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A major new history examining the realities of Jewish life across Europe on the eve of WWII. Wasserstein draws together accounts of thousands of individuals in the years leading up to 1939, when the Jews faced an existential crisis that was as much the result of internal decay as of external attack. Wasserstein is the author of "Israel & Palestine" and "Divided Jerusalem", and this ties in with Jewish Book Week.
Synopsis
Presents a disturbing interpretation of the collapse of European Jewish civilization even before the Nazi onslaught. Ranging from Vilna ('Jerusalem of Lithuania') to Salonica with its Judeo-Espanol-speaking stevedores and singers, and beyond, this book focuses squarely on the Jews themselves rather than their persecutors.
