The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743-1933

Rating:
Summary: One of the best works on German Jewry I've read
Review: "The Pity of it All" is on par with Peter Gay's works in terms of the elegance of the writing and the delicate evocation of its period. Elon's work is thoroughly researched but does not bury its reader in needless detail the way so many historians, eager to show off their research, do. Nor does Elon wring his hands over the genuinely difficult question: "How could Germany's Jews not have known they were hurtling torward disaster?" Elon answers this question, in a sense, by avoiding it and instead carefully evoking a very particular place and time. Once he has done that, the question evaporates--or, at least, no longer seems separable from understanding that place and time. Elon's work is studded with mini-biographies of important historical players (Moses Mendelsohn, Walter Rathenau, Albert Einstein, Chaim Weizmann, Hannah Arendt, to name just a few), which keep the reader's interest; they are empathetic portrayals but never hagiographical. Overall, a great read.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best works on German Jewry I've read
Review: "The Pity of it All" is on par with Peter Gay's works in terms of the elegance of the writing and the delicate evocation of its period. Elon's work is thoroughly researched but does not bury its reader in needless detail the way so many historians, eager to show off their research, do. Nor does Elon wring his hands over the genuinely difficult question: "How could Germany's Jews not have known they were hurtling torward disaster?" Elon answers this question, in a sense, by avoiding it and instead carefully evoking a very particular place and time. Once he has done that, the question evaporates--or, at least, no longer seems separable from understanding that place and time. Elon's work is studded with mini-biographies of important historical players (Moses Mendelsohn, Walter Rathenau, Albert Einstein, Chaim Weizmann, Hannah Arendt, to name just a few), which keep the reader's interest; they are empathetic portrayals but never hagiographical. Overall, a great read.

Rating:
Summary: A Pity - but it was not unavoidable
Review: I decided to read this book out of my interest in European Jews' History, and it has not let me down. Seen from Spain, the history of Jews in Germany makes me wonder whether it has lots of similarities with what happened here 500 years ago when Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain. A lot of our towns have "juderías" (Jew Neibourghoods). Falling empires seem to have a tendency of looking for guilt on "different" people. A great book. A must for those interested not only in Jew History but also in the so-call "dialogue among cultures".

Rating:
Summary: Generates Goosebumps
Review: On p. 148, German poet Heinrich Heine is dying and on his deathbed, apparently still wracked with doubt about his conversion and his lack of faith. But he figures as he goes to the beyond, it won't be that bad. "God will forgive me," he says. "That's His Job." After that great line I was more than a little annoyed to find Heine back alive in the next 50-100 pages, you kind of felt like you weren't moving forward, like you were stuck in some sort of mud. But nevermind, once this Amos Elon gets back on track, this is the kind of non ficiton history that gives you goosebumps it is so good and so important. Finally you get to the pre Nazi period and suddenly things you never put together before all come clear. Of course us Russian and Polish Jews- even those of us who are reform, have never been enamored of the Ger. Jews, and its clear there is little to like about them, at least the wealthy ones that are the subject of this book. Nobody would say they got what they deserved, but Elon comes close to pointing out how their devotion to the German fatherland over their devotion to basic principles of Judaism sparked the nationalist counter-reaction that led to the rise of Hitler. Nothing they teach in Sunday school was the point I was about to make. Of the son of one German-jewish leader it was said, "The most Jewish thing he ever did was convert." This is a great great and important book. No one, especially Jews obviously, should not have read this and soon.

Rating:
Summary: Pity--and terror
Review: Perhaps the two Aristotelian emotions of the tragic are relevant, pity--and terror.
Some of the great cultural advances come through the blending of differences. Human tribalism notwithstanding, nature seems to have done this trick on the divide of Christians and Jews, starting in the period of the Enlightenement, and then at a floodtide in the post-Napoleonic era of the liberation. This book demonstrates such a flowering--and then its unreasonable destruction just at the point where Jews/Christians were set to escape from a terrible legacy. It is a story with many fascinating vignettes, starting with Moses Mendelssohn's early youth, and many vital characters, from Maimon, who appears from nowhere to expound on Kant, to Heine and his ambivalent poetics, to, of course, Marx, said to be the self-hating jew, but not so different from type in this strange and brief generation of 'conversions'. Whence this tragedy, whose collosal waste has deprived a civilization of its own fruits? As the finale approaches the answer seems to recede from the conventional issues of anti-semitism to the mysteries of radical evil.
But I think nature benign, and the future should ask for the original path once on its way to its splendid flowering and mutual enrichment.

