PDF Download A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky
Due to the fact that of this e-book A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky is offered by online, it will ease you not to publish it. you could get the soft file of this A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky to conserve in your computer, gizmo, as well as much more tools. It depends upon your determination where as well as where you will read A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky One that you should always bear in mind is that reading publication A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky will certainly never ever end. You will have willing to check out other e-book after finishing a book, and it's continuously.
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky
PDF Download A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky. Just what are you doing when having extra time? Talking or browsing? Why do not you aim to check out some book? Why should be checking out? Checking out is among enjoyable and delightful activity to do in your leisure. By reviewing from lots of resources, you could discover brand-new details as well as experience. The publications A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky to review will certainly many starting from scientific e-books to the fiction publications. It means that you could check out the publications based upon the necessity that you really want to take. Of program, it will certainly be various and also you can check out all e-book types whenever. As below, we will reveal you a book ought to be checked out. This publication A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky is the choice.
Reading, once again, will provide you something new. Something that you don't know after that revealed to be renowneded with guide A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky message. Some expertise or session that re obtained from reading books is uncountable. More e-books A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky you review, more understanding you get, as well as a lot more chances to consistently love reviewing books. As a result of this reason, reading e-book should be begun from earlier. It is as exactly what you can acquire from the publication A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky
Obtain the benefits of checking out habit for your lifestyle. Schedule A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky notification will constantly associate to the life. The reality, knowledge, scientific research, health, faith, amusement, and a lot more can be located in composed books. Many authors supply their encounter, science, study, and all points to discuss with you. Among them is via this A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky This publication A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky will supply the required of notification as well as declaration of the life. Life will certainly be finished if you recognize a lot more things with reading books.
From the explanation over, it is clear that you should review this publication A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky We provide the on the internet book qualified A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky right here by clicking the link download. From discussed publication by on-line, you could give more advantages for several people. Besides, the readers will be likewise easily to get the favourite book A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky to read. Find one of the most favourite and also needed e-book A Chosen Few: The Resurrection Of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), By Mark Kurlansky to review now as well as here.
A POWERFUL, DEEPLY MOVING NARRATIVE OF HOPE REBORN
IN THE SHADOW OF DESPAIR
Fifty years after it was bombed to rubble, Berlin is once again a city in which Jews gather for the Passover seder. Paris and Antwerp have recently emerged as important new centers of Jewish culture. Small but proud Jewish communities are revitalizing the ancient centers of Budapest, Prague, and Amsterdam. These brave, determined Jewish men and women have chosen to settle–or remain–in Europe after the devastation of the Holocaust, but they have paid a price. Among the unexpected dangers, they have had to cope with an alarming resurgence of Nazism in Europe, the spread of Arab terrorism, and the impact of the Jewish state on European life.
Delving into the intimate stories of European Jews from all walks of life, Kurlansky weaves together a vivid tapestry of individuals sustaining their traditions, and flourishing, in the shadow of history. An inspiring story of a tenacious people who have rebuilt their lives in the face of incomprehensible horror, A Chosen Few is a testament to cultural survival and a celebration of the deep bonds that endure between Jews and European civilization.
“Consistently absorbing . . . A Chosen Few investigates the relatively uncharted territory of an encouraging phenomenon.”
–Los Angeles Times
“I can think of no book that portrays with such intelligence, historical understanding, and journalistic flair what life has been like for Jews determined to build lives in Europe.”
–SUSAN MIRON
Forward
- Sales Rank: #686752 in Books
- Published on: 2002-03-26
- Released on: 2002-03-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.26" h x .97" w x 5.53" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 456 pages
From Publishers Weekly
A half-century after the Holocaust, Paris has again become a major Jewish center, and traditional Jewish life is thriving in Antwerp and Budapest. Jewish communities in Berlin, Prague and Amsterdam, however, are struggling, and Poland is almost devoid of Jewish life. Kurlansky (A Continent of Islands) visited numerous Jewish communities that had been decimated during the war, interviewing camp survivors, rabbis, atheists, professional people, political activists and writers. Stitching together their personal stories with history and reportage, this keenly observant narrative charts a traumatized people's experiences in rebuilding their lives after unimaginable horrors and the loss of their homes and businesses. Many of Kurlansky's respondents voice anxiety over the resurgence of anti-Semitic and nationalist violence.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Kurlansky (A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Carribean Destiny, LJ 1/92) presents an insightful look at European Jewry today. He has interviewed Jews of all ages and occupations throughout Europe. After the devastation of the Holocaust, it may come as a surprise that Jews continue to live in countries with tragic histories of anti-Semitism. Kurlansky chronicles the determined efforts of these Jews to survive. Europe will never be the focal point of Jewish life as it was before the Holocaust, but Kurlansky shows how Jews are writing new chapters in the European Jewish experience. Indeed, in the democratic countries of Western Europe, Jews can actually thrive. This unusual book is informative and easy to read. Libraries serving Jewish clientele and those seeking to bolster their current affairs section will want to add.
Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A richly descriptive and insightful survey of post-Holocaust European Jewry. Kurlansky (A Continent of Islands, 1992) interviews scores of Holocaust survivors and their children in Germany, Holland, Poland, Slovakia, and other countries to examine how and why Jews still live in Europe. He moves from the end of WW II to the present, showing people just after the war, often in displaced-persons camps, and then later, having survived--opening a bakery in Paris, enrolling in a Jewish school in Budapest, or running a museum in Prague. Kurlansky states that ``Jewry today has a future in Europe, and Hitler at last has been defeated,'' and he gives statistical evidence that European Jewry is rebounding. But the qualitative state of European Jewry remains less clear. Many of the interview subjects have had Jewish identity thrust on them, whether they want it or not, by political opponents or by the biases and prejudices of the majority cultures in which they reside. And the few traditional Jews (in the growing communities of France and the Lowlands) are immigrants from North Africa or Hasidim who have come to ply the diamond trade. Many of the younger people we meet have only been told of their Jewish background when a parent is dying or when a child is found to be on the receiving or giving end of anti- Semitism. Anti-Semitism, in fact, has been a constant over the years, whether it's the rantings of Nazis or the subtle, anti- Zionist sneers of present-day foreign secretaries. This is not a catalogue of fear and shame, however, as Kurlansky, with a novelist's eye for irony and description, offers many moments of transcendence and humor: entertaining culture clashes between communists and capitalists, religious and secular, Zionists and diasporists. The humor darkens when American tourists are greeted at the Warsaw train station with cries of ``Taxi? Hotel? Auschwitz?'' in Poland's new ``world fair of genocide.'' A lively, penetrating follow-up to Holocaust readings that speaks volumes about the resiliency of the Jewish people. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Deserves to Be Widely Read; Kurlansky Should Update It
By Steven G. Barringer
I read this book about a year ago after coming across it in an airport bookstore. It is one of the most interesting books I have ever read, on any subject. I highly recommend the book for anyone that enjoys reading (I consider it one of the most enlightening and enjoyable books I've ever read), but especially for readers that are interested in European history or contemporary Europe, in current events, or in the Holocaust and the history and future of Jewish religion and culture. This is Mark Kurlansky's second published book; he went on to write insanely entertaining books on diverse subjects, including the history of salt (not a joke), the history of cod (also not a joke) and a history of the Basque people.
"A Chosen Few" was especially instructive to me as a primer on how people experienced antisemitism in the 20th Century. I grew up in a place where there were no Jews, and hardly any Catholics. I met my first Jew and first Catholic in college when I was 18 years old. I did not learn about the typical cultural prejudices regarding Jews until I was an adult, and had no opportunity to internalize them. Consequently, the persistent antisemitism of European culture has always been puzzling to me. The more I have learned about the periodic bouts of antisemitism in history -- from the expulsion of Jews from the Rhineland in 11th Century, the plague-related persecution of Jews in the 14th Century, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, to the Holocaust -- the more imponderable the whole subject becomes (though I understand the religious/historical/cultural explanations).
"A Chosen Few" helped me understand the persistence of antisemitism for the first time, in a way that a more typical historical or sociological study could not have done. The author's approach is to recount the experiences of particular people and families in European cities, from Paris to Moscow, from the 1930's to the 1990's. His aim is to explain why some Jews decided to stay on in Europe, either in their prewar towns or elsewhere, and why others emigrated (especially to Israel and North America, or to the Soviet Union). Kurlansky explains who these families were, where and how they lived and what their economic and social situations were in the 1930's as antisemitism was on the rise and Nazi Germany began its invasions and annexations.
This use of anecdote, oral and family history is what makes the book so unique and compelling (an earlier reviewer who described this as a weakness misses the point, in my opinion). These moving personal accounts give poignant insight into the experience of ordinary people whose lives were made extraordinary because of the unspeakable atrocities they endured. The narratives made the mystery of antisemitism more accessible and personal to me -- exactly what I needed to give depth to my knowledge of antisemitism, its roots and its "apotheosis" in the Holocaust (excuse the use of a word with generally positive and religious connotations in other contexts).
