The Price of Assimilation

In The Price of Assimilation, Jeffrey Sposato offers a bold, revisionist account of Mendelssohn's relationship to his Jewish roots. Challenging the notion that Mendelssohn's identity was strongly informed by a sense of Jewishness, a view that came into currency after World War II, Sposato argues instead that for much of his career, Mendelssohn consciously attempted to distance himself from his Jewish heritage.