites in the 2010s and 2020s, ranging from the establishment of new museums to growing threats from climate change and state-sponsored distortion of history. The Holocaust Sites of Europe is thus an indispensable and sensitive guide to both the history and the modern reality of the most traumatic sites in European history."




Being Jewish in 21st Century Central Europe


Book Description

Jewish life in Europe has undergone dramatic changes and transformations within the 20th century and also the last two decades. The phenomenon of the dual position of the Jewish minority in relation to the majority, not entirely unusual for Jewish Diaspora communities, manifested itself most distinctly on the European continent. This unique Jewish experience of the ambiguous position of insider and outsider may provide valuable views on contemporary European reality and identity crisis. The book focuses inter alia on the main common denominators of contemporary Jewish life in Central Europe, such as an intense confrontation with the heritage of the Holocaust and unrelenting antisemitism on the one hand and on the other hand, huge appreciation of traditional Jewish learning and culture by a considerable part of non-Jewish Europeans. The volume includes contributions on Jewish life in central European countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Germany.




Jewish Heritage Travel


Book Description

This expanded and updated edition includes new coverage of Austria, Ukraine, and Lithuania in addition to Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and all of the ancestral homes to the great majority of North American Jews.




Rescue and Resistance


Book Description

The Macmillan Profiles series is a collection of volumes featuring profiles of famous people, places and historical events. This text profiles heroes and activists of the Holocaust, including Elie Wiesel, Oskar Schindler, Simon Wiesenthal, Primo Levi, Anne Frank and Raoul Wallenberg, as well as soldiers, Partisans, ghetto leaders, diplomats and ordinary citizens who fought German aggression and risked their lives to save Jews.




Jews in the East European Borderlands


Book Description

This volume collects the papers of the international conference held in April2009 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.