Jews in Germany After the Holocaust : Memory, Identity, and Jewish-German Relations

Lynn Rapaport

ISBN 10: 052158809X / ISBN 13: 9780521588096

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1997

About this Item

Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - What is it like to be Jewish and to be born and raised in Germany after the Holocaust Based on remarkably candid interviews with nearly one hundred German Jews, Lynn Rapaport's book reveals a rare understanding of how the memory of the Holocaust shapes Jews' everyday lives. As their views of non-Jewish Germans and of themselves, their political integration into German society, and their friendships and relationships with Germans are subtly uncovered, the obstacles to readjustment when sociocultural memory is still present are better understood. This is also a book about Jewish identity in the midst of modernity. It shows how the boundaries of ethnicity are not marked by how religious Jews are, or their absorption of traditional culture, but by the moral distinctions rooted in Holocaust memory that Jews draw between themselves and other Germans. Jews in Germany after the Holocaust has won an award for being the best book in the sociology of religion from the American Sociological Association.

Seller Inventory # 9780521588096

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Jews in Germany After the Holocaust : Memory, Identity, and Jewish-German Relations
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052158809X
• ISBN 13: 9780521588096
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 152H x 20D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 20 millimeters depth
• Weight: 553 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Jews in Germany After the Holocaust uses extensive interviews to show how Holocaust memory shapes the lives of Jews who were born and raised in Germany after the Holocaust. It focuses on Jews' views of other Germans, of themselves, their integration into German society, and their friendships, sexual and love relationships with Germans. It considers the problem of defining Jewish identity in the context of modernity, and the difficulties Jews in Germany face dealing with Germans in everyday life.

Review

"Laced with engaging case histories, this well-written account will appeal to the scholarly community as well as educated general readers." G.P. Blum, Choice

"This book is a major addition to the small, but growing, body of scholarship abouth Jewsih life in post-World War II Germany. Rapaport presents a richly textured portrait of Jewish daily life, focusing primarily on the processes that produce and preserve a sense of Jewish identity. Historians...will find in Rapaport a good example of how to understand ethnic menatality as the product of an interaction between collective memory and the dense reality of everyday life." Alan E, Steinweis, Jrnl of Interdisciplinary History

"Rapaport shows nicely how today's Jews in Germany -- who, tellingly, would never identify themselves as German Jews -- possess all the characteristics of being an indistinguishable segment of German culture and society. In short, they would be indistinguishable from the Germans but for one major fact: their collective memory about the Holocaust. This, as Rapaportdemonstrates in impressive detail, affects all their perceptions of and interactions with Germans: on the job, in private life, as coworkers, friends, and lovers." Andrei S. Markovits, American Journal of Sociology

"This book is a major addition to the small, but growing, body of scholarship about Jewsih life in post-World War II Germany. Rapaport presents a richly textured portrait of Jewish daily life, focusing primarily on the processes that produce and preserve a sense of Jewish identity." Alan E. Steinweis, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Lynn Rapaport's stimulating work provides a sociological examination of the Holocaust's impact on the relations between Jews and Germans in the postwar Federal Republic." Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, German Studies Review