I have wondered how any Jew could have decided to stay in Europe after the war, especially in Germany (if he/she had any choice). The book makes these personal decisions understandable in the context of individuals and families, their religion and traditions, and most importantly, what Jewish families lost in the war and what they had left to reclaim afterward. One learns how the few survivors of once-large, assimilated and prosperous German, Belgian and French Jewish families survived the deprivations after the war in refugee camps or on their own, and how relatives found each other in the camps and across the post-war diaspora. The author also recounts the stories of many Jewish families living in Prague, Budapest, Moscow and other places where assimilation was perhaps less possible than in pre-war Germany. Though backgrounds and experience are diverse, consistent themes emerge from the accounts: the (relatively) enlightened policies of many European governments towards Jews in the late 19th and early 20th Century, the persistence(nonetheless)of cultural antisemitism, the intense disruption to generations of Jewish memory and tradition caused by the Shoah, and the difficulty, despite the Holocaust, of leaving ancestral homes forever. The book illuminates the initial attraction of Soviet communism to many Jews, who saw the underlying egalitarian Marxist theory as an alternative to centuries of European and Catholic despotic antisemitism. (On this point, I also differ somewhat with an earlier reviewer who felt that the book does not adequately explain this phenomenon. Kurlansky does not set out to answer this complex question. Rather, he simply recounts faithfully what attracted some Jews to live in Moscow before and after World War II).
Kurlansky, without making the connection explicitly, illuminates how many Polish people relate to Jews much in the same way white Americans relate to blacks. While there is an ugly history (and recurrent threat) of antisemitism in modern Poland, Jewish music and traditions also are very popular, and a part of Polish cultural identity. While thinking about these contradictions, I realized that they are amazingly similar to the schizophrenic relationship of white Americans with black Americans: racism lives on in our society alongside our exaltation of the art and culture of black people. Many of us know Americans who harbor fundamental prejudices against blacks at the same time they enjoy jazz, rap, hip-hop and other uniquely black art forms as essentially American and revere black athletes, actors and entertainers, and hold out these arts and personalities as essentially American. This is one of many insights that can be gained from reading "A Chosen Few," and why I thought it was such a successful concept for a book.
Finally, the book chronicles (ominously) how antisemitism is reappearing across Europe. All educated people should be aware of this phenomenon. As someone who grew up and was educated in the 1960's and 1970's, I learned to believe that the extremity of the Holocaust could never be repeated, that the world community would never again allow organized, state-sponsored persecution of Jews (or of any ethnic, religious or racial group). I lost the latter illusion a long time ago, but still believed until recently that Jews would be specially protected by law and policy, because of how they had been singled out in the Holocaust. "A Chosen Few" helped disabuse me of that final hopeful notion.
Sadly, one realizes from reading "A Chosen Few" that there is something endemic about antisemitism to European culture. Antisemitism reappears despite what has happened to the Jews, and even because of it. It is impossible to be complacent about it, or to be optimistic that antisemitism is a thing of the past. All the more reason for people to read this book. I am amazed that there are not more reviews of "A Chosen Few" on Amazon.com. I attribute this to the fact that it was first published pre-Amazon. This is a remarkable book; it is as enjoyable to read as it is enlightening. From an avid reader, I rank it in my top 30 most memorable books.
I would love to know what happened to these families since 1994 (when the book was first published). Mr. Kurlansky just finished a translation of Zola's "The Belly of Paris." Wouldn it not be a great time to revisit and update these accounts and publish a new version of the book?
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Wonderful needed text on oft ignored subject
By Seth J. Frantzman
This is a wonderful book by a great author. It reads like a novel, from character to character from country to country surveying Europe from 1945 to present and the lives of the Jews who remained after the Nazi horror. Looking deeply into the lives of Jewish communities in the eastern block the author illuminates the still struggling Polish community, who suffered anti-Semitism either because they were communists or because they were not, usually simply as an excuse. The author deals with specific individuals and this is probably the greatest flaw of the text. Jews came to the very pinnacles of government in Poland and Czechslovakia(Slansky) and yet these pivotal government officials are all but ignored, because the author concentrates on the everyday lives of Jews who chose to either immigrate to or remain in Europe. So one is found wishing they could read more about Bruno Kriesky the Jew who led Austria in the 70s and was noted for being anti-Israel.
The book is broken up into neat sections detailing the growth out of the rubble of the holocaust, 1968 and the rebirth of European anti-Semitism among other subjects. Good portions are devoted to large Jewish communities in France and Italy. One overlooked community are the Spanish Jews who supported Franco, but otherwise this book is a must read for anyone interested in modern Judaism or post WWII Europe.
Seth J. Frantzman
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
We Need To Talk.
By John Spiers
There are many people who view Jews they way they view lawyers: they are all the same. Mark Kurlansky has written a book on the resurrection of Jewry in Europe after the holocaust. One thing you will learn from this book is Jews are not all the same.
