Books in the New Perspectives on Modern Jewish History series

The postwar decades were not the "e;golden era"e; in which American Jews easily partook in the religious revival, liberal consensus, and suburban middle-class comfort. Rather it was a period marked by restlessness and insecurity born of the shock about the Holocaust and of the unprecedented opportunities in American society. American Jews responded to loss and opportunity by obsessively engaging with the East European past. The proliferation of religious texts on traditional spirituality, translations of Yiddish literature, historical essays , photographs and documents of shtetl culture, theatrical and musical events, culminating in the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof, illustrate the grip of this past on post-1945 American Jews. This study shows how American Jews reimagined their East European past to make it usable for their American present. By rewriting their East European history, they created a repertoire of images, stories, and ideas that have shaped American Jewry to this day.

For many centuries Jews and Germans were economically and culturally of significant importance in East-Central and Eastern Europe. Since both groups had a very similar background of origin (Central Europe) and spoke languages which are related to each other (German/Yiddish), the question arises to what extent Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe share common historical developments and experiences. This volume aims to explore not only entanglements and interdependences of Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe from the late middle ages to the 20th century, but also comparative aspects of these two communities. Moreover, the perception of Jews as Germans in this region is also discussed in detail.

The Jewish communities of East and Southeast Asia display an impressive diversity. Jonathan Goldstein's book covers the period from 1750 and focuses on seven of the area's largest cities and trading emporia: Singapore, Manila, Taipei, Harbin, Shanghai, Rangoon, and Surabaya. The book isolates five factors which contributed to the formation of transnational, multiethnic, and multicultural identity: memory, colonialism, regional nationalism, socialism, and Zionism. It emphasizes those factors which preserved specifically Judaic aspects of identity.Drawing extensively on interviews conducted in all seven cities as well as governmental, institutional, commercial, and personal archives, censuses, and cemetery data, the book provides overviews of communal life and intimate portraits of leading individuals and families. Jews were engaged in everything from business and finance to revolutionary activity. Some collaborated with the Japanese while others confronted them on the battlefield. The book attempts to treat fully and fairly the wide spectrum of Jewish experience ranging from that of the ultra-Orthodox to the completely secular.

Drawing onhitherto neglected materials,Zohar Segev sheds new light on the policy of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) during the Holocaust. Furthermore, in stark contrast to the Zionist movement, WJC leaders strove to establish a Jewish state and to rehabilitate Diaspora Jewish life, two goals they saw as mutually complementary.

Of all victims of Nazi persecution, German Jews had to suffer the Nazi yoke for the longest time. Throughout the Third Reich, they were exposed to anti-Jewish propaganda, discrimination, anti-Semitic laws and increasingly to outrages and offences by non-Jewish Germans. While the International Military Tribunal and the subsequent American Military Tribunals at Nuremberg dealt with a variety of Nazi crimes according to international law, these courts did not consider themselves cognizant in adjudicating wrongdoings against German citizens and those who lost German citizenship based on the so-called "e;Nuremberg laws,"e; such as Germany's Jews. Until recently, scholarship failed to explore this task of the German judiciary in more detail. Edith Raim fills this gap by showing the extent of the crimes committed against Jews beyond the traditionally known facts and by elucidating how the West German administration of justice was reconstructed under Allied supervision.

How far can Jewish life in the South during Reconstruction (1863-1877) be described as German in a period of American Jewry traditionally referred to as 'German Jewish' in historiography? To what extent were Jewish immigrants in the South acculturated to Southern identity and customs? Anton Hieke discusses the experience of Jewish immigrants in the Reconstruction South as exemplified by Georgia and the Carolinas. The book critically explores the shifting identities of German Jewish immigrants, their impact on congregational life, and of their identity as 'Southerners'. The author draws from demographic data of six thousand individuals representing the complete identifiable Jewish minority in Georgia, South and North Carolina from 1860 to 1880. Reconstruction, it is concluded, has to be seen as a formative period for the region's Jewish congregations and Reform Judaism. The study challenges existing views that are claiming German Jews were setting the standard for Jewish life in this period and were perceived as distinct from Jews of another background. Rather Hieke arrives at a conclusion that takes into consideration the migratory movement between North and South.

The study discusses the history of the Jewish refugees within the Shanghai setting and its relationship to the two established Jewish communities, the Sephardi and Russian Jews. Attention is also focused on the cultural life of the refugees who used both German and Yiddish, and on their attempts to cope under Japanese occupation after the outbreak of the Pacific War. Differences of identity existed between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, religious and secular, aside from linguistic and cultural differences. The study aims to understand the exile condition of the refugees and their amazing efforts to create a semblance of cultural life in a strange new world.

In Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War David J. Fine offers a surprising portrayal of Jewish officers in the German army as integrated and comfortably identified as both Jews and Germans. Fine explores how both Judaism and Christianity were experienced by Jewish soldiers at the front, making an important contribution to the study of the experience of religion in war. Fine shows how the encounter of German Jewish soldiers with the old world of the shtetl on the eastern front tested both their German and Jewish identities. Finally, utilizing published and unpublished sources including letters, diaries, memoirs, military service records, press accounts, photographs, drawings and tomb stone inscriptions, the author argues that antisemitism was not a primary factor in the war experience of Jewish soldiers.

During the era of Jewish mass migration from Eastern Europe (from the 1880s until the First World War), Switzerland with its liberal policies on foreigners became a key destination for students, revolutionaries, and travelers.