A Jewish Life on Three Continents The Memoir of Menachem Mendel Frieden [Hardcover]

This remarkable memoir by Menachem Mendel Frieden illuminates Jewish experience in all three of the most significant centers of Jewish life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It chronicles Frieden's early years in Eastern Europe, his subsequent migration to the United States, and, finally, his settlement in Palestine in 1921. The memoir appears here translated from its original Hebrew, edited and annotated by Frieden's grandson, the historian Lee Shai Weissbach.

Frieden's story provides a window onto Jewish life in an era that saw the encroachment of modern ideas into a traditional society, great streams of migration, and the project of Jewish nation building in Palestine. The memoir follows Frieden's student life in the yeshivas of Eastern Europe, the practices of peddlers in the American South, and the complexities of British policy in Palestine between the two World Wars. This first-hand account calls attention to some often ignored aspects of the modern Jewish experience and provides invaluable insight into the history of the time.

The full annotations and the general introduction of the translator-editor along with his perceptive and objective introductions to each chapter make the text comprehensible to readers without familiarity with the topic. Frieden was not a leader or an important personage. Precisely for that reason, it is a window into how intelligent and committed ordinary Jews interpreted some of the key developments in modern Jewish religious life. The translation is extremely smooth, and this could easily be used as a source for student research as well as a basis for class discussions. The descriptions of Jewish life 'on three continents' make this book a useful addition to collections with strengths in modern Jewish religious life. An annotated edition of a memoir that relates a fascinating life story and contains a wealth of historical information about late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Jewish life lSÈ