The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait

A rich, often-forgotten culture springs to life in this panoramic, popularly written history. The first German Jewish settlement occurred in the fourth century A.D. in the Rhine valley, where Jews became winegrowers and craftspeople. Over the next 1500 years, German Jews struggled against endemic anti-Semitism; confined in ghettos until their emancipation in 1871, they created self-governing communities. Gay ( Jews in America ) illuminates her subjects' robust daily lives, their religious institutions and their activities as cattle traders, manufacturers, artists, scientists and railroad builders. German Jewry's hope of integration into the larger society ended when the short-lived dream of the Weimar Republic turned into the nightmare of Nazi genocide. Today, Gay writes, the remaining Jews of Germany live ``on an edge, in exile.'' Some 300 superb illustrations and excerpts from period writings amplify this moving narrative. History Book Club selection. (Aug.)