How Jews Became Germans - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook How Jews Became Germans write by Deborah Hertz. This book was released on 2008-10-01. How Jews Became Germans available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A “very readable” history of Jewish conversions to Christianity over two centuries that “tracks the many fascinating twists and turns to this story” (Library Journal). When the Nazis came to power and created a racial state in the 1930s, they considered it an urgent priority to identify Jews who had converted to Christianity over the preceding centuries. With the help of church officials, a vast system of conversion and intermarriage records was created in Berlin, the country’s premier Jewish city. Deborah Hertz’s discovery of these records, the Judenkartei, was the first step on a long research journey that led to this compelling book. Hertz begins the book in 1645, when the records begin, and traces generations of German Jewish families for the next two centuries. The book analyzes the statistics and explores letters, diaries, and other materials to understand in a far more nuanced way than ever before why Jews did or did not convert to Protestantism. Focusing on the stories of individual Jews in Berlin, particularly the charismatic salon woman Rahel Levin Varnhagen and her husband, Karl, a writer and diplomat, Hertz brings out the human stories behind the documents, sets them in the context of Berlin’s evolving society, and connects them to the broad sweep of European history.
Submerged on the Surface
Submerged on the Surface - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Submerged on the Surface write by Richard N. Lutjens, Jr.. This book was released on 2019-09-01. Submerged on the Surface available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Between 1941 and 1945, thousands of German Jews, in fear for their lives, made the choice to flee their impending deportations and live submerged in the shadows of the Nazi capital. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence and interviews with survivors, this book reconstructs the daily lives of Jews who stayed in Berlin during the war years. Contrary to the received wisdom that “hidden” Jews stayed in attics and cellars and had minimal contact with the outside world, the author reveals a cohort of remarkable individuals who were constantly on the move and actively fought to ensure their own survival.
Why the Germans? Why the Jews?
Why the Germans? Why the Jews? - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Why the Germans? Why the Jews? write by Götz Aly. This book was released on 2014-04-15. Why the Germans? Why the Jews? available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A provocative and insightful analysis that sheds new light on one of the most puzzling and historically unsettling conundrums Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Countless historians have grappled with these questions, but few have come up with answers as original and insightful as those of maverick German historian Götz Aly. Tracing the prehistory of the Holocaust from the 1800s to the Nazis' assumption of power in 1933, Aly shows that German anti-Semitism was—to a previously overlooked extent—driven in large part by material concerns, not racist ideology or religious animosity. As Germany made its way through the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, the difficulties of the lethargic, economically backward German majority stood in marked contrast to the social and economic success of the agile Jewish minority. This success aroused envy and fear among the Gentile population, creating fertile ground for murderous Nazi politics. Surprisingly, and controversially, Aly shows that the roots of the Holocaust are deeply intertwined with German efforts to create greater social equality. Redistributing wealth from the well-off to the less fortunate was in many respects a laudable goal, particularly at a time when many lived in poverty. But as the notion of material equality took over the public imagination, the skilled, well-educated Jewish population came to be seen as having more than its fair share. Aly's account of this fatal social dynamic opens up a new vantage point on the greatest crime in history and is sure to prompt heated debate for years to come.
German Jews Beyond Judaism
German Jews Beyond Judaism - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook German Jews Beyond Judaism write by George L. Mosse. This book was released on 1997. German Jews Beyond Judaism available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Jews were emancipated at a time when high culture was becoming an integral part of German citizenship. German Jews felt a powerful urge to integrate, to find their Jewish substance in German culture and craft an identity as both Germans and Jews. In this volume, based on the 1983 Efroymson Memorial Lectures given at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, George Mosse traces their pursuit of Bildung and German Enlightenment ideals and their efforts to influence German society even at a time when this led to intellectual isolation. Yet out of this German-Jewish dialogue, what had once been part of German culture became a central Jewish heritage.
German Jews beyond Judaism
German Jews beyond Judaism - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook German Jews beyond Judaism write by George L Mosse. This book was released on 1997-05-01. German Jews beyond Judaism available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Jews were emancipated at a time when high culture was becoming an integral part of German citizenship. German Jews felt a powerful urge to integrate, to find their Jewish substance in German culture and craft an identity as both Germans and Jews. In this reprint edition, based on the 1983 Efroymson Memorial Lectures given at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, George Mosse argues that they did this by adopting the concept of Bildung-the idea of intellectual and moral self-cultivation-and combining it with key Enlightenment ideas such as optimism about human potential, individualism and autonomy, and a connection between knowledge and morality through aesthetics. Personal friendships could be devoted to common pursuit of Bildung and become a means of overcoming differences, becoming a means for integration into German society. Mosse traces how Jewish artists, writers, and thinkers actively sought to participate in German culture and communicate these ideals through popular culture, scholarship, and political activity. From the historical biographies, novels, and short stories of Stefan Zweig and Emil Ludwig; to the psychoanalysis of Freud, which sought to subject irrationality to reason; to the revolutionary thought of Walter Benjamin-Jews sought to influence a mass political culture that was fast drifting into irrationality. As individualism was subsumed into nationalism, and eventually the German political right's racist version of nationalism, German-Jewish dialogue became more difficult. Jews remained idealistic as German society became less rational, their ideas corresponded less and less to the realities of German life, and they drifted out of the mainstream into an intellectual isolation. Yet out of this German-Jewish dialogue, what had once been part of German culture became a central Jewish heritage. The ideal of cultivating a personal identity beyond religion and nationality, the liberal outlook on society and politics, and the desire to transcend history by stressing what united rather than divided individuals and nations infiltrated Jewish life became an inspiration for many men and women searching to humanize their society and their own lives. Mosse's lectures trace the emergence of a form of Jewishness which resisted cultural ghettoization in favor of the pursuit of that which is universally human.
