The Polish Jewish Sourcebook, compiled and edited by Centropa in Vienna, is the fourth in a series of Centropa Readers on the great Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe.With essays, timelines and general histories on prewar and postwar Poland, this volume also contains excerpts from eighteen Jews who were deported to, and survived Auschwitz-Birkenau. This volume also contains a section: The Jewish History of Poland in forty-two Photographs, each annotated by one of the sixty-five Polish Jews Centropa interviewed over the past decade.
One summer's night in 1946, over 1,000 European Jews waited silently on an Italian beach to board a secret ship. They had survived Auschwitz, hidden and fought in forests and endured death marches--now they were taking on the Royal Navy, running the British blockade of Palestine. From Eastern Europe to Israel via Germany and Italy, Rosie Whitehouse follows in the footsteps of those secret passengers, uncovering their extraordinary stories--some told for the first time. Who were those people on the beach? Where and what had they come from, and how had they survived? Why, after being liberated, did so many Jews still feel unsafe in Europe? How do we--and don't we--remember the Holocaust today? This remarkable, important book digs deep and travels far in search of answers.
Salonica, located in northern Greece, was long a fascinating crossroads metropolis of different religions and ethnicities, where Egyptian merchants, Spanish Jews, Orthodox Greeks, Sufi dervishes, and Albanian brigands all rubbed shoulders. Tensions sometimes flared, but tolerance largely prevailed until the twentieth century when the Greek army marched in, Muslims were forced out, and the Nazis deported and killed the Jews. As the acclaimed historian Mark Mazower follows the city’s inhabitants through plague, invasion, famine, and the disastrous twentieth century, he resurrects a fascinating and vanished world.
Having presented the physical conditions among which Hungarian Jews lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—the kind of neighborhoods and apartments they lived in, and the places where they worked—this second volume addresses the spiritual aspects and the lighter sides of their life. We are shown how they were raised as children, how they spent their leisure time, and receive insights into their religious practices, too. The treatment is the same as in the first volume. There are many historical photographs-at least one picture per page-and the related text offers a virtual cross section of Hungarian society, a diverse group of the poor, the middle-class, and the wealthy. Regardless of whether they lived integrated within the majority society or in separate communities, whether they were assimilated Jews or Hasidim, they were an important and integral part of the nation. Through arduous work of archival research, Koerner reconstructs the many diverse lifestyles using fragmentary information and surviving photos
This book explores the Holocaust as a social process. Although the mass murder of European Jews was essentially the result of political-ideological decisions made by the Nazi state leadership, the events of the Holocaust were also part of a social dynamic. All European societies experienced developments that led to the social exclusion, persecution and murder of the continent’s Jews. This volume therefore questions Raul Hilberg ́s category of the ‘bystander’. In societies where the political order expects citizens to endorse the exclusion of particular groups in the population, there cannot be any completely uninvolved bystanders. Instead, this book examines the multifarious forms of social action and behaviour connected with the Holocaust. It focuses on institutions and persons, helpers, co-perpetrators, facilitators and spectators, beneficiaries and profiteers, as well as Jewish victims and Jewish organisations trying to cope with the dynamics of exclusion and persecution.
A James Beard Finalist in the International Cookbook Category In Jewish Holiday Cooking, Jayne Cohen shares a wide-ranging collection of traditional Jewish recipes, as well as inventive new creations and contemporary variations on the classic dishes. For home cooks, drawing from the rich traditions of Jewish history when cooking for the holidays can be a daunting task. Jewish Holiday Cooking comes to the rescue with recipes drawn from Jayne Cohen's first book, The Gefilte Variations -- called an "outstanding debut" by Publisher's Weekly -- as well as over 100 new recipes and information on cooking for the holidays. More than just a cookbook, this is the definitive guide to celebrating the Jewish holidays. Cohen provides practical advice and creative suggestions on everything from setting a Seder table with ritual objects to accommodating vegan relatives. The book is organized around the major Jewish holidays and includes nearly 300 recipes and variations, plus suggested menus tailored to each occasion, all conforming to kosher dietary laws. Chapters include all eight of the major Jewish holidays -- Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, and Shavuot -- and the book is enlivened throughout with captivating personal reminiscences and tales from Jewish lore as well as nostalgic black and white photography from Cohen's own family history.