Rating:
Summary: Hope and Tragedy
Review: Reading Amos Elon's fine history of the German Jewish population is somewhat like watching a horror movie in which you know who is going to meet a horrible end. Even with this knowledge, you hold out some hope, some expectation that everything will turn out alright in the end. Most of the book is filled with this hope, that Germans and Jews would get along and form a new and powerful society through their collective efforts. It is disturbing to know that such tangible dreams and ideas were to meet such a horrific end.

Elon begins his history in a very suitable place. In 1743, a young Jewish cripple limped into the Prussian capital of Berlin. The gate in which he entered was reserved for cattle and Jews. When questioned by the gatekeepers on his intent, the eleven year old Moses Mendelssohn replied that he sought to learn. This young boy would become one of the greatest philosophers and writers of the European enlightenment. The enlightenment brought down many walls that had held German Jews in virtual bondage. People like Mendelssohn could contribute and were welcomed by the more learned elements of German society. It became clear to many in the Jewish community that the only way out of their situation was to become educated, assimilate into German culture and in many cases to convert to Christianity. All these themes are examined in detail, as are the contributions to German society that Jews made. The contribution that Jews made to the European revolutions of the mid 19th century are fascinating. It becomes apparent that Germany would not have been the European powerhouse it became in the late 19th century had it been for the artistic, monetary, educational and technological benefits the Jews gave greater Germany. There were many years of peace between Jews and Christians, and even leading up to World War I there was an almost euphoric hope of eventual German-Jewish synthesis.

Of course, however, the plague that was and is European anti-Semitism stayed alive. Many would never really accept real Jews, they could barely tolerate converts or the many non-observant German Jews. Archaic restrictions remained, keeping Jews from reaching high levels in government or the military. While many Jews succeeded in business, they were taxed disproportionately and were not allowed to attend many famous colleges. There were anti-Semitic riots and the hate newspapers remained alive. It is odd to point out though, as Elon does, that German anti-Semitism was not much worse than other countries. It is very hard to explain the eventual outcome. There are no easy answers, but the combination of economic disaster and the supposed connection seen by many between the Jews and bad business was a definite factor. It is just a sad and tragic book, to read about such hope and prosperity ending in such almost inevitable disaster. That outcome does not make it historically irrelevant however, as Elon does not fall into the trap of basing all of German Jewish history on the eventual Holocaust. That is a credit to him and his fine work.

A must for Jewish and European History enthusiasts.

Rating:
Summary: A powerful story
Review: This is a heartbreaking story about a people who tried to shake their pariah status and, although sometimes things got better sometimes worse, ultimately they failed and failed horribly. Told in a series of sketches against the backdrop of European and German histories, this book combines the best of fiction and non-fiction in a seamless and utterly readable whole.

It is refreshing too that there are neither demons nor saints in these pages. The Jews portrayed here (from Mendelsohn to Arendt) are simply people who try to convince themselves that they too can be German. And for a while they succeeded not in becoming German (for the Germans never regarded them as anything but pariahs) but in convincing themselves that they had achieved that much-coveted status.

And when they had convinced themselves they forgot that "the step-child must always be on his best behavior," forgot even that they were step-children; so heady was the illusory promise of Emancipation, so wondrous was Kaiser's pledge that "he no longer knows any parties, [he knows] only Germans" that the Jews allowed themselves to be deceived. During WWI, they were "as conformist" as all others, forgetting that in war hatred abounds and that the fastest way to get hold of an ideology is to declare that they hate someone. And that the easiest group to hate is a minority that had always been persecuted.

The reminder (a Jew census to determine how many Jews served on the front lines) was a shock but it was not a big enough shock to make the Jews flee Germany. A place where they had lived for thousands of years; where they had lived before the Germans arrived. For, as Amos Elon makes clear, there was noting inevitable about the Holocaust. Even at the very end of the Weimar Republic, there was a paradox of surging Nazism and increasing assimilation, of growing anti-Semitism and growing Jewish prominence for Jews in every field in Weimar culture." For the Jews this meant that they could cling to the belief that they could yet become German; for the Nazis this meant that the Jews were increasingly prominent and therefore so much easier to hate.

