The Jews of Germany; A Historical Portrait
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Oversized book, measuring 8-1/2 by 11-1/4. xiii, [1], 297, [1] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Gift inscription, not from the author, on fep. Introduction by Peter Gay. Includes chapters on Origins; The Institutions of Jewish Life; From the Middle Ages to the Court Jews; The Return to History; The Struggle for Emancipation; In the Fifty-Year Empire; and The End. Also includes Further Reading, Acknowledgments, Credits, and Index. This unique book provides a panoramic over view of the 1600 year history of the Jews in Germany. Through texts, pictures, and contemporary accounts, it follows the German Jews from their first settlements on the Rhine in the fourth century to the destruction of the community in World War II. Using both voices and images of the past, the book reveals how the German Jews looked, how they lived, what they thought about, and what others thought of them. Ruth Gay's text, interwoven with excepts from memoirs, letters, newspapers, and many other contemporary sources, shows how the German Jews organized their communities, created a new language (Yiddish), and built their special culture--all this under circumstances sometimes friendly, but often murderously hostile. The book explains the internal debates that agitated the community from medieval to modern times, and analyzes how German Jewry emerged into the modern world. The earliest document in the book is a fourth-centrury decree by the Emperor Constantine permitting Jews to hold office in Cologne. Among the last are letters, written in Nazi Berlin, from Betty Scholem to her son Gershom in Palestine. More