Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, approximately ninety thousand German Jews fled their homeland and settled in the United States, prior to that nation closing its borders to Jewish refugees. And even though many of them wanted little to do with Germany, the circumstances of the Second World War and the postwar era meant that engagement of some kind was unavoidable—whether direct or indirect, initiated within the community itself or by political actors and the broader German public. This book carefully traces these entangled histories on both sides of the Atlantic, demonstrating the remarkable extent to which German Jews and their former fellow citizens helped to shape developments from the Allied war effort to the course of West German democratization.

The essays in this volume were written to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, the fateful pogrom in early November 1938 which was a watershed in the treatment of Jews in Germany and signaled the end to more than a century of specific Jewish culture there. Historian George Mosse in the opening essay characterizes this spirit as represented by Bildung, a post-emancipation notion that included character formation, moral education, the primacy of culture, the acquisition of aesthetic taste, and the belief in the potential of humanity. Bildung became to large portions of German Jewry an important, if not central, expression of their Jewishness. It is this legacy that this volume explores and seeks to understand. Among the questions contributors examine are the meaning of this legacy in our time, what has happened to it in its American context, whether it has found a home in the United States or whether it remains in exile, and which elements of the legacy are worth preserving for the next generation. Two groups address this range of questions. The first is made up of Jews born in Germany but who reached their professional maturity in the United States. The second is made up primarily of American-born individuals whose Jewish parents had either fled Nazi Germany or who, as German Jews, survived the Holocaust. The Germany Jewish Legacy in America commemorates the end of one of the greatest communities in Jewish history and explores those elements of its greatness which may still be relevant in insuring a vibrant and productive Jewish community in a free and democratic American society.

Written by the most prominent scholars in American Jewish history, this encyclopedia illuminates the varied experiences of America's Jews and their impact on American society and culture over three and a half centuries. American Jews have profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, American culture. Yet American history texts have largely ignored the Jewish experience. The Encyclopedia of American Jewish History corrects that omission. In essays and short entries written by 125 of the world's leading scholars of American Jewish history and culture, this encyclopedia explores both religious and secular aspects of American Jewish life. It examines the European background and immigration of American Jews and their impact on the professions and academic disciplines, mass culture and the arts, literature and theater, and labor and radical movements. It explores Zionism, antisemitism, responses to the Holocaust, the branches of Judaism, and Jews' relations with other groups, including Christians, Muslims, and African Americans. The encyclopedia covers the Jewish press and education, Jewish organizations, and Jews' participation in America's wars. In two comprehensive volumes, Encyclopedia of American Jewish History makes 350 years of American Jewish experience accessible to scholars, all levels of students, and the reading public.

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, approximately ninety thousand German Jews fled their homeland and settled in the United States, prior to that nation closing its borders to Jewish refugees. And even though many of them wanted little to do with Germany, the circumstances of the Second World War and the postwar era meant that engagement of some kind was unavoidable—whether direct or indirect, initiated within the community itself or by political actors and the broader German public. This book carefully traces these entangled histories on both sides of the Atlantic, demonstrating the remarkable extent to which German Jews and their former fellow citizens helped to shape developments from the Allied war effort to the course of West German democratization.

This book is first of its kind to deal with the interwar Jewish emigration from Germany in a comparative framework and follows the entire migration process from the point of view of the emigrants. It combines the usage of social and economic measures with the individual stories of the immigrants, thereby revealing the complex connection between the socio-economic profile varieties and the decisions regarding emigration – if, when and where to. The encounter between the various immigrant-refugee groups and the different host societies in different times produced diverse stories of presence, function, absorption and self-awareness in the three major overseas destinations – Palestine, the USA, and Great Britain -- despite the ostensibly common German-Jewish heritage. Thus German-Jewish immigrants created a new and nuanced fabric of the German-Jewish Diaspora in its main three centers, and shaped distinct identifications and legacies in Israel, Britain, and the United States.

In 1868, Jacob Kaufmann, the nineteen-year-old son of a German farmer, stepped off a ship onto the shores of New York. His brother Isaac soon followed, and together they joined an immigrant community of German Jews selling sewing items to the coal miners and mill workers of western Pennsylvania. After opening merchant tailor shops in Pittsburgh’s North and South sides, the Kaufmann brothers caught the wave of a new type of merchandising—the department store—and launched what would become their retail dynasty with a downtown storefront at Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street. In just two decades, Jacob and his brothers had ascended Pittsburgh’s economic and social ladder, rising from hardscrabble salesmen into Gilded Age multimillionaires. Generous and powerful philanthropists, the Kaufmanns left an indelible mark on the city and western Pennsylvania. From Edgar and Liliane’s famous residence, the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece called Fallingwater, to the Kaufmann clock, a historic landmark that inspired the expression “meet me under the clock,” to countless fond memories for residents and shoppers, the Kaufmann family made important contributions to art, architecture, and culture. Far less known are the personal tragedies and fateful ambitions that forever shaped this family, their business, and the place they called home. Kaufmann’s recounts the story of one of Pittsburgh’s most beloved department stores, pulling back the curtain to reveal the hardships, triumphs, and complicated legacy of the prominent family behind its success.

An accessible introduction to the many ways Jews understand Jewishness and identify themselves and their communities—throughout history and today. For everyone who wants to understand the varieties of Jewish identity, its boundaries and inclusions, this book explores the religious and historical understanding of what it has meant to be Jewish from ancient times to the present controversy over “Who is a Jew?” Beginning with the biblical period, it takes readers era by era through Jewish history to reveal who the Jewish community included and excluded, and discusses the fascinating range of historical conflicts that Jews have dealt with internally. It provides an understanding of how the Jewish people and faith developed, and of what the major religious differences are among Jewish movements today.

Enriched by the methods and insights of social history, the history of mentalites, linguistics, anthropology, literary theory, and art history, intellectual and cultural history are experiencing a renewed vitality. The far-ranging essays in this volume, by an internationally distinguished group of scholars, represent a generous sampling of these new studies."

It is a comprehensive account of recent history that comes to groups with emotional and political reality.