The end we know.

But there was so much more to the German Jewry than their horrible and tragic end. This is their story, beautifully told. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A powerful story
Review: This is a heartbreaking story about a people who tried to shake their pariah status and, although sometimes things got better sometimes worse, ultimately they failed and failed horribly. Told in a series of sketches against the backdrop of European and German histories, this book combines the best of fiction and non-fiction in a seamless and utterly readable whole.

It is refreshing too that there are neither demons nor saints in these pages. The Jews portrayed here (from Mendelsohn to Arendt) are simply people who try to convince themselves that they too can be German. And for a while they succeeded not in becoming German (for the Germans never regarded them as anything but pariahs) but in convincing themselves that they had achieved that much-coveted status.

And when they had convinced themselves they forgot that "the step-child must always be on his best behavior," forgot even that they were step-children; so heady was the illusory promise of Emancipation, so wondrous was Kaiser's pledge that "he no longer knows any parties, [he knows] only Germans" that the Jews allowed themselves to be deceived. During WWI, they were "as conformist" as all others, forgetting that in war hatred abounds and that the fastest way to get hold of an ideology is to declare that they hate someone. And that the easiest group to hate is a minority that had always been persecuted.

The reminder (a Jew census to determine how many Jews served on the front lines) was a shock but it was not a big enough shock to make the Jews flee Germany. A place where they had lived for thousands of years; where they had lived before the Germans arrived. For, as Amos Elon makes clear, there was noting inevitable about the Holocaust. Even at the very end of the Weimar Republic, there was a paradox of surging Nazism and increasing assimilation, of growing anti-Semitism and growing Jewish prominence for Jews in every field in Weimar culture." For the Jews this meant that they could cling to the belief that they could yet become German; for the Nazis this meant that the Jews were increasingly prominent and therefore so much easier to hate.

The end we know.

But there was so much more to the German Jewry than their horrible and tragic end. This is their story, beautifully told. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: The past made relevant for today
Review: We have come to expect absorbing and well-written works from Elon, and this one is not disappointing. The author helps us understand two questions: first, how a small and harmless group which contributed so much to European and world civilization could still be so intensely despised, and second, how some of modern history's worst crimes against humanity were cheerfully committed by a nation which had one of the most well-educated and intellectually respectable citizenry in history.
This book is more than a glimpse of some interesting but irrelevant period of history. Anti-semitism, for example, is as alive today as ever, and no one believes that if the Jews or Israel were in mortal danger today, they would not be happily abandoned by everyone (except perhaps by the US). Civilized people continue to abandon not only the Jews, but many other minority groups around the world (including the Palestinians, by the way, who are effectively despised by many of their so-called brothers). This book helps us understand why it happens and how "intellectuals" and political leaders of the left and the right continue to acquiesce or collaborate. Elon helps us understand how humanity continues to have a "dark side," despite the advances of modern civilization. It is unlikely this situation will change much when the Chinese take over world leadership, either, given their traditional xenophobia.

I would recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand why productive minority groups continue to have such a difficult time in this so-called "inclusionary" and globalized world.

Rating:
Summary: The past made relevant for today
Review: We have come to expect absorbing and well-written works from Elon, and this one is not disappointing. The author helps us understand two questions: first, how a small and harmless group which contributed so much to European and world civilization could still be so intensely despised, and second, how some of modern history's worst crimes against humanity were cheerfully committed by a nation which had one of the most well-educated and intellectually respectable citizenry in history.
This book is more than a glimpse of some interesting but irrelevant period of history. Anti-semitism, for example, is as alive today as ever, and no one believes that if the Jews or Israel were in mortal danger today, they would not be happily abandoned by everyone (except perhaps by the US). Civilized people continue to abandon not only the Jews, but many other minority groups around the world (including the Palestinians, by the way, who are effectively despised by many of their so-called brothers). This book helps us understand why it happens and how "intellectuals" and political leaders of the left and the right continue to acquiesce or collaborate. Elon helps us understand how humanity continues to have a "dark side," despite the advances of modern civilization. It is unlikely this situation will change much when the Chinese take over world leadership, either, given their traditional xenophobia.

I would recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand why productive minority groups continue to have such a difficult time in this so-called "inclusionary" and globalized world.