During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Jews from Central and Eastern Europe arrived in New York City, where they did not only find a new home, but far away from their shtetl origin, the new members of the American society also began to politically radicalize. There has been a discussion in the literature related to the field, where, how, and why the Jewish population radicalized. This study analyses two waves of radicalization: one related to the American environment that is responsible for the described process at the end of the 19th century; one, related to the developments in Eastern Europe during the early decades of the 20th century. For both radicalization processes this book compares the reasons, elements, and aims of those who join radical movements to show that there is a transatlantic perspective that links both processes to each other.

The field of American Jewish studies has recently trained its focus on the transnational dimensions of its subject, reflecting in more sustained ways than before about the theories and methods of this approach. Yet, much of the insight to be gained from seeing American Jewry as constitutively entangled in many ways with other Jewries has not yet been realized. Transnational American Jewish studies are still in their infancy. This issue of PaRDeS presents current research on the multiple entanglements of American with Central European, especially German-speaking Jewries in the 19th and 20th centuries. The articles reflect the wide range of topics that can benefit from a transnational understanding of the American Jewish experience as shaped by its foreign entanglements.

From the award-winning historian of the Holocaust, Europe Against the Jews, 1880-1945 is the first book to move beyond Germany’s singular crime to the collaboration of Europe as a whole. The Holocaust was perpetrated by the Germans, but it would not have been possible without the assistance of thousands of helpers in other countries: state officials, police, and civilians who eagerly supported the genocide. If we are to fully understand how and why the Holocaust happened, Götz Aly argues in this groundbreaking study, we must examine its prehistory throughout Europe. We must look at countries as far-flung as Romania and France, Russia and Greece, where, decades before the Nazis came to power, a deadly combination of envy, competition, nationalism, and social upheaval fueled a surge of anti-Semitism, creating the preconditions for the deportations and murder to come. In the late nineteenth century, new opportunities for education and social advancement were opening up, and Jewish minorities took particular advantage of them, leading to widespread resentment. At the same time, newly created nation-states, especially in the east, were striving for ethnic homogeneity and national renewal, goals which they saw as inextricably linked. Drawing upon a wide range of previously unpublished sources, Aly traces the sequence of events that made persecution of Jews an increasingly acceptable European practice. Ultimately, the German architects of genocide found support for the Final Solution in nearly all the countries they occupied or were allied with. Without diminishing the guilt of German perpetrators, Aly documents the involvement of all of Europe in the destruction of the Jews, once again deepening our understanding of this most tormented history.

Over the course of the twentieth century, Eastern European Jews in the United States developed a left-wing political tradition. Their political preferences went against a fairly broad correlation between upward mobility and increased conservatism or Republican partisanship. Many scholars have sought to explain this phenomenon by invoking antisemitism, an early working-class experience, or a desire to integrate into a universal social order. In this original study, David Verbeeten instead focuses on the ways in which left-wing ideologies and movements helped to mediate and preserve Jewish identity in the context of modern tendencies toward bourgeois assimilation and ethnic dissolution. Verbeeten pursues this line of inquiry through case studies that highlight the political activities and aspirations of three "generations" of American Jews. The life of Alexander Bittelman provides a lens to examine the first generation. Born in Ukraine in 1892, Bittelman moved to New York City in 1912 and went on to become a founder of the American Communist Party after World War I. Verbeeten explores the second generation by way of the American Jewish Congress, which came together in 1918 and launched significant campaigns against discrimination within civil society before, during, and especially after World War II. Finally, he considers the third generation in relation to the activist group New Jewish Agenda, which operated from 1980 to 1992 and was known for its advocacy of progressive causes and its criticism of particular Israeli governments and policies. By focusing on individuals and organizations that have not previously been subjects of extensive investigation, Verbeeten contributes original research to the fields of American, Jewish, intellectual, and radical history. His insightful study will appeal to specialists and general readers interested in those areas.

This history of the Jews in Budapest provides an account of their culture and ritual customs and looks at each of the "Jewish quarters" of the city. It pays special attention to the usage of the Hebrew language and Jewish scholarship and also to the integration of the Jews

This is the story of an illustrious Romanian-born, Hungarian-speaking, Vienna-schooled, Columbia-educated and Harvard-formed, middle-class Jewish professor of politics and other subjects. Markovits revels in a rootlessness that offers him comfort, succor, and the inspiration for his life’s work. As we follow his quest to find a home, we encounter his engagement with the important political, social, and cultural developments of five decades on two continents. We also learn about his musical preferences, from classical to rock; his love of team sports such as soccer, baseball, basketball, and American football; and his devotion to dogs and their rescue. Above all, the book analyzes the travails of emigration the author experienced twice, moving from Romania to Vienna and then from Vienna to New York. Markovits’s Candide-like travels through the ups and downs of post-1945 Europe and America offer a panoramic view of key currents that shaped the second half of the twentieth century. By shedding light on the cultural similarities and differences between both continents, the book shows why America fascinated Europeans like Markovits and offered them a home that Europe never did: academic excellence, intellectual openness, cultural diversity and religious tolerance. America for Markovits was indeed the “beacon on the hill,” despite the ugliness of its racism, the prominence of its everyday bigotry, the severity of its growing economic inequality, and the presence of other aspects that mar this worthy experiment’s daily existence.

The struggle for the soul of Europe today is every bit as dire and consequential as it was in the 1930s. Then, in Weimar, Germany, the center did not hold, and the light of civilization nearly went out. Today, the continent has entered yet another “Weimar moment.” Will Europeans rise to the challenge posed by radical Islam, or will they cave in once again to the extremists? As an American living in Europe since 1998, Bruce Bawer has seen this problem up close. Across the continent—in Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and Stockholm—he encountered large, rapidly expanding Muslim enclaves in which women were oppressed and abused, homosexuals persecuted and killed, “infidels” threatened and vilified, Jews demonized and attacked, barbaric traditions (such as honor killing and forced marriage) widely practiced, and freedom of speech and religion firmly repudiated. The European political and media establishment turned a blind eye to all this, selling out women, Jews, gays, and democratic principles generally—even criminalizing free speech—in order to pacify the radical Islamists and preserve the illusion of multicultural harmony. The few heroic figures who dared to criticize Muslim extremists and speak up for true liberal values were systematically slandered as fascist bigots. Witnessing the disgraceful reaction of Europe’s elites to 9/11, to the terrorist attacks on Madrid, Beslan, and London, and to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bawer concluded that Europe was heading inexorably down a path to cultural suicide. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs, brimming with an alienation born of the immigrants’ deep antagonism toward an infidel society that rejects them and compounded by misguided immigration policies that enforce their segregation and empower the extremists in their midst. The mounting crisis produced by these deeply perverse and irresponsible policies finally burst onto our television screens in October 2005, as Paris and other European cities erupted in flames. WHILE EUROPE SLEPT is the story of one American’s experience in Europe before and after 9/11, and of his many arguments with Europeans about the dangers of militant Islam and America’s role in combating it. This brave and invaluable book—with its riveting combination of eye-opening reportage and blunt, incisive analysis—is essential reading for anyone concerned about the fate of Europe and what it portends for the United States.