Originally published in German in 2012, this comprehensive history of Jewish life in postwar Germany provides a systematic account of Jews and Judaism from the Holocaust to the early 21st century by leading experts of modern German-Jewish history. Beginning in the immediate postwar period with a large concentration of Eastern European Holocaust survivors stranded in Germany, the book follows Jews during the relative quiet period of the fifties and early sixties during which the foundations of new Jewish life were laid.
Brenners volume goes on to address the rise of anti-Israel sentiments after the Six-Day War as well as the beginnings of a critical confrontation with Germanys Nazi past in the late sixties and early seventies, noting the relatively small numbers of Jews living in Germany up to the 1990s. The contributors argue that these Jews were a powerful symbolic presence in German society and sent a meaningful signal to the rest of the world that Jewish life was possible again in Germany after the Holocaust.
This landmark history presents a comprehensive account of reconstruction of a multifaceted Jewish life in a country that carries the legacy of being at the epicenter of the Holocaust.
A lot of archival work was necessary (for the first chapter). Thus, there is a huge amount of information already on the first 140 pages of this excellent work. This first part clarifies the difficult situation of Liberal, Orthodox, and Zionist Jews, who were looking for a new home.
The recent radical changes in German politics make Michael Brenners handbook on the history of post-war Jewry in Germantheessential text for scholars and students. Written by the preeminent specialists from the USA, Israel, and Germany it presents in clear and accessible language the complex and contradictory trajectory of Jewish life reestablishing itself in the German states and then in a united Germany. The reappearance of radical right-wing xenophobia makes this hislÓ
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