Kurlansky along with Spence and Schama are my three favorite writers currently, and all of them are historians. I did not care for history as a topic in school, but then even the Catholic schools were ladeling out tripe when they decided to drink the kool-aid and accept government oversight of Catholic schools. School got boring for Catholics too.
Elsewhere Schama recounts that at a seminar at Balliol College circa 1968 a don suggested to write history about people and not so much events. It has occurred to me that this is the case with all three writers. In A Chosen Few, Kurlansky traces familes in Antwerp, Budapest, Cracow, Paris and North Africa, and at various points in time: prewar, war, post war, and a few points until the 1990s.
Of particular interest to me is how people survive a disaster, what are the best moves, since we too have experienced a disaster, that is the economic boom of the 2000s in USA, when all of that damage was done to our economy. Since we are in the phase where we pay for it, blame is set, and scapegoats are "sacrificed" (a goat is killed ... just who made a sacrifice here?) it is interesting to me the best way to navigate these well trodden paths. Some important points: people generally did not see what was coming. What we think of as a swift disaster in the holocaust unfolded rather slowly. Kurlansky relates frankly how some Jewish elites cooperated with the Nazis, but it did them no good. After the war, escape to Israel was for many worse than staying in Europe since Israel had no economy. Being a Jew in Germany had more opportunites than a Jew in Israel. This is of particular interest to me: for all the vaunted Jewish entrepreneurialism, how come Israel could not survive without massive financial intervention of the communist states (it is undebatable that Israel was a socialist state, certainly at the start.) Is it simply impossible to have a productive economy under socialism? Would Israel have thrived if it had free markets, something it does not have to this day?
For those who wish to believe all Jews are alike, this book shows a distressing range of thoughts and actions by Jews. First there is the argument as to who is a Jew. Is Jewry a race, a nation, a culture? All of the above? Next, is assimilation a good idea, or the maintenance of Jewish identity. If so, what is the Jewish identity? From this uncertain foundation, there is a dizzying array of ideas, actions and even outright antipathy, such as Ashkenazim vs Sephardim.
Although Kurlansky is a Jew himself, he excels at not letting his personal views get in the way of his storytellers. A Jewish informant for the Stasi, who explains she was just building a socialist paradise in East Germany, gets as fair a shake as the Jew who escaped a concentration camp and went on to fight the nazis. Just the facts in this book. Kurlansky is even fair to politicians who have a tin ear to Jewish sensibilities, such as some French polticians.
There may be something unique about Jewish experience, and it is not about Jewish experience per se, but that is about non-Jew reporting thereof. Much is made of gas ovens in concentration camps, but apparently disease was the big killer. This is extremely important information, if true. Another Jewish scholar was looking at the number of six million dead, and comes up with a number of four million, with two million escaped East. The Soviet Union set up a Jewish Autonomous Region in 1934. It still exists... how come we haven't heard anything on this? It leaves it up to Jews to write about Jews, but why? Good scholarship is not something peculiar to Jews. The fact is especially in academia, people are afraid to touch the topic.
The stories that Kurlansky tells, within the narrow bounds of the time and location of his subject, about Jews is so very true about any people at any time. The range of personalities, the ideas, the options, the actions, the motivations.
Something Kurlansky alludes to in this history like Speilberg in Schindler's List, is Jews sell Jews down the river. Perhaps this topic is simply too clear to Jews to bear stating, given that in their bible Cain kills Abel and Joseph's brothers actually do sell Joseph down the river. Perhaps it is too painful, and for a people feeling beset, an obvious lack of unity is too dangerous a notion to allow abroad. When your enemy thinks you are all alike, it is dangerous to let them know that divisions run deep in your ranks. But it seems it is exactly awareness of Jewish divisions that Nazis used so effectively.
Yet people selling their own down the river is nothing new. Japanese sell Japanses down the river, American Americans, Congolese Congolese, Argentinians Argentines, Romans Romans... there is no story to tell in history unless someone sells someone down the river. Jesus and Judas.
Kurlansky is adept enough to flesh out what differences there are, and when people kill over tennis shoes, I suppose these differences can have lethal consequences. So Carmelite nuns put up a convent at Oswiecim, and American Jews (fascinating politics this story) object. American Jews want this killing place left forever a desolate reminder. Christians build a convent on the grounds. Sort of a ground zero mosque story, circa 1995. Yes, Jews tend toward "l'chaim," and Christians tend towards "pray for me." The difference may be religious views, but the fight is politics.
I do recognize the "the Jews" are a favorite topic of wacko-americans, indeed wackos worldwide, and much junk and libel is written about them. But why cede any ground to them? We'll be better off when reticence on certain topics is relieved.
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky PDF
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky EPub
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky Doc
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky iBooks
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky rtf
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky Mobipocket
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Mark Kurlansky Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar